The Best and Worst Sciatic Nerve Pain Exercises

When I first found out I had sciatica, my doctor told me to consider doing yoga since many of the poses are great sciatic nerve pain exercises that can help to take pressure off of the sciatic nerve.

It took me several years to work up the courage to join a yoga studio.  After all, I’m just an ordinary guy.  I’m not really into all that new age stuff, and I didn’t really have a lean and toned body to proudly show off.

But I eventually did start doing yoga and the benefits are quite good.  Here I’d like to share with you the best and worst yoga poses for sciatic nerve pain.  Exercises that you can do anywhere, even at home, if you don’t particularly like the idea of joining a yoga studio.

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Best Sciatic Nerve Pain Exercises

There are a lot of yoga poses that are excellent for sciatica.  Many people think of yoga though and they imagine contortionists twisted into knots.  For the sake of this article though, I’ll spare you the advanced poses (like pigeon pose) and we’ll only focus on some of the simpler ones that you can probably do right away to see quick results.

Downward Dog – This pose is good for opening up the hamstrings.  It can feel like your nerves are being pulled taught through out your whole body.  This is a great way to loosen up any kinks in your sciatic nerve.

Bridge Pose – This pose will help because it moves the hips and back in a way that is opposite to how we usually hold ourselves when we’re sitting (sitting too long with bad posture is probably one of the biggest causes of sciatica).  This is a great way to open your body up in another direction and take pressure off the sciatic nerve.

Half Lord of the Fishes Pose – This pose has a very colorful name, but really it is basically just a back twist.  This is good for restoring flexibility and motion to the spine, which can help ease the strain on the sciatic nerve.

Worst Sciatic Nerve Pain Exercises

The worst sciatic nerve pain exercises are the ones that do not open up your back and hips.  In fact these are the ones that exaggerate the poor postural habits that caused the sciatica in the first place.

Since most sciatica is caused in some fashion or another by poor posture and muscles being under used while sitting at a desk at work for long periods of time, the worst stretches are those that involve bending forward or arching the back.

These stretches contract the muscles that are already tight and may place added pressure on a bulging disc or further irritate the sciatic nerve.

So, if you’re looking for sciatic nerve pain exercises that can help with your back pain, remember to focus on lengthening and stretching.  For most cases of sciatica you want to avoid stretches that involve forward bends since these will only exaggerate the postural problems that are responsible for most cases of sciatica.

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