Sciatic Nerve Flossing To Free Your Trapped Nerve Explained

Sciatica can be excruciating and any means of relieving this pain is worth considering. Sciatic nerve flossing is a technique which aims to pull the nerve loose, by creating this flossing technique, similar to the way you might floss your teeth. Using bodily position you can pull the nerve back and forth through a gap. It sounds like it might be a good idea but how do you do it correctly, how does it work, and should you do sciatic nerve flossing to help with your pain? Today we’ll cover it all for you. 

How sciatic nerve flossing works

The sciatic nerve, combined with your spinal cord, is like a continuous nerve that runs the entire length of our body, from the brain, via the spinal cord into the buttock, and down the back of the thigh and leg into your foot. By a series of actions, we can put the nerve into a “stretched position” and then pull it towards the head, or towards the feet. The idea is that these small movements towards your feet or head, done repeatedly, will allow the “trapped sciatic nerve” to free itself. 

Starting position to tension your sciatic nerve

In order to achieve tension through the length of the nerve so that flossing can be effective, we must provide a few key movements to the body to put the sciatic nerve into max stretch before flossing can take place. Without doing so, you won’t actually be flossing the nerve. 

The first criteria is to maximally flex the spine, by slouching, and tucking the chin to the chest, we extend the length of the spinal canal, pulling the nerve fibers taught from the top end.

The second criteria is the lower body, flexing the hip to 90 degrees, then straightening the leg at the knee joint, finally pointing your toes back towards your body, will achieve maximum tension on the sciatic nerve through its entirety.

How to achieve the flossing movement in your sciatic nerve

From this “primed position”, the head and neck position and the ankle position are the key drivers that you will use to create a pulling effect towards the foot, or towards the head.

Firstly, in order to pull the nerves through to the head direction, you will need to tuck your chin down further, and point your toes away from your body as you do this. This decreases the lower body pull and increases the upper body pull, this flossing in the direction of the head. 

Secondly, pointing the toes back towards the body, as you slowly look towards the ceiling with your neck only will ease the pulling tension from the head end, and increase the leg pull, directing the nerve back down towards the feet. 

Gently, in succession, switching between these two positions allows you to slide the nerve from one end to the other and back again, thus the flossing motion is achieved. 

If you feel a little more comfortable doing so you can add in movements from the thoracic and lumbar spine, as well as the bending of the knee to further allow for movement to translate in the desired direction. Meaning bending the knee slightly as you round the back and look down, to aid the pull towards your head. Conversely sitting slightly straighter and looking to the ceiling as you straighten the leg and point the toes towards your body to aid the pull of the nerve in the direction of the legs. 

Simple step-by-step instructions for sciatic nerve flossing

• Sit in a sturdy chair with your feet flat on the floor.
• Start by slouching slightly and tucking your chin to your chest
• Slowly extend your leg out in front with your ankle at 90 degrees
• As you feel tension developing through the nerve, tilt your head backwards
• As your head tilts back point your toes towards your body and straighten the knee fully
• Hold the stretch a moment before slowly transitioning to the next positon
• Now point your toes away from your body slowly
• As you point your toes, nod your chin back forwards again, tucking your chin to chest
• Round your spine slightly as you do this to accentuate the pull
• Hold this position for a moment
• Repeat this slowly moving from one position to the other and back again

This should all be done very slowly, with control and focus on the movement and feeling the stretch of the nerve as you reach tension one end or the other. You can do 3, 5 or 10 reps and do this as often as you like to help relieve your symptoms of sciatica, or so the typical instructions would go. However, make sure you read on to consider whether this kind of sciatic nerve flossing is right for you!

Major warnings for sciatic nerve flossing if you have sciatica

There are a couple of considerations that you must make before you attempt sciatic nerve flossing to measure your expectations and understand the potential risks of such an activity as for many this is not the right activity at all, it can cause more pain, or worsen the very injury at the root cause of the sciatica!

Is it the flossing that is actually helping you or is it something else?

In those with sciatica caused by the “trapped nerve” in the lower back there is often spinal stenosis present, this is a fancy way of saying the tunnel through which the sciatic nerve roots travel are smaller, and so more easily trap the nerve. When you adopt the position necessary to effectively floss the nerve you must round the lower back, this is therefore going to enlarge the size of the bony tunnels, and so alleviate the pressure. This is often the reason for relief, and has nothing to do with the flossing action. By enlarging the tunnels, you immediately make more space and therefore reduce compression on the sciatic nerve. Other exercises like knee hugs or general lower back rounding are other forms of stretching commonly recommended for back pain and sciatica which do the same sort of thing.

Secondarily, and more seriously, the very source of your sciatic nerve pain is located in your lower back, whether it is a herniated disc, a degenerate facet joint, or some other diagnosis, sciatica has a cause, we discussed this at length on the dedicated podcast on Sciatica where we help you understand the cause of your sciatica so you can focus on things that will actually make you better!

In most cases, the forward bending necessary to achieve an effective flossing movement of the nerve, will simply make the underlying issues worse, compressing your spinal discs more, and stretching the back parts of your disc and vertebral joints, areas which are trying to tighten up and heal. To put it mildly, sciatic nerve flossing is short sighted, at its worst, it’s entirely counterproductive.

Finally Sciatic nerve flossing has no long term value, it is not progressive, for example, if you are doing a strengthening exercise, you will be getting better technically, so safer every day, and stronger, so also safer every day, and the benefits stay with you and add up! The same is not the case for movements like flossing, what’s more is that they’re actually getting you doing movements that are detrimental to your recovery. 

Is your sciatic nerve even trapped or is it just irritated

Ultimately, if your nerve was really trapped, pinned against the bone by a disc bulge for example, you’d likely be getting a surgical opinion for severe, constant, 24/7 symptoms. Imagine banging your funny bone (ulnar nerve) and holding it. That simply isn’t the case for the vast amount of cases of sciatica. And even if it was, these nerves are supposed to be delicate, so is it really a good idea to start creating real friction pulling it back and forth through that compression point knowing full well it is doing nothing to fix the real cause of the issue? 

More commonly it is that there is irritation of the nerve, maybe more constantly, maybe not, with aggravation that can come from sudden movements that can lead to a spike in the excruciating pain. Therefore the nerve is not trapped in the sense we think, it is just being irritated from moment to moment. 

Final thoughts on sciatic nerve flossing, should you do it?

We are all for relieving symptoms, for symptoms sake, provided there is no “downside”, and in the case of sciatic nerve flossing, there is little to no upside for most, and there is downside for almost all cases. When there are numerous other smarter approaches that consider your spine more completely, without such downsides, we can confidently suggest to you that sciatic nerve flossing has no place in your recovery protocols. If you want to follow a strategy that will work to relieve your sciatica by addressing the cause, recovering properly, for the long term, and reducing the risk of another episode, then check out the full 80 minute Back Health masterclass complete with live demonstrations for free. Finally, if you want more help with your sciatica, with a program that’s proven to help countless others fix their sciatica, then check out Membership to the Back In Shape Program.