Treat Your Own Back | McKenzie method

0:08 hi i'm dr chris and i'm here with physical therapy solutions i'm a mackenzie certified physical therapist and today in this video i want to teach you how to treat your own back nearly everyone gets back pain at some point in their life and today in this video i want to treat your current problems and potentially prevent future problems this is a six part video based on the mckenzie method before we get into the exercises let's talk about safety if you've had any of the following before you start this program you need to seek medical advice or give me a call and i'll direct you as appropriate if you have back pain and leg pain below the knee with numbness and tingling the toes if you've been in a major car accident if you're feeling unwell in conjunction with the onset of pain

0:55 if you have any bladder problems or if you have a history of cancer or tumor seek medical advice or give me a call and i'll direct you as appropriate in this section let's talk about understanding your lumbar spine so in your low back or your lumbar spine you have five vertebrae and they basically provide a flexible connection between your upper body and your lower body now these five lumbar vertebra they are susceptible to certain stresses try this experiment with me take your finger and bend it back okay what you're going to experience is some strain now if you hold it you know harder and longer you'll end up with some possibly some pain and the reason for that is because the tissues around the around the joint are straining that same exact thing occurs in your lumbar spine

1:42 now if that happens for long enough what can happen is the joints can distort and the the disc between the bones can come out and touch on a nerve that's why some people will have lumbar spine pain that is localized maybe it's on one side or maybe it's going down the leg because it's touching on a nerve so in this section i'm going to talk to you about the two most common causes of back pain and what we do most frequently is we slouch and we bend forward think about how many times a day we're rounding out our lumbar spine every time we put our shoes on our socks on we don't really get a chance to reverse the curve of our low back so in this video i want to show you guys how to sit properly

2:27 and then how to stand properly so when sitting you need some kind of lumbar support this is a mckenzie roll i really like this one because it keeps the hollow in your back like this and maintains it doesn't allow you to slouch as much so when it's sitting it's important to have your knee at 90 degrees your hip at 90 degrees and some kind of lumbar spine support now when you're standing what you want to think about is you want to avoid slouching like this and leaning on your ligaments you want to do is lift your chest pull your belly button in or draw it in and then just gently squeeze your glutes so that you can be standing upright against gravity all right guys in this section i'm going to show you seven exercises

3:13 that we're going to use to assess and treat your own low back pain okay so the first exercise we do is more of a position i'd like to see your ability to lie down on your belly now for you for those of you that have low back pain you understand how this is kind of a daunting task so you want to see if you can lie down you can trim your head arms here and just maintain this exercise number two is going to be here this is going to be on your elbows propped up exercise number three is going to be the press up hands at about your uh your shoulder level you're going to relax your glutes and you're going to press up nice and smooth and controlled exercise

4:00 number four is gonna be a standing back extension hands here and you're gonna extend back just like this exercise number five flexion and lying hug your knees to your chest and come back down exercise number six is going to be flexing and sitting bring your chest just below your knees or in between your knees rather nice and smooth and controlled exercise number seven is going to be here flexion and standing

4:48 hands on your lap and come back up okay again i'm going to show you the next video or the next section rather how to use these seven exercises to try to assess and treat your own back okay now that you guys have been through the seven exercises let's talk about how to apply them before you do the exercises you need to first assess your own spine okay so the first assessment is just going down trying to touch your toes go as far as you can if you can't do it and it really hurts that's fine you can stop just take note that it does hurt to go down the second one is going to be extension the third movement is going to be side

5:33 glide and then the other side so again you don't have to force these movements you're just kind of being you're just taking note of what it feels like to have those those movements performed on yourself like is it is it causing the pain go down your leg is it making it better is it making it worse okay so now that you've assessed your own spine and for example let's say uh flexion was pretty painful in the back or the leg just take note of that and let's let's move on to troubleshooting how to fix it the first thing i always want you to do is go to your stomach okay so in this position here you take the you take the curve out of your low back and just just stay here for about three to four minutes just see how you feel just take note is pain going down your

6:18 leg is it going to the front of your hip is it getting worse in the back just take note and be patient here if it's not getting worse go ahead and get up onto your elbows like this now anytime the pain is not getting worse that's a good thing just kind of sit in that and just take note that these positions are safe for you another thing too is if this position here while you're propped up on your elbows is making pain go down the leg i urge you to stop we don't want pain to go down the leg we actually want it to go back to the center of the spine that's called centralization or the centralization of pain so if you're feeling some strain back here in the middle that's okay that's good stay with this one about three to four minutes just just hang out here

7:03 after that if you're still feeling pretty good you're gonna move on to exercise number three to press up so here you're just gonna create that lordosis of the lumbar spine again this is like opposite of the prolonged sitting and bending positions that we do so it reverses the curve pressure on pressure off pressure on pressure off and then when you get up just be careful come up safely i want to do 10 reps of those by the way if the pain is going back to the center or if it's decreasing once you're done walk around a little bit see how you feel and go ahead and recheck your spine check your flexion check your extension

7:50 check your side glide your side glide so if you've performed this exercise on your stomach and done the press up and you're finding that's actually decreasing your pain or centralizing it meaning the pain goes from around here in your calf and then goes back to the back that's a good thing 10 repetitions four or five times a day i want you to follow that press-up exercise when you're on your stomach to doing the same thing and standing which is basically standing extension hands here i like to put my hands just like this so i can focus them back over and you want to go all the way pressure on pressure off as far back as you can 10 repetitions those two exercises the one on your stomach where you're pressing up

8:36 and then when the one where you're standing and bending back can typically take the pain out of your leg and put it back in here and then eventually it'll disappear now on top of those two exercises the press up and the back bended standing you really need to make sure that you're sitting properly so you want to be here and here just like this and keeping that hollow in the back remember doing these exercises and lying and standing is not enough a lot of times it'll help but if you sit slouched again here or here the pain will likely return so it's important to do the exercises but also change your environment and modify your sitting again to take the pain out of the leg and to put it back in the back where it'll eventually go away

9:23 okay so let's talk about the situation um of you not responding to this exercise where you're doing the press ups and the back bend let's say that's making you worse or it's just not putting the it's not moving the pain from the leg back into your back you probably have to do a modification let me show you the modification we do so if you lie on your elbows just like this and you take your hips let's say it's left sided back pain and then maybe into your left glute and hamstring if you take your hips and then you bring them away from the pain like this and you hold that position then try your press up just see what happens see if that actually makes the pain decrease or maybe move up the back or maybe it won't but again you want to

10:09 take your hips away from pain and then press up if that's helping you again 10 repetitions five times a day now let's say that's not helping you another variation of that would be to actually get on the wall and then again remember the example is my left side of my back is hurting and maybe down my leg and hamstring i want to go here and i'm just going to do a side glide just like this into the wall again the the goal here is to take pain out of the hamstring glute and put it into your back if you're not experiencing any relief or that centralization phenomenon that i'm talking about then this isn't for you but again if it is for you and you're decreasing that pain keep going ten repetitions five times a day

10:57 so if you found that doing the press up with the hips off center or the side glad against the wall help to take the pain out of your leg or out of the side of your back and then bring it back to the center of your spine that's great continue that remember 10 repetitions about five times a day or every two hours but here's the thing once that pain gets back to the middle of your back and it's nice and focused right here you need to start extending again that's going back to those two exercises the press up and the back bend in standing okay just like this again take note of your symptoms listen to them just pay attention if you're bringing your pain from the leg or the side of the back to the middle and it's

11:43 staying in the middle that's when you really want to start doing the press ups and the back bend and again i would do 10 repetitions here 10 repetitions here five times a day or every two hours we've spent a good amount of the video talking about restoring that lordosis or that curve in your low back and many people will respond to that just to try to get the pain to to decrease or just to get out of the legs here's the thing though you still need to restore the ability to flex forward okay we're going to do that slowly and methodically remember here's the key takeaway i would not start doing a lot of bending until you have full pain-free extension here as well as the press-up extension while you're on your stomach

12:29 okay so if you are pain-free for a week five to seven days then i want you to start restoring the flexion this is how you do it safely and methodically you lie on your back and you do five repetitions pressure on pressure off do this about three times a day okay after you do those five repetitions you still need to check this make sure that you're not in pain again some people will do that exercise and then they'll go check it and then and they'll say oh i feel like i'm stuck again or i'm hurting or there's pain down my leg that means you weren't ready for this so if you've done those five repetitions on your back check these extensions in standing for 10 reps now i would do that for

13:17 about three days if you're feeling good then you can progress it here flexion and sitting again five repetitions three times a day and then after every time you do it you need to give me 10 of these extension and standing to make sure that it feels good after another three days of doing that then i want you to start doing the flexion and standing where you go hands on your lap and we're gonna check your ability to touch your toes again five repetitions three times a day but follow every time you do it follow with this ten repetitions here

14:05 if you find yourself in a situation where you have an acute bout of low back pain there's a few things you should do number one i would start the treatment exercises start by lying on your stomach see how that feels and then go through the video and try to see if you can methodically decrease that pain the second thing is you want to find a straight back chair something like this with some good support you want to avoid a low soft couch that kind of puts you in that that slouch position and the last thing is you want to avoid sitting up in bed and be cautious of taking like a bath because this position here where your back is rounded out is typically pretty stressful on the spine i hope this video can help you or

14:51 someone you know that has suffered from neck pain and headaches now of course there's more to it than that but i urge you to re-watch the video and try to figure out how to solve and treat your own neck pain if you're tired of having headaches and suffering from neck pain and taking medications and wondering when your neck pains or headaches are going to stop give me a call and i'll help you find a solution to your problem thanks for watching