Stop Sciatica & Back Pain

One of the exercises we recommend for helping with back pain and sciatica is walking - good old, plain and simple walking. It may even seem too obvious - life wasn’t meant to be that straightforward right?

Well actually Yes, sometimes it is.

The bonus is if you do enough walking you can also lose a useful amount of weight and improve your overall fitness, as well as helping your back.

There is a great story below about a woman who was overweight big time and had back problems. Eventually she started walking, only a short distance at first, but gradually increasing and after a period not only did she lose a huge amount of weight, but her back problems went away too.

Reality Check
If you’re an average person in an OECD country such as the US, Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, France etc you are not exercising enough.

The modern sedentary lifestyle is bad for you and bad for your back.

At the end of the day it’s your choice what you do with your time. If you invest in the effort of exercise you will most likely get similar benefits to the woman in the story.

Remember:
In the long run regular, moderate exercise of the right type and a good diet and are two of the keys to a long healthy life and a healthy back.

There are also specific back exercises you can do to help your back and stop sciatica.

A story about losing weight and losing back pain through walking
Claire Elliot is from Sutton Coldfield, in the West Midlands of the UK.

Claire, a mum-of-two, was overweight and suffering crippling back pain, then 18 months ago she started walking and has now shed eight stone - hiking her way back to health.

She was a size 28 at her biggest and is now a size 14, dropping from 21st 6lb to 13st 6lb in the process. She achieved her transformation after joining a slimming club and taking long daily walks.

“I have never been as slim as this - and my body has changed beyond all recognition,” she says happily.

For Claire weight problems started in childhood.and she was a size 22 by the time of her wedding, in August 1997.

Then when she later got pregnant with her first child James, she used it as an excuse to eat what she liked. Everyone assured me the weight would fall off afterwards, but it didn’t and I went up to a size 28.”

Three years later, Claire was thrilled to be pregnant again, but by now the weight was affecting her mood. “Last time, I’d been proud of my baby bump - but this time I felt massive,” she recalls.

“Even though I was miserable, I reassured myself that I was still healthy. I’d never suffered high blood pressure or fluid retention.”

Then over the next three years, although she managed to shed about three stone, she was in too much pain to exercise and was bothered by sever sciatica and back pain.

Eventually she determined to do something, and joined WeightWatchers at which time she was 17st 8lb.

Immediately, Claire started a healthy eating plan and took up walking. “Every morning I’d set off in loose jogging bottoms and baggy tops. Initially, I could barely make it to the end of the road, but I improved quickly.

“I went from half a mile, to one, then two, until I was walking five miles a day and I dropped from a size 20 so by the summer I was a size 14.”

Claire realised there were other benefits, too. Her back pain vanished and the regular exercise boosted her mood - enabling her to reduce her prescription medication for depression.

Claire is now down to 13st 6lb and still walks every day. She says “My legs are half the size they used to be, my bum has just disappeared, my arms are thinner and even my cheekbones are showing”.

So the moral of this story is walking is great - remember there are also specific back exercises you can do to help stop back pain.

Firstly Qigong, which is sometimes written Qi Gong is pronounced (more or less) “chee kung”.

Secondly, I subscribe to the “whatever works” school of health maintenance. Now Qigong also has some esoteric or “metaphysical” aspects, but what is important is “does the practice do something useful for you”.

If the answer is yes, well obviously use it, if not try something else.

Qigong originates from traditional Chinese medicine and involves the use of different breathing patterns with various physical postures and motions of the body.

Qi or chi refers to the energy flows that occur both within the human body and in the external world.

Qigong asserts that the body’s “energy field” is generated and maintained by the natural respiration of the body; gong means work applied to a discipline or the resultant level of technique. Qigong together means “breath work” or the practice of managing one’s breathing in order to achieve and maintain good health.

Qigong offers benefits for both health maintenance and health restoration i.e. it can keep you healthy if you already are, or help you get healthy if you’re currently not. This applies to back health and pain also.

Qigong Exercise - Shoulder & Neck Stretch
If you get stiff in the shoulder and neck region this exercise is simple to do and is likely to make it better.

The great thing about this exercise is its simple and you can do it anywhere at any time for as long as you want.

Preparation:

1. Stand with your feet together and you back and neck straight.

2. Let your arms hang by your sides, palms facing your body.

3. Raise your arms to about a 45 degree angle (i.e. half way betwen hanging at your sides and poiting straight out at shoulder level), keeping them straight with your elbows locked.

4. Flex your wrists and raise your palms as far as they can go keeping the palms facing more-or-less down and your arms straight and your elbows locked.

Depending upon how flexible your wrists are, your palms may go as far as forming a 90 degree angle with your forearms. More commonly the angle will be greater than 90 degrees (it started off at 180 degrees with your palms hanging by your side).

The Movement:
Basically the movement is like shrugging your shoulders. Move your shoulders up and down whilst keeping your arms straight elbows locked and palms raised upwards.

After you have done a few you will probably start to feel a hot and/or stiff feeling in your neck and shoulder area. This is fine, keep going remembering to keep your arns straight and palms bent.

Some people enjoy doing the movements to music. Something with a steady beat works well.

Keeping the correct posture and movement is the most important thing.

How many should you do?

The answer is it depends how fit you are and how much time you have. 20, 50, 100, 500 are all reasonable numbers for different people.

Once you get past a hundred or so, you will probably start to sweat noticeably.

As always use your common sense. Clearly, if you’re not particularly fit and decide you want to start off by doing 250, but feel like you’re going to die at any moment after 50 or so, its probably a good idea to stop!

Sciatica Exercise Video
You may find thia video of a yoga exercise to help with your back pain.