these six exercises can alleviate your sciatica in just 60 seconds now before we start it's crucial that you know that not all sciatica comes from the same source and therefore we can't treat it all the same way with the exact same exercises in fact what might be a really great exercise for one condition might not be a good option at all and actually increase pain in another condition so as we go through these exercises I want to try to highlight yes this is going to be a good exercise for you try this one maybe with
a little bit of caution and this probably isn't the best option based on your condition so what are those conditions well the three most common causes of sciatica that I see are number one a bulge disc and that's where the dis material between your vertebrae butts out and butts up against the nerve and that's what causes the symptoms number two would be a degenerative disc or stenosis problem and that's where basically the hole that the nerve exits out of is a little smaller a little cramped and that pinching causes the sciatic symptoms and then finally
number three would be a piriformis syndrome and that's where the muscles in the back of your hip get tight and pinch down on the nerve and that's what causes those symptoms so as we go through these exercises I'm going to try to highlight if the exercise should be good for your specific condition so that you know if you should try it out that said let's start with one of my favorite exercises for all three of these this is going to be a lumbar rotation stretch you're going to lie down on your back in a nice
comfortable position and then what I'm going to do is with my knees bent keep your knees together I'm going to drop both of my knees over here to the right just until I get a really good comfortable stretch up here in my left side I would hold that for about 15 to 20 seconds and then repeat over the other direction now both my knees are going left to stretch that right side out and this is probably my favorite way way to just get things started this is a good comfortable stretch it's a safe position for
your back and for your hips this is a great way to just get things loosened up mobilized ready to go for some of the other exercises that we have I would recommend 20 seconds repeated three times to each side next let's do one of my favorite stretches for the back of your hip this is a piriformis stretch and I usually like to present this as two different options for some people the most comfortable way is to bring the affected leg so if I had my sciatic symptoms down here into my left leg I would bring
that left knee up towards my chest but then pull it over towards my right shoulder to introduce a stretch right back here in the back of my hip I would hold that in a comfortable position for 20 seconds and repeat that three times if you can tolerate that phase two or the advanced version of this exercise is going to be to cross your affected leg over your unaffected leg so right now my left leg is crossed over my right knee now with my hands I'm going to grab right here behind the knee and then pull
that right knee up towards my chest until I get a good stretch down here in my left hip it's more rotation it's more flexion in the hip but it's also a better stretch to that pu foris another great way to get that hip loosened up I would hold that for 20 seconds and repeat it three times on both sides our next exercise is going to be a decompress ression or attraction to your lower back this is a great way to relieve pressure on discs and I've got a couple different ways that you can do it
at home the first thing I want to show you is right here between two sturdy chairs and what I'm going to do is place my hands on the back of the chairs and then just bend my knees until the majority of my weight is taken up in my arms and what that does is it just causes this stretching effect throughout your entire spine you'll really be able to feel that and a lot of people even report like oh my gosh that takes care of my pain immediately just by creating that little space and creating that
little relief of that pressure and so what I typically recommend is that we hold that for about 20 seconds and then we repeat it three times now unfortunately with that it does require a lot of upper body strength to hold that long and so what i' like to do is show a similar technique that's not going to put so much strain on your upper body and to do that what you're going to do is grab a pillow and and then we also need a surface either a bed or a table or a counter that's about
hip height from here I'm going to fold my torso over onto that bed while my feet stay down on the ground and then just introduce a little bit of Bend into my knees and so I want to try to relax my lower body relax through my back until the weight of my hips and my legs pulls and creates some separation in my lower back and this one's really awesome you can hang out here for 2 or 3 minutes even if that feels comfortable to you but again what we're going for is just a nice comfortable
relaxing feeling in your back and a decrease in those sciatic symptoms now bulge discs typically respond better to extension activities activities where we're bending over backwards standing walking things like that and are aggravated by flexion activities sitting rounding forward things like that degenerative discs on the other hand are just the opposite they're typically aggravated by standing walking extension activities and alleviated by sitting or rounding forward so for our next two exercises I want to show you an extension exercise for the Bulge discs and then we'll follow that up with a flexion exercise typically better for
the degenerative discs and so the first thing we want to do is a prone press up progression or a cobra pose if you have that bulge disc I want you to try to lie down down on your stomach and I mean depending on how bad it is this might be a really good place to start to just kind of ease into this take some deep breaths into this this is a good place where we want to hang out but what we want to do is progress into more and more extension in our back and so
how we do that is by tucking the elbows underneath the shoulders and then we can hang out here for 10 to 15 seconds and then come right back down again if that still feels okay we can get into a half press up where now I'm going to use my hands to push a little higher into extension hold 10 to 15 seconds and then right back down eventually we want to work into more and more extension as long as it's helping your sciatica symptoms up into a full what we would call Cobra or full press up
position right here hold that for about 15 to 20 seconds and repeat it three times now if you have the degenerative disc condition I absolutely don't want you to bend backwards cuz that's making those holes even smaller instead we need to go the other way into flexion here's the progression that I like to do that you're going to lie down on your back grab one knee and pull it into your chest until we get a good stretch into your lower back into your hip three times 15 to 20 second holds if one knee feels good
we might try that with two knees cuz then all of a sudden we can actually get some hip motion I can clear my sacrum I can clear my tailbone off of the floor hold that in a comfortable position 15 seconds 20 seconds three times and then finally the last progression would be a child's pose assuming that your knees are okay that the laying down on your back is a good option if you have bad knees if your knees are okay I like this method personally the best we're going to kneel down we're going to get
down on all fours push your hands out in front of you keep your hands right there as you sit down onto your heels until we get this good rounding through our entire spine I really feel that one down in my lower back down into my glutes feels like just a good comfortable stretch we're going to hold that one for 20 seconds and repeat it three times hey have you tried any of these exercises so far if so I really hope that they've given you some relief if that is the case hit the Thumbs Up Button
below also leave me a comment let me know how you're feeling if you haven't done it subscribe to tone and Titan all the YouTube things that we ask you to do it really means the world to me and thank you for supporting my channel now if you've stuck around with me this long I have actually saved the best for last clinically this is probably one of the most effective things that you can do for your sciatic nerve irritation I'm going to show you nerve Glides next and so what I want you to do is lie
down on your back in a comfortable position now take that leg that's affected so if my sciatic symptoms were here in my left I'm going to start by grabbing right behind my leg and pulling that up into my knee as high as I can just until we might reproduce some of those sciatic symptoms with this I'm going to hold it up there if I can get it to a comfortable position I would hold that for about 10 seconds and repeat that five or six times that's kind of step one if that feels okay what I
want to do is progress into step two by pulling that knee up to about right here and now slowly extend at the knee I'm going to lift my foot up towards the ceiling again just until I feel those sciatic symptoms start to creep in hold that for a couple of seconds and then come right back down basically what we're doing is we're stretching the nerve out and then we're trying to floss it or Glide it out of that area of irritation and so you're going to take it just to the point of pain hold for
about five or so Seconds come right back down you can repeat that 10 times if we can get to that leg is all the way straight or mostly straight the last thing I want you to try is to pull the toes towards you and that is really going to put a lot of stress on that sciatic nerve again take it to the point where we just start to feel those symptoms and then point that toe right back up at the ceiling so I'm going to pull the toe towards me hold for about 5 Seconds right
on the verge of that pain and then straighten it back out up towards the ceiling and I would repeat that about 10 times as well I hope these help your sciatic nerve feel better thank you so much for watching
