Stretches for Low Back & Sciatica Pain

 One of the most common things that we see in the office is a low back pain or some pain caused by the sciatic nerve, which lives right here in the low back, goes through this small hole right here in your pelvis bone, down to the back of the leg and to the side and down to the foot. Sometimes it could present itself as pain, tingling, numbness, some weakness, sometimes some pain when a patient is bending over and can actually feel that, that can be caused from prolonged sitting. Some of the muscles in the glute area could actually pinch on that nerve, creating some sciatic type pain. Sometimes it’s down to the knee. Sometimes it’s down to the foot. True sciatica is when it goes all the way down towards that foot. What we’re going to do here is show you a couple of tips on how you can help alleviate some sciatic type pain. I know Janelle here had some history, with sciatic pain on this left side. So a couple things you can do is stretching some of the muscles that live in that area that I mentioned that can get very tight.

And one thing you’re going to do here is kind of like a figure four. You’re going to bring this knee here, turn it about 90 degrees. This one’s going to be an assistant to facilitate further stretch. You’re going to bend that right knee. Pushing on that ankle as well as pushing this down slightly. Other one is going to go around where the thigh is and you’re going to pull it to your chest.

How’s that stretch there? So you should actually feel that stretch right on the back of the glute area. Stretching that piriformis muscle. Just breathing, holding for about 30 seconds. So it releases. If it’s making your symptoms worse, I would have to modify that. How does that feel? Good. Good? And you’re going to relax. So that’s working some of the hip rotator muscles to help take pressure off that nerve. One thing we’re going to do as well is a straight leg raise. You’re going to bend the knee a little bit, help guide that with both hands, good. Right now it’s, the tissues have some slack because she’s not bending that knee.

You might feel some stretch. On the hamstring, you could hold this if this feels good. But to get further stretch with the whole sciatic nerve, from the bottom all the way to the low back, we’re gonna go slow here. Start slowly straightening that knee. Good. You could do a little bit of flossing, gliding the nerve with dorsiflexion, plantar flexion, just like that.

And the further you go, of course, dorsiflexion, you could really feel it going all the way down, down that leg, right? Good. This is kind of like flossing, but we’ll show another way how you can do that while you’re sitting. You could kind of play around with the motions. You go here, stretch, and up. Good.

Then good. How’s that feel? Do a couple of reps too.

Good. And relax. So another stretch you can do, well, we call this nerve flossing, just like flossing your teeth. You’re flossing that nerve in and out, with the tissues from the leg, even all the way up to the low back. And upwards towards the head. So we’re going to start off with the leg first. You’re going to extend the knee.

Good. You’re going to point. And you’re also going to hunch. Just like this. Good. And then you’re going to come back. Knee’s going to bend. Head’s going to look up. Good. Just like that. So you can think about the nerve. It has some slack right here. It’s stretching more upwards. Now we’re creating some tension slack on the upper half.

Stretching the bottom. And pointing the foot. Just like that. Good. Let’s do a couple of those. Good. This is what we call nerve flossing. Almost immediately when patients do this, they feel a sense of relief if they’re having that pain, tingling and numbness. Good. And point.

Good. And relax. So those are a couple of tips that you can do if you’re having sciatic type pains with those stretches, the nerve flossing. A couple of other things that we do here at Optmz State is we do soft tissue work to help, loosen up and create tissue dynamics or help improve tissue dynamics with certain tight muscles around the area.

Also, stabilization of the glutes and the core is, works wonders with sciatic type pain. So here at Optmz State, we do all types of treatments for sciatic pain. We do some corrective exercises to help stabilize certain areas. To protect that low back and to help protect that sciatic nerve along with tissue work, stretches, whatever is necessary.

So go ahead and give us a call so we can do your assessment and see if we’re a perfect fit and get you treated and get you on your way.