hi there I'm Coby Langford osteopath at SootheClinic.com welcome to
my clinic! I thought it might be nice to start this video by showing you how I've
transformed my treatment room into a studio because today it's filming day
and I have just spent a couple of hours answering all the lovely comments and
questions that you leave on the videos on this channel and some of the
questions are requiring answer that's a little bit more in-depth than I can give
by writing so I thought it might be nice to do a little Q&A video where I can
just give you some answers that you can really utilize and integrate into your
life so shall we head over to my studio which is one meter away from my desk and
get you some answers okay so the first question is from someone called English
experts excuse me I believe my service has shortened and this is causing my
bulging discs especially while sitting how do you recommend I stretch this so
Sohus is a muscle a little muscle I'll put a picture up now that goes from the
lumbar spine all the way down to the front of the hip on the femur I don't
personally believe that a tight service would cause a disc bulge I don't think
there's any research to prove that what we do know is that a tight surface would
cause expedite degeneration in the discs because any muscle that's tight what
that does is it pulls the joints closer together and when joints are pulled
closer together it can it basically means they they're grinding together and
that can cause accelerate that's the word I'm looking for
degeneration and it can cause you know gentle extra pressure through the discs
so to sum that up I don't think a tight service has caused your disc bulge but
it may have it may be maintaining it if that makes sense because the disc discs
need to decompress to correct to allow the Bulge back into the central position
there needs to be lots of space so stretching your service is absolutely
brilliant way to for your discs and help the
rehabilitation of a disc bulge so the best exercise I nee for Sohus is a
position called the runner which I will show you now so this is the posture
known in yoga as the runner it is literally one of my all-time favorite
exercises it's absolutely brilliant for low back pain because type service is
incredibly linked to low back pain so starting in this position if you can
just move on to all fours and we're just going to bring the right leg between
your hands there and shuffle that back leg back as far as you can I know you
may not be able to get this far so if you can't you can just do this here as
well okay so you can modify this to your personal abilities we came from here
always contract the core okay contract your abdominal muscles your
lower abdominal muscles and then raise up into this position here now in this
position and then you sink down the weight straight down here okay don't
lean forward just weight straight down and just gently sink down into that now
you are stretching this left so is here the service of the extended leg okay so
you can stay there and if you want you can just what some people like to do is
just gently rock up back like this if you're just targeting service and then
rock forward there you go if you want to if you're in you have got lots of
mobility you might like to do something out this meet just clasp the hands
behind where all the shoulder blades back extend the head up towards the
ceiling just to get a nice upper back compression stretch into there opening
up the pectorals or good to multitask while you're stretching out your service
I also love to do some neck stretches while I'm in this position definitely
going off course here but just showing you how you can really use this exercise
to help the whole body okay and then coming back hands down either side of
the knees bring that foot back knee back always good to do a counter pose to this
which is to bring the head down in to child posture you might want to separate
your knees just let the chest drop down towards the
floor there okay always do the counter posture and then just the other side so
bring the left leg forward here we go and I'll show you the modified version
so you might just want to do it to here if you've got tight service you're
likely to only be able to get to here and then you just sink down there we go
now what a lot of people do wrong in this exercise is they bring the knee
right over there now in that position you are going to strain the knee and
potentially the ankle so just make sure that as much as you as you stretch your
knees always directly in line with your ankles really important
okay so just sink down into that drop down again nice neck stretch while
you're there breathing nice and gently if you want to just extend that clasp
the house together shoulder blades roll together head back open up the chest at
that just really all the time really focusing on service okay help keep the
relax one is stretching service you do need to relax the ABS okay so that you
can actually get directly into service nobody when you're doing the runner you
wouldn't really relax the absolute for the purpose of getting to service we're
going to do that okay so then to come out of that
contract the ABS to come out of this so the ABS do the movement hands down
either side of that front foot bring the left foot back and drop back into that
counter pose there lovely separating the knees and drop down to come out of that
when you're ready you might want to stay there quite a while just gently walk
your hands towards you and back to the central position okay so that's it nice
and simple incredibly effective and it's actually good for disc injuries as well
because any if you have a backwards bulging disc this is great it's in a
nice extension posture will help to gently encourage that disc back into the
position okay I hope that helps enjoy okay so the second question
comes from somebody called you on our cantar hello UN I have a bad disc in my
upper back at the end of the day after a long day of work I get spasms so bad it
feels like I'm getting stabbing in the back it is so painful on smiley face
tears okay so you an and this is a really important thing you brought up
here back pain at the end of the day in the upper back after a long day of work
so my approach to this is the reason you get back pain after at the end of the
day is because muscular back pain is caused by tension build up okay so at
the beginning of the day your muscles are at a certain tension and then you
sit and you sit and you sit all day or you don't move or you lift heavy things
and so the tension builds up builds up builds up until you reach what we call
the pain threshold a certain tension level of muscles at which point you feel
pain and beneath that point you don't feel pain so it's a my approach to this
is if you can do some stretches in the morning targeting those muscles in your
back so that you experience pain because everyone has different weaknesses so
everyone experiences pain in different areas so if you do a few exercises
stretches in the morning and then maybe a few at lunchtime and then a few in the
evening when you get home from work what you're essentially doing is just
unwinding that muscle tension and keeping it below the pain threshold so
that's the best way to yeah you can do some exercises once you're in pain and
you got that stabbing pain but my approach is always preventative so let's
get you not let's make sure you don't get to that point of pain in the first
place so in response to this I think it'll be great I'll do a video of maybe
a few five-minute morning program you can do before work maybe a few stretches
you can do at the desk and a five-minute program for after work so I'll try and
shoot those in the next few weeks for you okay okay so the third question is
from Amal bakkali hello mo facet joint tropism l4 l5 and
l5 s1 please give advice okay so the facet joint tropism
essentially the the outcome of that is degeneration accelerated regeneration at
the facets so my advice for that is keep it mobile keep the muscles in the low
back stretched out so you've got as much space between the facets as possible
also keep your core stability active so that you're stabilizing the spine as
much as possible what when you have this kind of asymmetric positioning you
basically you can you can wear the surfaces of the cup the carton of the
joints down quicker than usual so again getting the right exercise program for
you is absolutely crucial to managing that situation when I was at university
we were taught that yoga or the right stretching program the right gentle
relaxing yoga like drew yoga is can actually really really prevent arthritis
and degeneration of the spine and all the joints of the body the number one
core not none of them the number one dangerous thing you can do for your body
is to allow it to become tight and stiff and immobile you then get reduction of
blood flow you get reduction of drainage of wastes you get reduction of delivery
of oxygen everywhere it becomes your body becomes like a stagnant pond rather
than a beautiful flowing river full of nutrients and that's a really good
analogy that we were always reminded of osteopathic college because there the
body is a living as a living organism obviously but it needs that it needs to
livery of oxygens and these drainage of waste it needs to be able to move and
when you allow that to stop happening that's when the body starts to cause you
pain and to generate so really easy way to very intelligently look after facet
tropism as much as possible obviously there's a there's a limit to what you
can do but that is I believe one of the best things you can do and the last
question from Syed Fatih hello Sayed this was left on there just
on the three magic exercises for sciatica how can I
do this exercise when I can't move from sciatica so that's a really good
question and actually I'm answering this because a few of you have asked this
I've had so many people in the last two weeks really bizarrely say I can't get
anywhere near that exercise so firstly I did shoot the video with the
modifications so to show you how you can do them if you have sore knees but if
you can't move from sciatica you first of all you must get a diagnosis for your
sciatica sciatica is not a diagnosis it is a symptom I'll say this too the day I
die so you must see a physiotherapist or an osteopath or a chiropractor and get
an absolute definitive diagnosis it is always possible to move the only time
it's not possible I imagine as if you have an active disc bulge in which case
the exercises in that video are not appropriate for you because they were
for they are for piriformis syndrome and tight gluteal muscles if you have
piriformis syndrome tight gluteal muscles you absolutely would be able to
move into those so to answer your question if you can't move and get into
those exercises then you should be under the care of a physio or an osteopath
getting treatment every day so that's my answer if you can't move and get
anywhere near those stretches you need to get yourself an amazing therapist
that you trust and enjoy working with and just have it have a strategy and a
plan for getting resolution to that to that sciatica and eventually they may
prescribe those exercises for you as a maintenance alright my friends I really
hope this helps and keep sending me your questions I love answering your
questions and helping you in any way I can have a great day
you