Fix Sciatica The Easy Way With 3 Pillars For Sciatica Relief

Sciatica is something that sounds scary and for good reason considering how painful it can be. As a result you see lots of well meaning people across the internet trying to help people alleviate their sciatica with stretches, bends and other “hacks” to fix the sciatica instantly. The thing is sciatica is caused by an injury and we would raise eyebrows at someone suggesting a graze on your knee could be fixed by a quick hack, so why look for quick “fixes” for sciatica? 

If we appreciate that sciatica is caused by an injury, usually with some sort of disc involvement at the lower levels of the lumbar spine, L4, L5 and L5, S1 specifically, then we can start to demystify the process of getting better. Not only that, we realise that it really doesn’t need to be as scary or impossible to recover from sciatica as perhaps we first feared.

Three things you need to fix sciatica

We discuss at length in many other sciatica related videos the causes of sciatic nerve pain. For today we’re going to focus on 3 pillars of a successful and remarkably simple sciatica solution that everyone can start immediately. 

Relieve the strain

Ultimately we want tools that can be used regularly to alleviate the strain that builds up on the injury in our lower back. The lumbar spine in its impaired state will have limited tolerance for load and strain in general. Using routines like the Back Injury Relief Routine that we released can really help here, and yes this works even if you do not have back pain associated with your sciatica. It is not an instant fix, but done regularly it complements the other strategies by reducing the build up of strain on the injured site in the low lumbar spine. It works in 3 main ways and is based off the proven principles we teach our members in the Back In Shape Program:

• Hip Stiffness & Restriction: releasing the stiffness in the hips regularly helps lead to more mobile hips that can take up more movement so the low back does not need to. It is temporary in its effect especially in the early days but worthwhile – when done correctly.
• Unload & Support Healthy Alignment: Decompressing the low back and literally deloading the spine through movements like the towel and bed decompressions can work wonders to periodically take load off your lumbar spine and act as an antidote to the elimination of the lumbar lordosis. 
• Ease Congestion: Inflammatory build up in the confines of the lumbar spine is a frequent, overlooked culprit for symptoms flaring up, often the disc bulges are not actually touching the nerves but the inflammatory congestion creates irritation that slips beneath the radar. Managing this is vital!

All these relief strategies follow the guiding principles that they either have primary benefit to the tissues that are injured, relieving strain that is on them, as in the case of the second point, unloading and supporting healthy alignment. Or they have a secondary benefit, for example the greater mobility of the hips helps lessen the strain on the low back providing an indirect benefit. The third point provides a bit of primary and secondary benefit to the injured source of the problem. 

These kinds of practices should be done multiple times a day but they are not cumulative or progressive and will not lead to long term results without the other two pillars. 

Progressive spine stability focused rehab work

This is what actually gets you better and it does not need to be complex, you do not need long lists of exercises that change every 5 minutes, you just need a couple that do a few specific things meeting the following criteria: 

• Accessibility: They must be “doable” unlike other strategies which require niche equipment to be purchased, everyone should be able to do these at home at least to begin with!
• Suitable For All: No matter how weak or bad you are, they should be possible for anyone to do some sort of version of the exercise, these are also sometimes referred to as “regressions”. Easier versions of an exercise that you can do.
• Applicable: They should ideally include movements that are going to be emblematic of daily life activities so that benefits can be had, as opposed to machines and funny contraptions that bear no semblance to ordinary movements, or add unnecessary complexity for no material benefit.
• Scalable: They should be scalable in some significant way so you can keep the same exercises and build the load or challenge that you’re putting the body under to drive the adaptation and recovery process long term.

We discussed these principles and others when coming up with the “Core 5 For A Healthy Back” in the dedicated podcast episode. With these simple exercises you have the benefit of movements that promote and build an ability to stabilise the spine which brings with it some core benefits: 

• You can learn to stabilise the spine in the safest possible environment with minimal risk compared to the many things you do every day.
• Pain or aggravation during these exercises is a great indicator that you’ve performed them incorrectly and form needs revisiting.
• You’re able to build muscular support for the spine in a relatively short period of time, which reduces risk of daily irritation and relapses.
• You’re able to further build muscular strength and resilience to provide a greater protective system around a recovering spine
• You’re able to add load to the spine to not only strengthen the muscles but trigger adaptive changes within the very spine itself – rebuilding true resilience and health into the injured tissues.

This pillar is really the one which fixes you and you would adhere to for the long term. The exercises we’ve chosen, as explained in the Core 5 podcast, are:

• Modified dead bug, 
• Marching bridge, 
• Squat,
• Hip hinge
• Step up.

Supportive Education

Without having an overarching education process that supports the adherence to the first two pillars you’re at risk of making silly mistakes daily that undermine your recovery process. For example, if you’re not educated on the importance of the neutral spine in the early days, you’ll likely add in things like sciatic nerve flossing or knee hugs – things that go against the principles of building good spine health when recovering from sciatica.

The simple fact of the matter is that there are 168 hours every week, and perhaps 8 hours devoted to the proper purposeful rehab and relief work mentioned above, like we teach our members in the program. This gives you 160 hours, each week for you to be left to your own devices. Having a better understanding of how the spine can work, and how it should be supported in its time of need in daily life is vital to getting success. Otherwise, it’s like being in a sinking ship and you’re using a teaspoon to bail water over the side. It’s just not going to work. 

This is one of the reasons we’ve put so much time and effort over the years into producing a significant body of educational material about back health and the spine in general, 95-99% of this is all freely available across the website, and of course within the program for our members. 

Sciatica Simplified

If you simply focus on the simple stuff outlined above, regularly practice relief routines which can be 10-20 minutes in duration, as well as some focused spine stability work that’s progressive as discussed in the second pillar, and educate yourself around spinal health, you will make your sciatica a thing of the past. And if you struggle on your own using the wealth of free material out there on our website, then you can always get a little more support and structure from the full Back In Shape Program membership and join countless others who’ve overcome their sciatica in spite of some pretty challenging odds.