5 Exercises to Relieve Sciatica Pain
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Hey coaches athletes Welcome back. Michael Hughes here, CEO and founder of Gymnazo Edu, a few of you have reached out and said, Michael, I’d really be cool if you give us some what some techniques behind the understanding on the why. So we’re gonna give you five different exercises that could potentially help relieve your sciatic pain. Now, our job is to coach coaches on to how to take all this information for their clients. But we’re learning that a lot of consumers a lot of athletes out there are also looking for the same information. So we’re going to dive in and understand the what behind the why that we previously made in a video that I recommend you watching first, right up here, that’s on how we think about sciatic pain, it’s pretty cool that I can point to an upper space in a corner of a screen, and Technology connects other videos love this stuff. So we’re gonna go into the what today. Before we dive into that, please make sure to subscribe to our channel to show your support and to continue to give our videos are pushed out to the ether. And so how we approach problem solve, fix the root causes of movement related pains, and anything other related in the fitness industry. Now also like to note, this is a bit of a disclaimer, that the exercises that I’m going to be going over today are not guaranteed to help your sciatica, I really wish that the protocol way of thinking worked, but it doesn’t. So I’m going to mention a few root causes of where SATA could be coming from in this video. And so if those exercises do help, awesome, if they don’t help, it’s not because it can’t be healthy, because I didn’t go up to the right root cause. So there’s gonna be a link in description below that you can actually reach out to our team who actually does virtual training as well. If you want to dive into deeper understanding of why static is in your body, and we’re working through yourself. Let’s jump to exercise number one, or the first possibility of what would be causing the pain in your sciatica. Remember, general sense here, it’s not your sciatic pain, that’s the problem. That’s just a cause of what’s going on. I want us to really dive in really think about that one, right, don’t just start rolling on your piriformis. Thinking that that’s going to fix everything, it could, but it’s not the likelihood of at all because that’s been pissed off by something else in your body, muscle bone joint, think about that right muscle bone bone joint. So another thing after go to exercise number one, I’m going to follow a certain strategy on how to go after this to make it very simple. It’s a sixth, you can follow along in the process, and I’m going to go after soft tissue first, then I’m going to go out basically massage in an area first, then we’re going after stretching that area, then in that stretch, or apart from that stretch, we’ll do some basic exercises or drills. So it’s a certain strategy that I’m following the other strategies. But again, for a video, we kind of have to point a line and follow it. So let’s consider that for the first case. First exercise is that your hip flexor is the problem, how we figure that out, it’s a different story. But let’s say your hip flexors are not causing enough or allowing enough extension through your hips. So therefore just follow me in this process that sciatica gets pissed off because the piriformis is shoving in on itself. That’s the reason why. So from this process of thinking, grab onto a foam roll or a foam ball, I think a foam ball is a better option because this hip flexor is tucked with inside of the pelvis. So that’s the way to think about it. So boom, lay on the ground. Put that ball literally on the hip flexor, I’m going to where the bony aspect of the hip is. So if you’re looking at this model, zoom in right here, boom, I’m going just inside of that, that bone. Awesome. There. Cool. Thank you editing team, back into it. So now here we go. I’m in that zone and I’m pushing into that muscle, again, about a six out of 10. In terms of discomfort, it’s uncomfortable, but I can take it, I can I can manage it, I’m gonna breathe through it, and push until that sensation of tenderness drops really low, like a two and then dive deeper and keep that cycle going. It’s a good time to pause this video, if you’re following along and do this for about two to five minutes. And then switch sides. Let’s train both sides. Even though you have pain on one side. Make sure to do the other side to make sure it doesn’t come up on that side as well as a general strategy. Cool. All right. See you later. Yeah, it’s just still sticking around. Let’s go to the how we’re going to stretch this thing. So we have a lot of stretching cages around and we have an entire video because we use them all the time in our facility right outside the doors there. Because they make creating an environment of functional patterning. Very easy, very easy and very step step one, all if you don’t, don’t have it so but one most popular videos is actually how to use this this thing. So I’m going to show you in here and then also add it here but we just went really quickly. If you do have a cage, you want to stretch out that hip flexor you want to tow in on that base for Let’s say it’s your right side, left foot, you want to come up on the secondary platform right here, hands are in a comfortable spot. From here, you can’t really see because I’m turning away from you, but you really want to lift through the ribcage. This is also true for not using the cage and drive your foot into the ground, we quick we call that creating active tension within the body we’ve separate, this is the area that you want to open up. Once you’ve done that, hold it still keep breathing, though, then from there, you want to go as far forward in a hip shift that you can to create a sensation of stretching, even if it’s super light, but there’s very little discomfort in the hip, or in the back sciatic area. Some people like to go zero pain depending on the situation, I’ll say yes or no but very little discomfort, as close to zero as as as possible and find that zone of how far you want want to go. If you have a lot of discomfort back off a little bit, even if you don’t feel much of a stretch is less zero, or very close to zero discomfort is ideal. Then once you’re there, so I’m gonna drive forward, boom, once you’re there, then you’re going to drive your pelvis side to side and or in a rotational pattern. So what you’re doing is you’re creating more space left to right in that hip joint, in that muscle and more space rotationally in that hip joint or in that muscle. And I want you to do that for about a dozen, plus maybe even two dozen times. Again, this should be relatively low discomfort in that zone or zero discomfort in that painful zone, right or left side, depending on your left foot a left side, you might put your left foot down and do the exact same thing. Your key is to create space. And use repetition. To do that more and more and more, you don’t have a cage, what you’re going to do, you’re going to grab onto a wall, grab on to a stick, grab on to anything move stick, again, back to the chair, do the same thing, push a foot through the ground, I’m towed in just a little bit, that’s in great, great lengthening or stretching in that hip flexor, that’s a possible cause, drive forward, and to the point where you feel a good stretch. And then from there, my hips are going towards you and away from they’re going side to side. And they’re also rotating. Again, you’re gonna do both independently, and continue to find more space. And once you go as far as you can, in either one, feel free to progress forward even more. And I bet that that pain back here that you that you did have this far forward is now decreased if not on, you keep playing that game more and more and more. We’re going after a strategy that this anterior hip, hip flexor area is too bound down, it’s just too too tight. And it’s not allowing enough path of travel. So it’s making this muscle zoom and just get beat up. Okay, That’s exercise number one. Exercise Number two, we’re going to take the strategy again from soft tissue to stretching to slight movement that the abductor on the same side. So if the pain on the right side, right inside thigh, pain, the left side, left inside that is basically to bound down just like the hip flexor was. So what are we gonna do, we’re gonna grab onto soft tissue tool. Again, whatever you want to use, we’d like to use this trigger point ball, there’s any tool works, start at the knee, start to progress in kind of a zigzag pattern to find where the densest, most uncomfortable part of that of that inside thigh is. You may find it’s in several spots, you want to knock them all down. So typically, it’s been a little bit higher in the hip or towards the hip joint and the balls right here may not be closer towards the knee, just in my experience. Same thing as before exercise one, two to five minutes, an uncomfortable, comfortable, soft tissue pressure, and let it just settle down. And if it gets kind of to a point, we don’t feel anymore, dive in deeper, complete that cycle. Two to five minutes. Breathe, relax, enjoy yourself, we have plenty of other videos on how to foam roll, you can check out as well. Cool, go after that one. Again, switch sides do both sides. Because you have two legs that work in connection with each other one leg can actually affect the other leg that’s in pain. You have the leg that’s a problem is not in pain. So just a way to consider that. All right, close. If you have a stretching cage, you have a few ways to go after this hip flexor or this inside thigh stretch. The easiest one but maybe not the most effective is throw that affected leg up on the second platform. You can see it there. Coming down, hands in front, I’m going to tilt into the cage and then you’re going to feel that stretch on the inside thigh here. Hips are going to go forward and backwards and rotational. Again, we do not want to create any sort of discomfort in the sciatic side in the back so do your very best to make that as small as possible.
Another way to do that is instead of putting the effective side up, you can keep the affected side down and put the other side up and you can dry Have your knee in and tilt out of the cage that should stretch predominantly this down leg side, you may still feel some stretch in the leg side. But the down leg side keeps going to go forward and backwards. Keeps going to rotate how many reps a lot 1220 30, right be in that spot where you’re stretching and moving. And just start to open up that that space. Okay, come on out of there. Another and third way to do it, is right foot, if if my right side is affected, right side, foot wide, left foot in a staggered stance, my right foots on the ground, my left foots on the second day on the first platform, sloping down, hands in, I’m gonna get my body super tall, drive forward until I feel a stretch in my inside thigh right through here. And then I’m going to go a sense gonna go forward and backwards. But that stretch as pain free as I can, I can go side to side on that stretch as painful as I can. And I can rotate my pelvis, not allow my feet to slide out on that same spot. Now again, for those who don’t have a case, you pretty much did the exact same thing that I just said, just want to grab on to something to make your body feel stable. So through that stability, if I want to grab onto a stick, moped stick, or a ball or back of a chair or a couch, I’m gonna go essentially, I can go slide in, which affects the side here, hips move forward and backwards, hips rotate, right when open through that space, I can throw my foot on to something, right, so you have a chair around you or coffee table, I can throw my foot up onto that spot, tilt into the spot that stretches my upside, or my affected side. And then I can go super wide stride stance, left foots in front of my right by about a foot or so then I want to go into my slide over here, tilt into my leg, I can drive forward and back. And I can drive rotationally. Again, there’s subtleties and nuances to your body’s positioning to make this stretch. Good to Great. So if you can’t dial that in, just know that there’s a lot of body and movement awareness that comes with these types of stretches that go after root causes versus just effects. So take your time knowing that your your movement is a movement practice, this is not something your body just does. They’re just jump on a trampoline, start doing backflips the moment you start jumping on a trampoline, right, there’s a movement awareness you have to build up in a skill set. So welcome to this journey. It’s not something to be frustrated about something to be excited about as you start to progress and progress and progress. A little side note for a jump to exercise number three, which is going after the quadriceps expecially the one right down the middle quads, there’s four of them to live on the outside and two are stacked one on top of each other right down down the middle. So just like the hip flexor, we’re thinking the quad or one of those quad muscles can basically say now I’m going to limit that hip flexion, that hip ability to go forward and cause pain back here. So same strategy that we’re going to follow put that foam roller foam ball right directly right above your kneecap, right down the center of your thigh, your quad and just start rolling all the way up to your hip or your previously foam roll before. Let’s stain on the thigh. Then go after the Medius Baddest, most tender spots in the same way that we talked about before. uncomfortably comfortable, two to five minutes. Keep sinking in deeper as your body and your soft tissue allows you to do that muscles basically. And do both sides. From there, if you have a cage, we like to grab onto a little knee pad because we can get ourselves in an upright position. For a lot of our a lot of our older athletes who can don’t like to go on the floor, but my knees pushing down into the pad and my hip flexors. So my ribcage is lifting up printing the active tension, boom across hands on hold on for ultimate stability. I’m going to drive my opposite knee forward. That creates a lot of tension here. Now my foot is actually down and just up this ramp. If I want to go crazier, I can fit on my foot way up top, you see I get a lot more knee flexion. There’s another way of doing it. That’s not the best best way but I can put my knee down on here my foot on the second platform and the on the base platform foot on the second platform. Then you do the same thing if you want a lot more, but it’s just an option. Because I go forward, hips slide left and right. hips rotate within that stretch want to go as far forward as I can, but not go too far right? Create too much discomfort in the back to me like a three out of 10. Again, doesn’t plus or so rotate left and right. Again, if you’re following along, rewind and just just pause the video whatever you got to do to kind of stay on track as I progress you through these things a little bit faster as I go through each exercise because you start to get the picture that the strategy I’m following is repeatable. It’s a system that I wrote rotate through, boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay, calm gonna add to that, if you don’t have a cage, you’re going to grab something soft and kneel down on again, strategy, same grab on something to make yourself feel stable and comfortable in the stretching sequence, this dynamic stretching the sense drive to the knee, pull up to the ribcage to try to create that that same sensation of tension, or gravity and ground reaction forces on your body. drive forward a lot of physics there sorry, hips go side to side. hips rotate. See on my foots on a toe here, phone release, it’s too tight, I can go off my toe. That creates little less tension. On toe more tension. Can your whole body works together as a tension network? It’s pretty awesome. I want more I can put my foot up on under something behind me if you have a little stair in your house. Same exact process. Again, I’m only doing one side feel free to do both sides. All right, know what I can do next. Exercise number four. What if your calves are now playing the picture? Well, how can the calves play the picture quickly? Well, as you’re walking and pushing, right, your hip has to extend hip flexor your quad, but also so does your ankle, your ankle has to go through what’s called dorsiflexion. Essentially a lot of bending. So if the cat is to bound down and now limits what these two muscles that we just add these three muscles that we just just covered. So your calf can be too tight or your soft tissue. So how do you go after that one, grab a seat on the ground, put your back against something for ultimate comfort, put your leg on a foam roller foam ball for the strategy, search around the whole muscle literally all the way down to the Achilles tendon to typical on the tendon all the way down to it, search that whole zone out if you feel that there’s nothing there, take your other foot and stack it on top of that to add more weight and more pressure to the exact same process. And if you didn’t find something I bet you just did. Your teeth just needed to go deeper, and your leg didn’t weigh enough to apply that particular pressure. So same thing chill out makes you very comfortable. Make sure you’re leaning against something for ultimate comfort universe don’t get tired, follow the exact same process. And that process is is again push to comfortable uncomfortable, I removed now a repeating record two to five minutes, let your body accept it. But again has to be repeated. Because we forget this all the time we push as hard as possible, thinking the body will respond with the most amount of intensity the fastest. And that’s just not how the body works. I wish it did, that’d be awesome. But it simply doesn’t. Breathe, relax, go through the process. Okay, to stretch it out. If you have a yoga block at home, or a real thick encyclopedia that you no longer use, because it’s out dated right? There it is a black background, there it is, you can use that if you have a cage, put your foot up on the first little platform, put yourself into dorsiflexion. Now this is only set for one level. So you maybe go beyond the person’s limit too quickly, because that’s a set height. So do note that you may have to change heights. And we put a little kind of like towel underneath it or something to kind of change the level so we don’t go directly on it. But a drip go just off it again, use the tools that are around for for that. So put a foot put on there, because it’s when the because it’s when the cap is behind me I put my other leg in front of me. So it automatically puts me into the right position or pattern for the foot for the stretch. I then drive the body forward into that calf stretch. I go side to side you see a pattern here I’m using different movements to create Stretch, stretch capacity in those muscles. I rotate set aside 25 or so 30 or so rotation doesn’t two dozen, just an accident, the numbers are not significant, it’s the release that you want to get. So typically takes a little bit of time. But you’re not just be here forever, because you want progressive growth. So the patterns. Again, if you have like a yoga block or thick encyclopedia, you can wedge your your foot up, you can kind of tilt it back if you want to step the other foot forward, because you want that hip and relative extension. You want the knee and extension you want the calf and a lot of dorsiflexion fancy words for in the position of where it hurts, then I start to rotate my body side to side
and hips slide towards you and away from you right creating using other movement patterns to create more flexibility in the one that your body is not giving you but you want. Again, numbers are exactly the same as I said on the cage. Again, releasing tension. And then you try the next one. This is the fifth one abs, mid spine fast the problem. So if the ABS don’t allow you to get enough extension and kind of tall posture, then your mid back is not going to get the very important extension that it needs to walk and to go through gait or essentially running patterns or any sort of movement patterns of forward motion. So that can bound you down and then the glute back here the piriformis says I need more so it flexes to get you more motion, and it gets pissed off and then it so how do you go after the abdominals to create more thoracic spine extension. Again, there’s other muscles too, but we’ll go up to the abdominals, you’re gonna go the way your ribcage meet your stomach. So the ball is gonna go right underneath like kind of it’s going to tuck in the ribcage, it’s very important that you avoid the very center of your ribcage. There’s a, there’s a bone there that we don’t want to push on. So don’t go very, very center, go just off to the right just off to the left and follow the ribcage down that little diagonal line as it goes in and actually connects into your hip flexor. Funny how those all work together. Alright, so I’m going to put it right on the top of my ribs, I’m going to kind of try to almost kind of go inside the ribcage, I’m going to follow that rib line down and just see where the most tenderness is. And once I do, I’m going to really try to relax and breathe. Why do that because it’s basically starting to push on your diaphragm which slows or prevents full breath. So go easy, be appropriate. And follow the same process that I’ve said before two to five minutes, let the muscles sink in that the ball sinking in the muscle excuse me, and start to break up that connective tissue that just tight. Awesome. Coming out of there after you’ve done both sides, especially important on both sides on this last one, because they work so in conjunction with each each other is when it’s hard to stretch those things things out. Again, using a cage is a lot of ways to do this. In fact, a lot of the ways we’ve already done with pushing your foot into the ground and lift your ribcage have already started that process. But if you want to go arm overhead, right as you go arm of hip pulls your ribcage up, grabbing on to at the top of the cage. Again, Cage first of all do non cage second, plant your back foot. I mean that seems straight stance make sure doesn’t don’t go too far backward hurts your sciatica, or your sciatic nerve. And then I’m using my other hand to push myself away. So I’ve got lateral motion, I got a forward motion and then watch I spin spin, right, same side spin opposite side. As I’m lifting through the ribcage, taking deep breaths into it, you see that full lengthening through that spot. Even looking up chin up. Deep breaths really helps out, finding your level is very, very important. Again, the cytosol and the rotation are probably the most important keys after you’ve gotten as much extension that your body will actually give you. Again switching sides. Same thing, whatever hand is up that foot his back key point, grab slide push on the ground, using a doorframe using a wall I use this stick as an example you can do standing or you can do kneeling. The key change here is the hand overhead. Pulling back the ribcage, it can integrate extension. And then I’m going to basically kind of want to hang on the MOBE stick or hang on the doorframe just a little bit of downward pull to open that up. As you drive your hips forward. I’m not thinking about my hips so much I’m thinking about my belly button, drop my belly button forward, cuz I want that rib that the musculature around the abdominals to be focused on. More so as much as possible, slide left and right. And go rotational. Great way to open up through those abs. Same count 20 Plus or so doesn’t two dozen, you know, minimum 12. And progress through it, feel it open up. Good time again, pause the video and continue to go go through that. Another area of focus is going to be the lateral core. So lateral core and lateral ribcage. A lot of muscles here that those are on the side will keep you compressed and keep you bent forward because they have diagonal lines to the muscles are not vertical, they’re diagonal. So when it affects sideways, that also affects forward and back. So laying on your side. Getting in there, still kind of mid spine, folks want to get the spine to extend. So I’m putting the ball again right underneath my shirt here and I’m going to roll on the forehand backs and I’ll go from my armpit, all the way down it down on my hip, the whole zone, whole zone so you can find a lot of areas there that you need to kind of open up and stretch. And the cool part about that drill that we just did back to the cage. We can add more to it by actually going to the opposite side now. So now put even more focus on the sideways as we drive our pelvis to the side our pelvis forward and then we add in the rotational pieces there to get much more lateral approach for those at home. Right as you see this now for the second time MOBE stick broomstick doorframe. Instead of going on your same side you put the stick on the opposite side and you thumb down or grab to the side of the door frame. Other hand on the same doorframe and if you can push in that doorframe, which opens up through your drive your knee forward if you’re kneeling or standing, you rotate, rotate, spin the hips, rotate, spin the hips or so Like the hips to the other side of the doorframe, or of your area, again, how far you go, how long you go, you got to teach the body to go progressively, very important, the body does not like hot or cold. Now, for these ones, how do we kind of put these all together, so I’m gonna give you kind of a one size fits all exercise, again, just as a way to think about it a strategy, not the only way to start to train the body into these patterns. So with any position that we just had, where they’re going after the inside thigh, whether we’re going after the hip flexor, whether go, we’re going after the quad, whether we’re going after the calf, right in that spot, and you even put it in the same position that you did, or whether we’re going after the abdominals, the lateral core in the thoracic spine, doing these arm swings is really going to help produce movement patterns that are going to be new patterns to where your body has previously been. So that’s so to our left sides effective, we’re going to take our arms are going to swing them left and right. So that’s going to be kind of phase one. Okay, do your arm swings left, because we want to create walking momentum to the upper body to start to kind of loosen all these zones, zones out to give them kind of that authentic feel. And the second thing we’re gonna do is head over head, left and right, or at the very least, hands at chest, arms, core left and right, if your shoulders don’t like going high, well, those are the two major patterns of why this thing is happening from the upper body down, it creates the positioning of the lower body and the motion from the upper body to make that happen. So I can do the same thing from a lateral position, I go rotation, and it goes side to side. From the calf position, I put myself in the calf stretch, I do the same thing. I go route rotation goes side to side with all these motions body has essentially control itself. And that’s what we’re trying to do as an initial stage, everybody should manage movement in the stretched out positions, quad stretch, I can do the same same thing was quite position, rotation lateral, then, the final piece is I want you to do both at the same time, both rotation and lateral at the same time. So how you do that one arm does one, one arm does the other. So as an example, stride stance, foot foot toe in one hand is rotating. At the same time, the other hand is going sideways, and sideways. And sideways, this is my rotation hand, this is my lateral hand, they go together, then I switch what the hands are doing. My left was rotating. Now my right is gonna rotate. And I do at the same time. Left goes over the top, left goes over the top, left goes over the top. Okay, both arms have rotated. But now we’re going to do it at a different time. So now instead of my left arm, going going across my right hand going sideways, I’m going to complete the same structure on the opposite side. So you have four patterns that you can go through, just reverse what I just did. And do them with every single one of your stretching patterns. I’m going to show you two of them. And what I’m giving you
is a lot of movements, free body just start to feel that effect of each and every one of them. Now quick reminder, if these exercises don’t work for you, there’s probably something deeper going on that needs to be checked out. So you can head to the links in description below to book a consultation call if you want to go through that level. Whether you’re an athlete, client, yourself or your trainer right, it’s going to be the same educational process. Again, if you’re a trainer looking to diet dive deeper into how this thought process works. We have an amazing problem solving exercise mentorship program called the multi dimensional movement coaching mentorship, and description below if you want to see like how does he how do these guys think? What really makes them come up with these processes. It’s all down there, and links below. And last but not least if you enjoyed this video found it helpful. Make sure to like and subscribe for more videos on addressing these types of moving dysfunctions and how to go about them through the process and then end cheers See you next time.
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