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0:00 In this video, I'm going to show the best scoliosis exercises for pain and posture using no equipment. Stay tuned. Hey, everyone. Doctor Rowe coming to you from SpineCare in St. Joseph, Michigan. When it comes to relieving scoliosis back pain and also helping to improve back posture, we need to focus on strengthening and lengthening muscles as specific parts around that curve and I'm going to show you how to do this in a very easy to follow step-by-step guide. As a bonus, all of the exercises can be done at home require no equipment and you may find give quick back pain relief even within 30 seconds. So, with that being said, get started. So, let's start with a really easy warm up exercise. This is
0:45 really important to do because it's going to help loosen up the muscles and soft tissues to make the exercises in this video much easier to do. This is known as thoracic controlled articular rotations or thoracic cars. That's a fancy way of saying that we're going to put the back through a lot of different movements and positions to target the spots that are most tight and achy. So, you can do this one standing or seated. Just a arms cross them over like this I always call it the mummy and what I'm going to do to start off with is just do a nice big circular motion like this with your back doesn't matter what direction you go and we're going to do it on both clockwise and counterclockwise so what I'm trying to do is really focus on trying to put as much movement into my back as possible taking big wide
1:31 swings do this roughly 3 to5 times nice and slowly and then switch it up in the opposite direction from there I'm going to repeat this one. Afterwards, I like to take this one to the next level by now focusing on going into flexion which is bending forward and then also going into extension which is leaning backward while doing these motions. So, you kind of want to just throw a random motion in there as much as possible. If you have scoliosis, you're probably going to quickly identify a movement or position that really is tight and achy. Maybe it's going towards my left while I'm leaning into flexion. At that point, what I want to focus on doing is keep repeating this over and over again in that
2:16 position until you finally start to feel that you're gaining more range of motion and having less tightness and achiness but go through every single motion that you could think of identify any tight achy movement and work through it until everything is nice and loose so after we have the muscles warmed up we're going to move on to a blend of stretching and strengthening exercises is really important to note. Assuming that you have a C-shaped curve, what you have to focus on first is strengthening the muscles on the outside of that curve, the convex side and then you need to focus on stretching the inner part or the concave part of that curve. If you have an S shaped curve, you're going to have to do double duty. So, I'm going to break this
3:03 strengthening exercise portion up to target the upper back first and then the low back. So, with the upper back one, it's going to be a combination exercise. The first one is known as a scapular push up. It's really important that we focus on the muscles around the shoulder blades including the rhomboids. This one right here, we're going to start off on a floor but if your mattress is firm enough, you may be able to do it in bed. I'm going to start off with my arms, my forearms right here in a V shape, I just put my hands together. I like to tuck my chin slightly towards my chest. The beginners part of this, you can go on your knees and then just lift your back up. The key is you want your back as straight as possible. So, we're not really trying to let our pelvis right here sag towards the floor. If you would like to make this one more challenging, you can go into a plank
3:50 position just like this but just like the name implies, what we're going to do is a push up motion with our shoulder blades. So, I'm going to first focus on just allowing my chest to go downward towards the floor. You should feel pretty much the shoulder blades in the back starting to pinch. You want to hold this position for about three to 5 seconds. Really focusing on keeping your shoulder blades level. If you feel like it's not level or you're having difficulty, you might want to spotter with this one so they can really help guide you to make sure that everything is nice and level. You also want your hips right here level if you're doing the plank variation but afterwards, what I'm going to do from there is then press upward moving through my arms and my shoulder blades and taking my upper back
4:36 towards the ceiling, you'll feel the muscles really start to engage. With this one, you should feel the chest muscles firing but also the shoulder blades in the back starting to expand. Again, hold this one for three to five seconds, you're going to relax and then you're just going to repeat this one nice and slowly for about 10 to 15 repetitions. Afterwards, if it feels like you have a little bit more energy, you can always throw in another set or two. If you really want to take this one to the next level, You can do what is called a dolphin press which is going to target a muscle off to the side right here called the serratus anterior. It's also known as the boxer's muscle. This one is a huge muscle for scapular stability. So, if you have winging of your
5:23 shoulder blades, this may help. What I'm going to do is get back into that position just like this but I'm going to take my toes forward kind of like walking forward and then I'm just going to simply raise my butt upward torso ceiling while then lowering my head downward towards the floor and taking my chin towards my chest. This one right here, you're going to feel a really good activation off to the side. So, I like to hold this one for about 5 seconds. Relax on the next repetition. Walk forward just a little bit more and try to do this one for about 10 to 15 repetitions. So, moving on to the second part of the upper back strengthening exercise, we're going to do a side raise. We're going to lie on our side just like this on a floor. With this wall, you want the C-shaped curve or the outer portion of the curve, the
6:09 combat side facing downward towards the floor. So, what I'm going to do with this one is start with my legs kind of in a staggered position. I'm going to have my top leg in front. You just want to put your hand right on your hip to support. Movement from here very easy. We're just going to drive our hips upward towards the ceiling like this until our body is in a nice straight line. What you're going to feel is a lot of activation on the outer part of that scoliotic curve. You want to hold this position for about three to five seconds but if you have a little bit more in you, you can hold it for longer. This is actually pretty challenging and then from there, you're just going to relax, take a breather. You want to do this one nice and slowly for about 10 to 15 repetitions but if it feels like you have a little bit more energy, you can always throw in another set or two. When it
6:57 comes to a scoliosis in the lumbar spine or the lower back, a big telltale sign is a pelvic tilt that is the appearance of one hip higher than the other. So, if you've ever gone in front of a mirror and seen that, this may help level them off while also giving very quick pain relief. It's known as a hip hiker exercise. Very easy to do and we just need to go next to a staircase. So, again, we want to focus on strengthening the weak muscles. The side that is lower is going to be the weak side. So, we're going to put the high hip side up on that stair. Our other side is going to be off just like this. So, I'm going to take my hand, put it on the weak side and then, I'm going to slowly raise that hip upward towards the ceiling as much as I can. It's really important
7:42 not to bend the back with this one but move only through our hips through our pelvis. As you do this, you're going to feel a lot of muscles start to fire the glutes, pretty much all the muscles around the hips and also the muscle off to the side of the spine right here called the quadratus lumborum or the QL. This one is a big instigator of lower back pain but it helps stabilize our pelvis and keeps it level. So, you want to really focus on trying to feel that engage. You should feel it pretty much from the lower portion of your ribs going down towards your pelvis. Hold this one comfortably for 5 seconds. What you're going to do is then slowly lower back down like this and then repeat this 110 to 15 times. With each repetition, try to build into it just a little bit more. Always challenge yourself and if it feels like you have a
8:29 little bit more energy, you can always throw in another set or two. The second exercise that you can do is called a side bend. For this one, we just need a simple weight like a water bottle but to make it more challenging, you can use things like kettlebells or dumbbells. Just progress into it with more weight. What I'm going to do this time around is whatever side that I have an open curve, I'm going to have the outer rounded portion with the side that I'm going to have my weight. So, in this case, I'm having a right-sided convac curve. What I'm going to do is just slowly lower that weight downward towards the floor tilting my body towards that side of convexity. With this one, you only want to tilt
9:15 straight like this. We don't want to rotate our body but keep lowering that weight down. You should really feel a lot of muscles start to fire off to the side of your back. I like to hold this one for about five seconds but you can hold it longer if you would like and then you're going to slowly come back up like this fighting the resistance of that weight. You want to repeat this one nice and slowly for 10 to 15 repetitions but again, if you feel like you have a little bit more energy, you can always throw in another set or two. So, after we strengthen the muscles on the convex side or the outer part of the curve, we're going to turn our attention now to the muscles on the inner part of the curve or the concave side. These muscles tend to become shortened and tight over time leading to decrease range of motion and a
10:01 lot of pain. So, I want to show two lengthening exercises that you can do. The first one is going to focus on the upper back, the second one on the lower back and to make this one easy, I'm going to show exercises demonstrating an open curve towards my right so that concave part is on my right side. What I'm going to do first is known as a standing puppy. We're going to go next to a wall or a door for this one and just space yourself out roughly one arm length away. Going to have your hands overhead like this arms roughly shoulder width apart and you're just going to lean into the door our hands are going to be like suction cups so they're not going to move during this exercise instead all movement is going to come from our legs so I'm going to tuck my chin towards my chest bend my knees and put all of my body weight
10:48 onto my heels and slowly squat downwards taking my bottom down and away from the door the more that you do this and go down the more that you're going to feel a deep stretch forming through the whole back you should really really good. When you can't go any further, hold this position and now allow your chest to sag forward towards the door. It will really open up the shoulder blades. Since we really want to target the muscles on the concave side, what I'm going to focus on doing is leaning my body away from the side of the open curve. So again, we have that open curve towards the right. I'm going to slowly start to lean my body towards the left. You'll really feel those muscles to get a very deep stretch on that side. You want to hold this one comfortably for 30 seconds but if it feels good, hold it for
11:37 longer, a minute or two and do nice, slow, controlled breathing also. Just let that tension out. When you need a breather, just come back like this but you want to do this for about three to five repetitions and with each repetition, try to build into it just a little bit more. For the lower back, we're going to do what is known as a walling. Again, we're going to go next to or a door for this one. I'm going to again demonstrate an open curve towards my right. So you want the open curve facing towards that door of the wall. We're going to put our feet together and space yourself out enough where you're going to be able to lean into the door. I'm going to have my elbow bend in 90 degrees and then just rest all of my body weight on my forearm just like this. So my body's kind of tilted. From here what I'm going to do is
12:24 take my hand and start right around the bottom of the ribs right at the top of the lower back and we're going to slowly press our body and our hips towards that door. You should start to feel a really gentle stretch starting to form. Only go to your comfort level. Once you feel a deep stretch, you're going to hold this one for 30 seconds but you can again hold it for longer. From there, you're going to relax. On the next repetition, I'm going to go down just a little bit and repeat. We're going to target pretty much the top of the curve, the middle of the curve, working our way all the way down towards bottom. So, pretty much from our ribs right here all the way down towards our hip. You're going to notice that one certain spot just gives you the most stretch or relief. At that point, you want to throw in more repetitions
13:11 and work your way completely across that curve until it feels like it's loosened up quite a bit. If the exercises help, please support the channel by giving this video a like and maybe subscribing too. If you have any comments or questions, please leave them below. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks for watching.
