Herniated Disc Exercises & Stretches for Pain Relief

Got back pain from a herniated disc? Well this is the video for you. Today I'm going to show you ways to relieve back pain from a herniated disc. So let's get started. So with a herniated disc it can cause a lot of back pain. Sometimes it can press on the nerves and cause some tingling and pain, numbness in the leg as well. So these three simple stretches and exercises are a great way to kind of relax the back and get it loosened up. So these can be done on a bed, a couch, or if you're comfortable enough to get on the floor they can be done on the floor as well. So just starting off to kind of loosen up the muscles in the back and the hip area, you're just going to do a simple knee to chest stretch. So it's just like it sounds, propping up both legs and then you're just going to bring one knee up towards your chest to get a nice stretch in there. Now try and bring your knee straight forward. Sometimes people kind of want to pull out to the side they can get further, but then you're kind of missing out on the stretch in the back. So just bringing it up getting that nice stretch. If you happen to have some knee pain, you can grab underneath here to get that nice pull. If you feel a little pinching in the hip, just come back off a little bit and then you can slide the other leg down which will give you a little bit more stretch. But sometimes that's a little uncomfortable for the back, so I always have people start with their knee propped up first. This is a full 30 second stretch, so you're going to hold it for 30 seconds and then switch sides. Again bringing it up showing you here underneath. If you've got some knee pain, if you don't, you can kind of grab on top and give yourself a little more push and slide down if you want even a little bit more. And then you'll get a little hip flexor stretch in the front there as well with this one, but you don't have to do that part. And then after the 30 seconds, then you're going to do three on each side. The next one is just going to be a simple pelvic tilt. With a herniated disc, sometimes a lot of big movements are very uncomfortable. So a pelvic tilt isn't a whole lot of movement, but it really does a good job of helping to loosen up that lower back area and get those segments nice and loosened up so it's not putting so much pressure on that disc there. So with a pelvic tilt, it's again kind of like it sounds, just prop up your knees here and you're basically tilting that pelvis back to try and get your back flattened out onto whatever you're lying down on. You're not using your feet to push, you're really using those muscles. So I'm rotating back. It's kind of hard to see a little bit, but you should be able to see my hips are rotating and my back is flattening out. Almost imagining that I'm trying to push something down at the curve of my back. And then just holding that for about three to five seconds and relaxing. So again, I'm not using my feet to push. I'm really using the core muscles in there, those pelvic floor muscles to help kind of bring everything down. But I can still talk while I'm activating those muscles. Again, maybe a three to five second hold, relax. Just starting off, you might just be able to do five comfortably and that's okay. And then maybe you can work your way up to a little bit more after that. And then this really great stretch here is going to be a prone prop. And so with a herniated disc, a lot of times those extension movements will help kind of get that pressure off of the disc bulging out. And so this is a nice comfortable position on your elbows. Sometimes this might be a little bit uncomfortable if you're first starting off with it. So you don't want it to be painful. A little bit of uncomfortable is okay. You might get some of those symptoms of that numbness and tingling kind of going down. But the idea is to do what we call centralizing. So bringing all that pain and tingling back to the area, centralizing it. And that means you're getting some pressure off of it. So I'm just kind of propping up like this. But again, if you want to start off a little bit lower, if it's uncomfortable, you can do that as well. But with a prone prop, maybe you just want to start off with 10 or 15 seconds and then, you know, come back down after you, you know, get a little bit of pressure in there. Take that pressure off, relax, and then come back up. But ideally you'd want to work your way up to like 30 seconds or a minute really just to get in that prop position. But it should never be painful. It should never be that sharp pain. It might be uncomfortable. And again, you might, it might reproduce those symptoms a little bit. But then it should fade away and calm down after the initial tingling. So there you have it. That was ways to relieve back pain from a herniated disc. If you'd like to help support my channel, click on the link up there. And don't forget to subscribe. Where Mr. Bear? Yep, down there. And remember, be safe, have fun, and I hope you feel better soon.