Are Press Ups The Best Exercise For Sciatica & Herniated Disc?

hey everyone what's up it's dr charlie johnson physical therapist in this video i want to dive deep into what bob and brad as well as many other physical therapists yoga instructors healthcare providers who deal with uh sciatica are claiming or labeling to be the single best approach for treating sciatica that is if you want to treat it naturally so if you're suffering with sciatica which is basically numbness tingling uh shooting pain going down the leg usually below the level of knee into the foot uh then you probably notice that everyone is telling you to do these a sort of cobra or mckenzie press-up movements which basically bend your body uh backwards but the reason i wanted to do a deep dive is i see a lot of people doing these things wrong and you know the issue is that lots of folks including bob brad and others on the internet are not telling you or sharing how to determine if it's the right approach for you as well as they don't give you other options to explore if it doesn't work so uh i want to explain to you in this video some concepts you need to understand to get the most bang for your buck if you're trying this approach in an effort to naturally solve sciatica so be sure to watch the end because i'm going to summarize everything i chat about i'm going to show you six similar yet different ways you can move your body in the backwards direction to increase your chances of finding relief and fully explore this approach to see if it works for you so in case you're new to my channel my name is dr charlie johnson i am a doctor physical therapy and orthopedic specialist and i help people with back buttock and sciatic veins heal naturally by teaching them how to use movement as medicine so if you'd like to learn how you can fix yourself so you can try to avoid pills shots surgery kick this thing naturally and you don't want to rely on someone else to fix you you want to learn how to do it for yourself and i want you to hit the subscribe button as well as the bell which will alert you for uh when i post content uh weekly on this channel also if you're watching this video and you're still confused about whether or not you even have sciatica or you're unclear about the potential cause or source of it you're going to want to grab my diy diagnostic guide i called it better than an mri diy diagnostic guide because it walks you step by step how to determine the most likely source of your pain from the comfort of your own home without ever needing to see a specialist and or getting imaging so that being said let's dive right into it real quick before i talk about the different ways that you can do the mackenzie press-up or the cobra or the backwards bendy motion to get the best potential results and natural relief from sciatica to see basically if that direction or that approach works for you i need to help you bridge the gap so a lot of people are stuck in the phase of trying to figure out what the cause of their sciatica is the problem is that keeps them in research mode and it keeps them stuck versus now we need to bridge the gap where it's like hey what is it to what do i do about it at some point you need to make that shift in this video i'm going to help you make that shift and further explore if this is an approach that you want to go down and give a test or give a trial to or if this is something you might want to avoid and again at the end of the day i want you to understand why you're doing it and understand sort of the way the body moves and all the options that you have available for you okay so like i said a lot of people are stuck in the figuring out what the cause of their sciatica is so uh there are many causes this would be something that would be found on an image or just through listening to your story we can kind of come to a conclusion about so the number one most common cause of sciatica would be some type of disc problem disc herniation disc bulges many various types there stenosis arthritis degenerative joint disease degenerative disc disease um are just some of the uh common causes also facet to name a few and then there's probably many others right there's big ugly scary things we're not going to chat about those now but the point is that there's many uh problems within the spine also outside of the spine piriformis syndrome is something if you've watched my previous videos i chat a bit about many different medical diagnoses that can cause sciatica again the problem with getting stuck in uh what is it is that you get stuck in research mode and these things these problems only exist on an image and if they only exist on an image can you change what that image shows the answer is no only the surgeon can change that so therefore if you can't change it then you have no control and no ability to solve your own problem so this is where i want to bridge the gap and i want to talk about the two common patterns that these causes or these problems that exist on an image um you know sort of create or how do these diagnoses show up in your life so let's make it real for you and let's talk about the two common patterns that show up in life so now what i need you to understand is that there's two common patterns uh in general of people who present with sciatica so they both have pain numbness tingling going down the leg uh but they sort of have a different movement pain relationship i'll explain what i mean by that uh in a minute because what you'll see is that it's really empowering once you understand hey wow there's a pattern actually this thing isn't as random as i thought there's a pattern between the movements and the activities that i do and what i feel so we're going to break that down i'm going to share with you the two common patterns of people who have sciatica so the first one on the left is people who uh you know have trouble doing these things so the story sounds something like dr charlie you know my back's gone out on me a few times you know it started as just back pain but now i have this pain numbers tingling sciatica down the leg and man at this point i just hate sitting it's terrible it's the worst thing ever uh because i hate sitting driving is just a nightmare after i'm sitting for a while you know it starts to ache maybe there's some pain i was tingling or soreness down my leg but then when i go to stand up i can't it's like blocked i feel like there's a restriction to it bending over to try to put on my shoes or trying to lift things up is just so painful literally i just can't tolerate it and every time i do it again i get some type of sciatica or pain i'm just tingling down my leg basically these things make me feel worse but dr charlie once i get up and i start walking around things ease up a little bit i feel a little bit better also standing i mean anything it's anything i have to do for too long is not great but walking and standing is generally better or lying down but again man that's sitting that driving that going from a sitting to standing that transitional moment and getting out of the car getting off the couch getting up first thing in the morning bending over to tie my shoes stooping over to do dishes and or do makeup lifting anything off the floor really really yucky so this is one movement pain relationship what do i mean let's break this down so um if we look at the sort of movement pattern of somebody in a seated position this is really what it looks like we've got somebody sitting there will be the head right so there you are sitting by the way that looks very similar to driving or again that idea of having to bend over feed the cats tie the shoes right that bent over position how about if you're going to lift a box all a very similar movement pattern so you can see overwhelmingly there's this you know position of being in a c or a forward bent position that the body does not like but then when you zoom in and you listen to what the person does like walking standing being upright decompressing lying down most of these things involve the body being pretty upright pretty neutral maybe even a little bit of an arch back all right so again if you look at the movement pattern the movement pain relationship yes bending lifting sitting you know they sound kind of different but really at the end of the day they're very similar as it relates to movement so is standing and walking so this person is telling you hey i don't really like doing things that move my body forward but kind of moving them to neutral getting off my feet and or moving them backwards might be an option that feels again smiley face a little bit better the other pattern or story that sort of aligns with somebody who could have sciatica would be almost you know directly 180 or directly opposite of the story i just shared so you might have somebody else who has paint numbers feeling going on the legs and they say hey charlie standing is just terrible you know i'm trying to walk my dog or um you know walk out to the mailbox and i just can't tolerate it laying down lying down uh is painful and really yucky so then when i asked them well what makes it feel better uh what they say is unlike the other folks on the left side here they say man if i'm walking i'm standing for a while my pain starts to get bad if i just sit down i feel so much better if i bend over that's actually what i do i actually bend over charlie i feel like i can just stretch out my lower back it feels a little bit better if i can lean over a shopping cart or onto a countertop everything feels great in fact that seems to alleviate or help my symptoms feels good so what's really cool about this is you can see the black and white now again this is sort of textbook case not everybody has it's not everybody is all uh all one side versus the other sometimes there's a mixture but predominantly you'll start to notice if you write down sort of a list of what makes you feel better and makes you feel worse you'll notice well i really don't like the things that move me forward you know the the left side of the page here or no those things actually make me feel better so again uh on the right side of the page there you'll see that people who uh place themselves in an upright position an arch back position or a neutral position uh they don't like those things but as soon as they bend forward you know that's something that they do like uh versus on the left side again the c c shape bending forward uh is something that is off-limits so now there's something i want you to be picking up on here maybe you are already but just realize that on the right side of the uh column you'll see that these people with sciatica both have same paint on the ceiling going down the leg uh they can't stand to be upright they don't like being in a neutral to arch back position but the people on the left they can't stand being bent forward so they're sort of black and white they're almost directly opposite again this isn't always as clear this is sort of textbook as we'd like but if you write a list of all the things that make you feel worse and all the things that make you feel better you'll start to see that there's probably more of a pattern than you once thought getting back to the topic of this video it tells you what you should or what you might want to explore as an option for treating yourself and some of the things that you you know might want to avoid or might want to change up in your lifestyle so if we look at this i would ask you uh which do you think which person which pattern of person dealing with sciatica do you think would probably respond best to moving their spine backwards or doing a cobra or exploring the sort of the mackenzie press-up type of maneuver moving their body backwards but if we look at this it's probably pretty clear that the people who don't like bending forward and the people who feel better bending backwards or walking standing being upright those are the folks right so this left side these are the folks who are going to want to explore this backwards motion somebody doing a little press up there versus if you're on this side over here and you go to do this motion you can try it i'm not saying you can't try it but the chances are and i would put my money on the fact that you're probably not going to like that motion why because you're already telling me that being neutral and or upright standing walking things like that is really yucky for you and bending forward is something that you would prefer so just a tip there tells you uh that you might want to explore this option if you're like the pattern on the left it also tells you some of the things you're going to want to change up in your day-to-day routine so something that i need you to understand a big picture concept for principle that you should be grasping at this point is what i call the rule of opposites and it helps me determine you know what's going to be best for this person what's a really good starting point to help this person uh begin to solve this problem potentially find relief so again just note there's not one perfect way to solve uh sciatica there are many different ways you can move uh the body but just like trying to steer a car when the car is not moving you have to get started somewhere so we've already talked about medical diagnosis movement pain relationship we found out that you know going forward was really jammed and really yucky for uh the one uh classic pattern of people who deal with sciatica versus the other one all right so think of it like this if you're driving down the road we'll get back just a second but i need to understand this concept you're driving down the road and you're going north so you're going northbound and you know you're in a ton of traffic all right so let's just say northbound lanes are jammed what happens if you you know you're sitting there talking to your partner your kids or something like that and you're just chilling rolling your eyeballs and you look you know to the left side or whatever you look to the opposite side of the road where the traffic's going southbound what what's happening usually traffic is just flying by so everything is good to go and you know in your head you're saying i wonder if i could get over there maybe you're even one of those people drives to the grass don't do that or you make a u-turn or something like that but the point is is that you might get off an exit go southbound and try to reroute because usually uh the opposite of what is jammed is usually pretty clear hopefully that makes sense so when it comes to looking at ways to solve movement uh pain problems within the body such as sciatica sciatica hurts when you do certain motions you probably figure that out already is that you need to understand the body can move forward it can move to the right it can move backwards and it can move to the left so uh you know the cardinal directions never eat soggy waffles well the body kind of has the same and yes there are some different directions in between but the body can move this way this way right and left and we want to use this rule of opposites to help us determine what we should be doing and maybe why this approach is something that's going to help you so just like we mentioned if going forwards a picture of this person right here is really yucky and off limit so forwards is jammed then often the southbound lane or going the opposite direction is something that is free and something that potentially could make you feel better so rather than moving into yucky which a lot of people with you know these sciatica problems they try stretching their hamstrings try nerve flossing try bending forward try doing all these funky things uh but they're just moving into restriction into where the body doesn't want to go into yuckiness well why not look why not do a u-turn and look the exact opposite a lot of times if moving forwards is creating yuckiness or not allowing you to heal then doing the opposite what's the opposite of not not healing healing what's the opposite of going forward backwards so this is why i believe this motion helps a lot of people it's because it just does the opposite of what most people do in their lives and it goes into an opposite uh into the opposite direction of the way that many people try to approach this very painful problem so we can see that again going forward is yucky going backwards is often free and clear so let's go ahead and let's try the cobra or try the press-up the other reason i think this works is that it's the direct opposite approach so now you can go in the opposite direction of that which is really yucky so going forwards is yucky go backwards but you can go the opposite approach so if i were to tuck my shirt in here right or kind of pin it down if i'm going forward oh that's really restricted bending sitting lifting all those things well what's the opposite of lengthening taking point and point b further apart that's how we'll define it well it's shortening so now if we kind of bring it together right we quit we create slack or we bring those two points together which in this case would be some type of backwards motion or backwards bend so again this is not only mckenzie press up um as people sort of label it mckenzie is not just about precips by the way but that's sort of how it's labeled um that direction of a press up and or cobra this backwards bendy motion is not only the opposite direction of what is yuckiest for many people with sciatica but it also instead of lengthening the tissue it shortens it which a lot of tissue likes a lot of people try to stretch things out when really the tissue needs to be shortened so now here's the fun part here's where we're going to show you six different ways you can do this motion so if you're trying it looking it's working just keep going but a lot of times it doesn't work and we need some different ways to explore this motion to see um before we just say hey it's not going to work for me charlie before we move on so i just get that in this picture bad drawings i know i'll stick to my day job here uh but the idea is that you can move the body from above or from below so picture that little circle there in the purple as sort of the hinge point uh and you know the traditional press up is sort of here where you're you know you start neutral like the guy at the top and then you go ahead and you use your arms as a jack to push you uh upwards and backwards and the goal is again you kind of stretch out some of the tissue in the lower spine and that's one way to do it but that's only one way to do it so what if it doesn't work well the other way you could do it is that you could keep the back flat and just move the legs so you can see legs only motion down here um and so that's one way that you can kind of expand your possibilities for healing but then also don't forget that you have a right versus a left side i'll go ahead and show you all these options here in a moment as i sort of review everything but point is if you're laying down you're looking from above you're laying there getting ready to press up yeah you can go and you can just do a motion straight dead center pushing up but you can also move your body to the right and move your body to left from above or you can do the right side from below kicking your leg up on the right side or the right or the left side from below so basically uh you've got six different options here i'm going to walk through them to make this really clear for you uh such you're doing the precip is working great but if you want to explore other options to maximize your ability to heal uh then i'd give these a shot and finally i'm going to show you a way to completely reverse engineer the mckenzie press up and this whole backwards motion approach and this works uh much better in my experience for the clients uh that i work work with versus the traditional cobra approach you're going to want to hang around i'll show you that here in a moment but it's a super cool way and super simple way that even if you have shoulder problems or other problems that you can still achieve the same motion and oftentimes you get a better result so now what i want to do is i want to show you six different ways that you can do the press up or the cobra motion to help you fully explore to see if this approach uh will work for you so uh the classic press up is just something that you kind of do in the center of the body you're not moving to the right you're not moving to the left but if you apply that from above or from below concept from above again meaning when you just move the back component or below when you move the leg component you end up with these sort of six different ways uh maybe there's even more but we'll walk through them so uh this is just the first one everybody knows this motion legs stay still your arms of the jacket pushes you up but another way let's just say that that increases your pain nonetheless it's not working for you well the second way that you could try is you could say hey what if i just walk my body a little bit to the right what does that do if i just move from above if that doesn't work still increase your pain understanding just not it's too yucky just not having it then you can go to the left you see you don't go that far you just want to start to explore motion feel good doing it let's just tell you all those are off limits they're just completely yucky kind of a bonus thing you could try is take the one leg try that you might find that feels better or maybe it doesn't another way you can try as the other leg try that again you're looking for the one that feels best allows you to move most freely and reduces any type of pain i'm tingling going down the leg i would not push into something that feels painful and or shoots pain down your leg that's yucky that's offline so we just talked about ways you can move it from above how can we move the body from below to further explore let's just say none of those motions work here's what we would do so what i would do is i would grab a pillow or two you don't need one but it's just helpful um and i would lay flat on my belly like this put my pelvis right over the top of it and instead of moving her our back from above you're gonna move your legs you're gonna by the way it feels more comfy to bend it a little bit whatever feels best that's fine all right then the other leg so now this is the left leg again you can bend it do whatever feels best and the idea is that you're trying to find which one feels best we're talking about going center right left from above uh right leg kick back left leg kick back now i want to show you how to reverse engineer the press president this section is the one that people in my experience respond best to and i want to share it with you now so the traditional mckenzie press-up android cobra put you in this position so just snapshot that get an idea of what that looks like if you're doing it get an idea what that feels like not only what i want you to do is i want you to reverse engineer because i want you to do it kind of backwards so in the traditional kind of push-up maneuver you're having to use a lot of arm strength to get yourself up there a lot of people just can't tolerate that so what you're going to do is you're going to get all fours put your hands just slightly above like your head you can see that and you're going to just drop your hips in what's really cool about this is this is gravity just helping you and your arms are just locked out so there's not a lot of strength needed for this most people can tolerate this better and because gravity is helping you you're not pushing against resistance you're dropping it into any resistance that you have and you just want to see how that feels so again this is more tolerable this is still gets you to the same end position but it's often easier for people and in my experience more effective so those are the various ways six plus maybe a couple other options uh for you that i want you to try if you haven't found that the traditional press up or cobra is working um for you so if it's not working for you go ahead test those things out find which one feels best allows you to move with the most comfort furthest into the range of motion and reduces your leg pain on mr tingle all right so there you have it uh many ways you can start to think outside the box and tweak that backwards bendy motion to find what works for you i'd absolutely love it as you go through those motions one by one and again you find the one that feels the best for you relieves the most symptoms for you just comment below and let me know what that was was it moving the body from above was it just the normal way that bob and brad and everybody else describes it did that work best uh or did moving the legs from below seem to help you out let me know by commenting below also make sure you hit the subscribe button and bell uh since you get alerted when i post more content uh next week so that's it everyone until next time chat soon

Channel: Dr. Charlie Johnson, PT

Views: 13,059

Keywords: physical therapy, mckenzie technique, mckenzie approach, mckenzie exercise, robin mckenzie, sciatica, herniated disc, herniated disk, bob schrupp, brad heineck, dr charlie johnson pt, press ups, press ups for back pain, press ups for sciatica, bob and brad, sciatica relief exercises, sciatica relief stretches, herniated disc exercises, herniated disc treatment, herniated disc lower back, herniated disc stretches, lower back pain, cobra exercise, low back pain treatment

Id: tmWINRMsoWc

Length: 23min 35sec (1415 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 12 2021