Yoga for A Herniated Disc | 10-Minute Routine to Strengthen Spine For Back Pain Relief

Transcript

Hey, guys, my name is
dean, welcome to man flow yoga. This is a yoga workout
for herniated discs, so this is going to help
with the pain associated from a herniated
disk and also help with bringing your spine
back to a neutral position. Do your best follow along. Do the exercises with
me and just listen for the proper technique. This is beginner friendly. You don't need any yoga
experience or any flexibility to do it. We're started on the
ground with a plank, so the Plank is a
great basic exercise to help you strengthen your
core, which is going to help you strengthen your spine. Easiest variation
of this is going to be with your hands
planted under your shoulders and your knees on the ground. So go ahead and
just start there. Make sure your belly
button lift it up and you start to feel the
muscles in your abs working. If you want to make
this more challenging, you can tuck the toes and lift
your knees off the ground. Doing your best to make a
straight line from your heels to your shoulders, and
something to be aware of, people are going to differ,
you know, individually. So these exercises might
feel great for someone with a herniated disc,
and they might not feel great for other people with
a slightly different situation. But for the most
part, these exercises are overwhelmingly helpful for
people with herniated disks. This workout that I'm giving you
comes from a physical therapist inspired program
that I developed with physical therapist. So this is stuff that you will
use if you go get treatment from professionals. All right. 10 more seconds here. I did that really long talk
so that I could distract you while you're doing the Plank. All right, and then
relax your knees down. We were going to
move into a tabletop, this exercise that
we're doing now is called a bird dog, really
good for strengthening your core and also for
addressing the root cause of herniated disks. Go ahead and extend your
left arm out and reach it out in front of you. Turn your palm to
face up and then kick your right leg straight back. Now here we want to make sure
that your belly button stays lifted toward your lower back. You don't want to just
let your belly droop and you're arching
your back, so try to keep that the
spine neutral just like you had it when you were
in that Plank pressure, right? Heel back, flex
your toes toward you and really reach that
left arm forward and up. It also helps to squeeze your
right hand and your left knee toward one another. Breathe in and out of your nose. That's just going to help
you control your body and hold the pose
for a longer time, and we're going to be
here for 30 seconds. If you need a break, you're
welcome to put your hand down. Welcome to put your knee down
and then come back into it with when you're ready,
but try to hold it for the full duration. 10 more seconds here, stay nice
and long through your body, make sure you're
looking straight down, pressing your head away from
your torso and then release OK. Same thing, opposite side. Extend your right arm forward. Palm facing out or up. And then kick your
left leg straight back. Flex your toes toward you. Press your heel away
from you, and it helps to look back
at your belly button here and make sure you're making
a straight line with your body. Belly button pulls up
toward your lower back. That way, you make sure
that you're using your core and you're not relying on
your back to hold this back. Strength is really determined by
hip strength and core strength, so you're going to be focusing
a lot on your core, your abs and your hips in this workout. Again, 30 seconds here. Same thing. Opposite side hug your left
hand and your right knee toward one another for a little
bit more muscle activation. You might start to feel
your muscle shaking. That's a good thing. It means those muscles
are strengthening. And I know I talk a lot. But the point is to
make sure that you're doing the exercises properly,
because if you're not, you're not going to get
the benefit last 5 seconds. All right, and then release, OK. From here, we're
going to go down flat onto your chest for some,
prone strengthening and prone just means line on your chest. So I want you to lie down best
you can if you have a belly or it's just difficult
to lie on your chest, you can use pillows. You can use props like that
to make it more comfortable, but do the best you can. Bring your hands kind of
right under your shoulders or below your shoulders,
elbows in tight to your sides. Look straight at the ground and
then extend your legs back, so reach your legs back. As far as possible,
zipper your legs together. So big toe squeezing
together inner thighs pressing toward one another. Squeeze your thighs
so your knees. Lift off the floor and
then just lift your head off the ground,
about two inches. And this is a really
basic, but really good exercise for
strengthening your spine and strengthening your core. And keep in mind with
a herniated disc, the issue is that you've
rounded your back too much, you spend too much time sitting. Generally, that's
the biggest cause. So we want to do the
exact opposite of that. So getting into this
shallow back bend is a really good
way to counter that. I mean this for 20
more seconds, so pick an intensity that's
manageable but is still challenging enough that you
have to work hard to hold it. Try to breathe in and
out of your nose, that's going to help you hold this
exercise for a longer time. By the way, you can do
these exercises every day. And if you're looking for
more structured programs, that is exactly what I do
with my app and my website at manual yoga. All right. Go ahead and release. Take a little break here so
you can relax your arms out in front of you. Relax your head down. Give your back a little break. If you need to, you can come
up into a Tabletop position just to kind of rest. And we're going to
get right back into it with more exercises. Make sure you stick
around to the end. I'm going to show you a lot
of really helpful exercises in this quick video. All right back on to your chest. And then from here, we're going
to do exactly what we just did, but add in scapula retractions. So squeezing your
shoulder blades together? So again, extend your legs
back, squeeze your thighs, zipper your legs together. And then lift your chest
just slightly off the ground using your core strength. You don't want to push up. You're just using your core
strength and your hip strength to lift slightly. And then from here, I want you
to squeeze your elbows as high as you can toward the ceiling. They're not actually
going to get that high and then release them
back to the ground, and you're just going
to do 10 of those squeezing your
arms up, squeezing the elbows up, lifting slightly
and then releasing down. So these reps like this,
this is a really good way to help you build strength in
your core and in your back. And as you're doing this,
you should feel those muscles in your back tightening
and getting sore. But you shouldn't feel any
pain if you do feel pain. Don't go as high. All right. A couple more. Again, going up to 10
here and then again, take a little break, so
arms out in front of you. Relax your head down. If it feels good, you can come
up into a Tabletop position or even try out a Child's Pose. Child's pose is going to
feel good for some people, and it might exacerbate
that pain associated with the herniated disk
in other butt goal here. Keep your back neutral, make
sure you're not rounding it. So you want to think always
keeping the front of your lower torso nice and long, just
like you'd have it in a Plank. All right, one more
exercise on your chest. Go ahead and lower
back down again. Extend your legs back. Zipper your legs up. Squeeze your thighs
so your knees. Lift And then I want
you to use your hands to pull your body forward. Look just slightly forward. Don't crane your
neck, but I just want you to look slightly
forward and then squeeze your elbows toward one another. So pulling the shoulder
blades together and down and then use your hands
to just slightly pull yourself a little bit higher. Pull your chin in
toward your throat. Only go as high as
you can without pain, and you're going to
do 30 seconds here. If you need a little break,
come down a little bit and then come just a
little bit back up. Again, you don't want to go as
high as you possibly can here. It's more about holding here,
being able to control it, being able to being able to
breathe somewhat normally and not having
pain as you do it. Last 10 seconds. Keep your legs strong. So really squeezing your
thighs, squeezing them together, squeezing your abs. And then relax. All right. Go ahead and take
it onto your back. This is going to feel really
nice after all of that, and I'm going to show you one
more exercise on the floor. It's really, really
going to help. And you can also do this
at the end of the day to help with
resetting your spine and getting rid of back pain. So plant your feet in
front of your hips. Squeeze your abs nice and
tight and then push down through your feet. Squeeze your butt muscles
and then lift your hips off the floor into a
Bridge so you really want to feel your
glutes working here. If you don't feel those muscles
automatically turning on, you can do a little march
like you see me doing here Just one leg at a
time, and that's going to help those
muscles start to activate. But we want to
strengthen the hips here. You should feel your
back working should also feel your abs working. If you want to make this
a little more intense, squeeze your butt more. Press down through your
feet and drive up higher. Just want to make
sure that you don't go to the point where you're
only using your back here and arching up really high. I'd prefer that you make sure
that you're working your hips and building that
strength in your hips, keeping your abs nice,
engage and just getting a moderate arch. That's going to be more helpful
than just pressing up as high as you can
and in trying to be higher than whoever would be. To you, if you were doing
this in a group class, continue to breathe in
and out of the nose. This is one that we should work
up to doing for 60 seconds. You might not be able
to do that yet if you do have pain in the back. Again, you can release
down, take a little break and in general, focus on getting
more muscle in your hips, your glutes, your hamstrings
and your abs working. And that's going to take
the strain out of your back. Get about 15 more
seconds to go here. And this is one
of those exercises that you can do every day. It's good for building
strength, but it's also good for relieving pain. All right, and then release,
OK, if it feels good, I want you to bring your
knees in toward your chest. And if it doesn't
feel good, then don't pull them in that much. You can keep your knees kind
of above your hips, so kind of in a 90 degree position here,
and hopefully that feels good. If you want, you can
also kind of just move your legs
from side to side. And that's also
a really good way to get rid of lower back pain. So to keep working
on this, you want to do these exercises on
a regular basis at least three times per week. And daily is better
if you can do about 10 minutes of
this stuff every day, that's going to really help
with the symptoms of a herniated disk. It's also going to
just help you get back to being able to do what
you do with less pain, less discomfort, and again over time. Most herniated disks do repair
themselves within a year, so please don't
resort to surgery without trying to
do some exercise focused recovery first. That's all I've got. Thanks for watching this video. Please like it? Comment to manfully
yoga if you haven't already. And again, the best
way to work on this is going to be by
following a program. And that's exactly what I do on
my website and my app, man Flow Yoga. Thanks for watching
this, and I look forward to seeing you on the next video.