2. What is a low back strain or lumbar sprain?
Anyone who has suffered the continual chronic ache and joy-sucking
frustration of agonizing sciatica pain knows how it can affect everyday living. You can’t reach up to retrieve an item from a shelf, can’t
tie sneaker laces, can’t play with your children – and forget about
swinging a golf club. The only relief you can get is by swallowing
handfuls of over-the-counter pain-killers, trying to find something
that works for more than an hour. The very thought of embarking on
exercise for sciatica makes the pain even worse – and you crawl into
bed and suffer.
My friend – there is hope. Set aside your doubts and stay with me
for a minute. Let me tell you about specific targeted exercise for
sciatica which, if you faithfully work at, will boot sciatica pain out of
your life – probably forever.
3. Sciatica Exercises
Your sciatica pain is caused by compression or impingement on your
sciatic nerve which extends down both legs from the base of your
spine. They’re the longest nerves in your body and are about the
thickness of your finger. We need to relieve that compression to get
rid of the pain and as the base of your spine is in your pelvis; we
need to strengthen your abdominal muscles with exercise for
sciatica. There is specifically targeted exercise for those muscles,
stretching them and strengthening them for flexibility and to
increase the blood flow. Sit-ups and crunches are not recommended
as exercise for sciatica as they can actually increase your sciatica
pain by tightening your hip flexors. It’s the abdominal muscles we
work with so that they are supple and strong.