Shocking Trends in 1,400 Sciatica Cases

This article is a transcribed, edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in February 2025. For the original video, go to https://youtu.be/sKHuAlqhpTs

Brad: If you've got sciatica, you know that pain here and runs down your leg. It can be frustrating and debilitating. And Bob and I, and Mike, have treated over 1,400 combined cases of sciatica. And we'd like to show you what really has worked for us.

Mike: Yes. Whether this is caused by a disc issue, a muscle imbalance, or you have some type of movement habit patterns, we're going to show you some key steps to help reduce your flare-ups and get some relief.

Brad: That's right. We're going to break things down so that you get to know what you need to know and how to protect your spine, as well as stretching or strengthening the proper muscles to get rid of sciatica, what we call reduced or get back to normal. We're going to give the information through seven tips for sciatica. It's going to cover all the information you're going to need. And the first thing we're going to talk about is one of the biggest things that sciatica forms from, which is poor posture or flexion of the lower back. So that's why Mike is holding the spine here. It's a really nice model or demonstration of when you round your back forward.

Brad: Right in here. I don't know if you can see that the red disc represents that the disc is bulging, putting pressure on the peripheral nerve, which actually goes down the leg and creates sciatica, numbness, pain, tingling, all those things.

Brad: So you want to avoid flexion. Now, you're going to get flexion when you bend over to pick something up with poor mechanics. You're also going to get it in a seated position, which is a big problem. What is the saying? Sitting is the new smoking. In other words, you get more poor health results, particularly in the lower back, with sitting slouched or at the computer, rounded, or in your car, all those things put continual stress, particularly on the lower back, and create sciatica. Wow. What's next?

Mike: So what you want to do is sit with a better posture. Or when you're bending over to pick something up, try to hold onto something and have a nice flat back. Don't round over.

Brad: Do the lunge pick up.

Mike: The golfers' pick?

Brad: No. The golfer's lift is a good one. That keeps your back straight. Also, try the one where you go lunge.

Mike: You can also do that.

Brad: Try it. Try it. Show them with the spine.

Mike: Well, the spine keeps poking me in the head right now. I guess if you go down with a nice straight back like this or even squatting down with your legs like this, it's going to be better than just flexing your spine. Now I would like to get the spine off my spine because it's not very comfortable.

Brad: There you go. Okay, let's go to number two. Hip flexor tightness. Now, if we look at the hip, here's the hip right here. And the hip flexors are the muscles; they're deep, most of them. Two of them are in here, and they connect up to the hip. And this is the action that happens.

Brad: There happens to be one hip flexor muscle that is oftentimes forgotten about. It goes from the knee, comes all the way up to the pelvic bone right here. And when that muscle gets tight, this is what happens. It twerks the pelvis forward and creates stress on the lower back. So we need to do a stretch that's going to complete the stretch for all the muscles we just talked about. I think we're done with this.

Mike: Now, there are many ways to stretch your hip flexors. An easy way that's typically beneficial for most people and won't irritate their back more is to lie on your back on a firm surface. You could do it in bed. Just make sure you have a firm bed, and you don't slide off the edge. So if I'm stretching my left side, I'm going to drop it down. If people are really tight, they'll be way up here. The goal is to try to get at least, even if you're even or even lower, then this may not be an issue for you. Once I'm here, I bring the opposite knee to my chest, and then I bend my knee back, getting more of a stretch in that muscle Brad was talking about, the rectus femoris.

Brad: There you go. Yeah, sometimes a little help from someone else is nice. If you watch out for a cramp, if you get a cramp in your hamstring, just straighten that leg out. It'll go away and be a little more gentle with that. Some people might have that experience.

Mike: Now, some people may have issues, and their leg wanders off to the side. Try to keep it as straight as you can. Do one side for 30 seconds or so. Reset the back and then do the opposite side. See if you notice a difference between the two sides. And you can do this two to three times for 30 seconds each.

Brad: There you go. And you do this one at home on your bed, right? And it works.

Mike: I used to do this one a lot on my bed. I have a more extreme version now, I do at home, but this is beneficial for sciatica people.

Brad: Yep. Okay, number three. Hip strengthening, the hip abductors, helps stabilize the pelvis and keep that lumbar spine in a nice neutral position. This is oftentimes forgotten about, and it's going to be done. There are a few different options. One way you can do it is just standing, holding onto something for balance, a cupboard, chair, whatever it may be. And stand up tall. We're going to kick out to the side with the leg. There are some critical aspects of these exercises that are important. Starting from the bottom, we're going to talk about foot position. The tendency is that most people will turn their toes out. It's just natural. Don't let that happen. Toe straight ahead, out to here and back. The second tendency is to lean to the side. That's called compensating or cheating. Don't do that. Good, tall posture out here and back. And you have good control, you will feel this muscle work after 10 repetitions. Mike has a weight on your ankle. Go ahead.

Mike: Compensating or cheating, anyway, you can do different variations of resistance. You can use bands. You can use a cuff weight. You can use a little loop band. But this just makes it more challenging if it's easy. If you can do this without holding onto anything first, from the chair to that, that'd be step one. If that's easy, you could try adding resistance. So this cuff weight is making it much more challenging. I also like to have a little bend in my knee when standing. It makes this hip abductor work as well. I shoot for 10 to 15 reps on one side, and then I switch and do the other. Brad is showing with the loop band. Or you can use the other resistance bands. You can also take a small band and put it on your ankles. You could put it on your knees as well. But for this, if you go to your ankles, it's going to make it a little more challenging in comparison to up to your knees.

Brad: There you go. All right. There are some nice options to get those muscles strong. I feel the muscles fatiguing already with the resistance. I do this for maintenance right now, even though I don't have sciatica. I want to keep it away. Sleeping correctly, we need to cover this.

Mike: Yes, but first, we need to cover more glutes.

Brad: Oh, more.

Mike: Yeah, we forgot about the glute max.

Brad: Oh yeah, sorry.

Mike: Now, having strong glutes is beneficial for back pain. So first, we're doing the glute med, minimus, which is on the side of your hip. Now, we're doing the glute max, also known as your butt. So, in order to do this, there are a couple of variations you can do. I'm going to show one version kneeling. Brad will show it standing because some people don't like kneeling. So all you do is get on your elbows. If I'm going to work my left side, I'm going to bring it up like I'm doing a kick. Most people do the standard kick like this into the air. What do you call these? Mule kicks? Donkey kicks? I don't even know what they're called.

Brad: Well, I call 'em hip extension in quadruped.

Mike: I like animal names. But instead of doing the full range of motion, we're trying to isolate the glute. We'll just kind of pick somewhere in between in the middle and do little oscillations. If you're not feeling much, say your hamstrings are kicking in too much, then try to turn your leg in and see if you notice much difference. You really want to focus it on the glutes there. Do 30 repetitions total. However, you need to do it. Do 10, rest. 10, rest. 10, rest, doesn't matter. And then make sure and switch legs.

Brad: Right, so when those glutes start to fire more, because sometimes they turn off from gluteal amnesia, which we're not going to get into. But this can help just to get those muscles kind of reeducated, and they start to do what they're supposed to do, and help out that lower back quite a bit. Standing, you go like this on a cupboard. You can go on your forearm, and you do the exact same motion, bending the knee, up and back and forth. Not way up like this. Just a mid-range motion. Again, rotate the foot to the other knee, and that'll help isolate the glute maximus. Do 10 to 30 of them, 20 to 30, whatever. You'll feel that muscle start to burn.

Mike: Pick a number and stick with it. Anyway, next, we're going to talk about how to sleep if you're having sciatica pain. So what can be beneficial for some people is actually flexing or bending your spine. To test this out, if you try to bring one or both knees to your chest and your back pain is feeling better, then this could be beneficial for you. Just take a couple of pillows; you can go lengthwise or the other way, horizontal-wise, whatever works. And you can just do this. This is going to flex my spine a little bit, and it should feel pretty good. You can sleep like this for a while, as long as it's comfortable. You can also turn the pillows the long way if you would like.

Mike: If you find this beneficial for you a lot, and you're sick of using just pillows, you can do something like a leg wedge, which you can pretty much find anywhere online nowadays.

Mike: And they work pretty well. They're a much more permanent solution than just the pillows.

Brad: Right. Bob and I, and Mike, have had really good luck with patients in the clinic using these, and they say, "Wow." I'd say 90% of the people are very happy with how that takes the stress off the bat, gives you a good, comfortable position that you can fall asleep in. Usually, what'll happen, when I've always used mine, I would, about two hours into my sleeping night, I would kick it off, put it on the floor, and I'd be able to sleep fine and comfortable.

Mike: If you're looking for one, just make sure to search leg wedge. There is a wedge for the upper body as well, which looks like a triangle, but it's more extreme. So make sure you get the leg wedge version.

Brad: There you go. All right. The next thing we want to address is how you walk. Now, this is something that a lot of people aren't aware of, but we are. We learned some. Rick Olderman had great success with it. Mike is their resident expert on this.

Mike: So, what we're going to do is look at your walking pattern. Most people, when they walk, put their leg out in front of them, they heel strike, they're getting a lot of impact force going through their joints, including your low back. So what we want to try to do, instead of walking with a locked-out, straight knee like this, we're going to land with a slightly bent knee.

Mike: When you do this, you'll normally land with more of a flat foot or sometimes even on your forefoot, and then your heel will come down. So you're going to have to shorten your strides or how far your steps are, and to practice, I would start in your house, being barefoot, in stockings or slippers, because most modern shoes have elevated heels, making it much more challenging to do.

Mike: This can also help engage your glutes more and your quad muscles, what you want, instead of putting pressure through your joints. Now, to really test this out, walk normally in your house with your hand on your buttock. Feel how much your glutes are firing. Now, the exact opposite of this would be walking on your tippy toes, and you should feel your glutes firing a lot more. However, we don't walk around on our tippy toes all day like ballerinas. So just kind of go with more of a flat foot, I would say.

Brad: Yeah, we've had people walk normally, with pain, and then walk on their forefoot. Don't have to have your hands on your butt necessarily. But this, that alone, can reduce the pain, taking the stress off the back. If you experience that, you really want to work on that diligently.

Mike: It will take time to get acclimated because your whole life, you've probably been walking the other way. So just take it slow and maybe just start doing little distances initially, because your feet will have to get acclimated to it. They may get a little fatigued early on.

Brad: And finally, tip number seven, we have a specific stretch, particularly if you have one-sided pain or going down the leg. We're going to show you a stretch that you can use a doorway for. Now, you may not have a door that you can roll around this easily at home, but simply go to one of your fixed, existing doors. Don't build one. Use one of your first doors. And if this doesn't work because you're too tall or too short, we will give you an option, Mike.

Mike: So you can use this or a pull-up bar, whatever you have available at your house. You're simply going to stand, face palm away from you. I'm grabbing the top of the doorframe here, and then I'm just going to bend my knees. I'm getting a nice stretch in my spine, decompressing in there, which can alleviate some of those pain symptoms you're having.

Mike: Now, this is more of, I'm having some pain, it's kind of intense right now, I just want some relief, and I can't find any. Often, this may help with that. So just hold it here for 20 to 30 seconds and then relax. And you can do that a couple of times. You can also do it throughout the day if you're having a flare-up. This isn't going to fix things long-term, but it can give you some immediate relief if it's a flare-up.

Brad: That's right. Now, if that's not working because you're maybe your door trim is falling off, or you're too short, or too tall, simply get a stick. Now, you can use. We've had people say they use a pool stick; you can use a Booyah Stik. But if you use something that does not have a rubber tip on the end, I'm going to go on a countertop. This is obviously a stool, but if it slips around, you need to put your shoe in there, so it's stable, and you can reach up, palm away. Exact same concept of what Mike showed, but we're going to use a stick, and I'm going to drop down and get the same stretch through the painful side. And I am going to disagree with you a little bit, Mike, because if this helps, takes away that leg pain, there's, if you continue this and watch your body mechanics sitting and bending, I think there's a good chance that will be a permanent fix.

Brad: I'm an optimist.

Mike: It's good to keep doing it.

Brad: No, I'm thinking, I've had experience with this, and then I'm going to do the other side. If you do the other side and it irritates the painful side, only work the good side until it improves, and then you can go to both sides.

Mike: So those are the seven things to try. If you're having sciatica pain, do them all. See what works, and I would keep doing them for a while. If your pain starts to subside or do better, maybe just pick the ones you find most beneficial because we realize that's a lot of things to work on.

Brad: And there is another video that complements this. It's called the "Absolute Best 10 Stretches for Back Pain and Perfect Posture."

Mike: Yes, that video goes through some other stretches. So maybe things weren't quite working as you thought here. Check that video out instead.

Brad: Have a good day, be careful, and make sure you get rid of that sciatica. We know it's a bothersome problem.