What are the best exercises for sciatica?

Physiotherapy exercises for sciatica can make a big difference to pain and function. We wanted to share our top four exercises for sciatica to help relieve pain and improve your recovery.

What is sciatica?

Sciatica is pain along the course of the sciatic nerve, which runs from your lower back, into your buttocks, down the back of your legs and into your feet. The pain can often feel like a burning or shooting sensation. Some people experience tingling, numbness and weakness in the leg that is affected.

Sciatica is usually the result of irritation or compression of the sciatic nerve. The most common causes for this are:

• Disc bulge or herniation

• Tightness of lower back or gluteal musculature

• Degenerative changes in the spine

Most people recover from an episode of sciatica within around 6-12 weeks. Sometimes it can last longer, depending on the cause of sciatica, and sometimes it can persist to be a long term problem, despite treatment.

These exercises are great at targeting certain muscles that are often tight with sciatica, as well as relieving stiffness in the spinal joints. Aim to complete them up to 3 times a day. If your pain is very irritable, you may want to start doing little and often (1-2 exercises every 1-2 hours).

Single leg knee hug

Lying on your back. Bend the knee of the affected leg up and hug it in to your chest.

Hold this position for up to 20 seconds.

Repeat 3 times. You can try this on both sides, but with more focus on the affected side.

Rotational stretch

Lying on your back. Bend the knee of the affected leg up towards your chest.

Use the opposite hand to pull your knee diagonally up and across your body.

Hold this position for up to 30 seconds.

Repeat 3 times.

If this is too sore, try some gentle knee rolls with both legs. This is toward the end of this video, or you can find a video in our blog about lower back pain exercises.

Piriformis stretch

Lying on your back with your knees bent.

With your affected leg, place the outside of the ankle in front of the other knee, and allow your leg to fall out to the side.

Bringing your hands around your thigh, pull your leg up towards you.

Hold for 30 seconds.

Repeat 3 times.

Sciatic nerve stretch

Lying on your back. Bend your affected leg and hug your thigh into your chest.

Slowly try to straighten your knee, keeping your thigh close to your body. Bend your ankle back toward you for more of a stretch through the sciatic nerve.

Then slowly bend your knee.

Repeat 10 times

This is absolutely not written to substitute medical advice and it is always important to see a qualified health care professional for a formal diagnosis. If any of the exercises cause pain during or after the exercise, discontinue and consult a physiotherapist.

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