Hi everybody, Dr. Jody Kinney here, your chiropractor for disc injuries in Belmar, NJ. Today I want to show you some alternative stretches that I sometimes give my patients who have disc herniation.
So oftentimes the thinking with a disc is that you want to alleviate any of the pressure on the nerves with flexion type stretches, bending forward type exercises, to help open up the spinal joints and open up the disc spaces.
Chiropractic Stretches for Disc Injury in Belmar NJ
But there’s a subset of the population that does really well with extension exercises, and they’re called McKenzie exercises. So I’m going to show you a couple of the ways that we do or I’ve prescribed McKenzie exercises for my patients. So initially what you want to do is put a pillow under your chest. And you want to have your pelvis and your hips and your abdomen flat on a table or the floor perhaps or some kind of flat surface. You can do them on your bed as well.
And initially, what you want to do is just lift your head up and look up. So you’re not pushing yourself up, you’re just contracting the muscles in the lower spine. And then you’re gonna release. And then you’re gonna do it again, just look up, extend your head, neck, and shoulders back, and then release. And this is putting your body into what we call extension. And this is an alternative way to see if maybe your body will respond to McKenzie exercises.
Now if you have pain doing any of this, then you’re not a candidate, and you should stop doing it. If you feel some relief with these type of exercises in your herniated disk, then you can continue to the next progression which is where you’re going to put yourself up on your elbows. Keep your shoulders back and down. You don’t want your shoulders up into your ears. And you want to keep your lower abdomen and your hips touching the floor. You don’t want to lift up at all.
Chiropractic Disc Stretch Techniques
So extending the back and then come back down. Take a breath and then do it again. Lift up, shoulders up and back down. Again, if that feels worse then discontinue doing these stretches. If you are getting relief, then you can move to the next progression, which is straight arm extension exercises. Again, you don’t want your shoulders up into your ears. You want your shoulders back and down.
And you don’t want to lift your hips off the table. You want to keep your hips flat on the table and then bring yourself back down. Breathe into it and then do it again.
Now again, many of my disc patients get relief by doing extension exercises as opposed to flexion exercises. If throughout that progression, you notice that you feel better then continue to do them. Those are going to be beneficial for your particular disc herniation scenario. Okay, thanks again for tuning in. And we’ll see you again soon.
