Simple Siatica Exercises
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If you do regular, simple back exercises, you can most likely stop back pain and siatica and keep your back healthy and strong.There is a variety of exercises that help. Many of these are simple and easy to learn and even if your back already hurts, or is strained, there is a good chance that you can make it better.
Note: If you’re sick, or your back hurts badly and you think you’ve injured yourself, go and see your doctor, or a health practitioner. Also read our disclaimer before you attempt any exercise.
Unfortunately, if you don’t exercise regularly, especially as you age, the muscles supporting and surrounding your back will get weaker and stiffer over time and you’re more likely to suffer back pain and siatica.
Then these muscles won’t be able to work well enough when you most need them to. So when you put a strain on your back, it’s much more likely that your will injure your back.
Your back can get injured from an action as simple as reaching for something on your desk. More frequently it’s from a more obvious strain such as lifting something with a bad posture as you do it.
Back Exercises
Because your spine is so intimately connected with the rest of your body, back specific and general exercises can be the same thing
For example, swimming is a great, general ‘whole-of-body’ exercise, because it combines aerobic and strength aspects, whilst being low impact. You can push yourself as hard as you want with very low probability of injury and minimal stress on your joints.
Back Exercise Basics:
Every bit of exercise counts and every bit you do gives you a benefit. To strengthen your back, get into the habit of doing your back exercises every day.
When I started getting problems in my lower back, I developed a routine including sit ups of various kinds, leg lifts, trunk curls and yoga to build up my stomach and core abdominal muscles that play an important role in supporting the lower back.
The more you exert yourself, the more your body adapts to it.
In some respects your body is like your car. If you use it regularly and look after it, it is likely to be reliable and serve you well. Neglect it for long periods and don’t service it and you’re asking for trouble.
Walking
•Walking is usually great for your back (unless you have serious disk degeneration).
•Walk whenever you can. Walk up hills, walk up the stairs instead of taking the lift. Go for a walk in the mornings before work, go for a walk in the evenings after work.
•Walk as soon as possible after you have hurt your back, even if it hurts a bit. Your goal is to get mobile again as quickly as you can.
•If you work at a desk, help your back by getting up and walking around every 20 minutes or so, even if its just just for 30 seconds or so.
Swimming
•Swimming is a great general exercise that will help your back because it activates, strengthens and loosens many of the surrounding muscles.
More Challenging Back Exercises:
These work on muscles closely associated with your back. Some favourites are as follows:
•Yoga
Popular yoga stretches - The Salute to the Sun, Corpse stretch, Cat stretch, Wind-releasing pose, Sage twist, Palm tree, Fish pose , Locust , Bending forward posture
•Back Stretches
If you work on your stretching steadily, day by day, bit by bit you’ll find yourself able to reach further, you’ll slowly become more supple and find it doesn’t even hurt!
- Hamstring stretch, Lower back stretch, Middle back stretch, Upper back stretch
- Using an Exercise ball - Back arch, Back floor press, Ball squats
Hamstring stretch:
Warning do not do this if you already have back pain. This exercise should be done to loosen your hamstrings when your back is pain free.
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
•Pilates
The hundred, Spine stretch forward, The rollup, The saw, Spine twist, Ballerina arms
General Strengthening Exercises:
•Do 5 or 10 Hindu squats. These are great for strengthening your leg and muscles so they support your back better.
•Do 5 push ups when you have a spare moment. (if you can do 25 during the day, that will really make a difference). if you can’t do 5 do 3. (Women generally it easier to do push ups balancing on their knees, rather than their feet. If you don’t want to do a push up lying down do one leaning against a wall at 45 degrees
How Much Exercise Do You Have To Do?
If you want to get fit and strong, the recommended amount is 30 minutes of moderate activity on most days of the week, or 20 minutes of vigorous activity three days per week.
For your back specifically, it’s best if you do some exercises most days.
The Connection Between Nutrition (Diet) and Sciatica - Part I
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The idea that by changing what we eat, we can cure many of our illnesses is not a new one. As more people understand the “holistic” view of health, they see that all parts of their body, including their back are affected by “lifestyle choices” especially what they eat.
As outlined below, diet is now recognized as a means of preventing and controlling all sorts of ailments. Because the back is such a large and sensitive organ, it is likely to be impacted by any shortcomings in diet and nutrition. Studies have proven that particular foods can make the difference between heath or illness for many patients
Interestingly, by studying historical literature we can see that ordinary men and women were often more aware of the healing power of certain foods than were the healers or doctors of their era. You can certainly argue that this situation prevails today in mainstream medicine and it is only recently that science has begun to clarify how much what we eat can affect our health in different ways, good and bad.
There are famous quotations from ancient times that support the belief in food’s healing properties, such as:
- Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food - Hippocrates (c. 430-c. 377 BC)
- The Chinese do not draw any distinction between food and medicine - Lin Yutang (1895- ), writing in ‘The Importance of Living’.
The medical profession is somewhat divided in how to deal with this issue. There is a huge momentum towards treating the sickness and diseases that arise from poor diet i.e. eating the wrong foods. In other words, the mainstream medical focus is on correcting problems that have already arisen from poor diet and lifestyle choices, rather than ensuring that diet and lifestyle is structured so that these sicknesses do not occur in the first place.
The reasons for this situation are varied and complex beyond the scope of this article to discuss. Let’s just say that the medical system is today structured to treat disease rather than proactively ensure wellness and treating disease is where most of the profits are found.
Diet is now recognized as a means of preventing and controlling all sorts of ailments. This conclusion followed study after study. Collectively these studies have proven that particular foods can make the difference between heath or illness for many patients. This includes patients suffering from diseases that had previously been considered beyond the scope of modem treatment.
Whilst there is not complete agreement on the exact benefits of every food, there is broad agreement on the following key points:
- The foods you eat can make a huge difference to your overall health, by enhancing it and keeping disease at bay. The implication of this is, of course, vast because it means that any individual may be able to control just how healthy he or she is or remains simply by making informed choices about food intake.
- There is in fact no clear-cut dividing line between food and medicine. Hippocrates was correct in observing that: food can act as powerful medicine and in many instances, is the best medicine. Additionally, as researchers are constantly finding out, there .are times when food is the only suitable medicine.
- Many foods are packed full of chemical agents which when absorbed in the body can act just like drugs and even be more potent than these in their effect. Eating the right foods can be just like taking regular doses of health-bringing medicine. Equally, eating the wrong foods - what these are depends upon individual circumstances - can have wholly devastating results.
- Much of the advice about food contained in folklore and traditional cures has a sound scientific basis and has now been confirmed by research. The same goes for the information about food contained in the treatments prescribed by practitioners of alternative medicine. It is expected that future research will yet show that many more traditional treatments also have a sound basis.
- Quite often it only needs small adjustment in the diet to make the difference between glowing health and chronic, debilitating illness.
- There’s every reason to believe that food can be crucial in preventing illness from occurring in the first place as well as treating or alleviating existing disease,
- It is becoming increasingly obvious that the increasing incidence of “lifestyle” diseases in the Western world, such as diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome etc, have mainly dietary causes. It is already accepted that diet plays a major role in the development of these diseases and most experts believe that there is still a whole lot more confirmation still to come.
- Even in the developed parts of the world where most people don’t go short of food (and many are actually clinically obese), many are actually technically undernourished and are chronically short of the micronutrients they need to be fully healthy.