Can Posture Therapy Help Sciatica Pain & Fix the Root Cause? [Video]

Can Posture Therapy Help Sciatica Pain & Get to the Root Cause? Video Summary:

If you’re dealing with sciatica, you know how disruptive and painful it can be. In this discussion, we explore how posture alignment therapy can help alleviate sciatica by addressing the root causes of nerve compression and imbalance. Our experts explain that sciatica isn’t just about pain in one area—it often stems from a combination of factors, such as muscle imbalances, weak glutes, or even issues in the upper body that affect the lower body’s alignment. 

By taking a holistic approach, we focus on identifying and correcting these underlying issues to provide lasting relief. Whether your sciatica is related to sitting for long periods, poor posture, or even an overly active lifestyle with dysfunctional movement patterns, our customized posture alignment programs are designed to target the specific needs of your body. 

If you’ve tried other treatments without success, or if you want to prevent sciatica from recurring, this video offers valuable insights into how a comprehensive posture alignment approach can help you find relief and get back to living pain-free. 

Watch the video to learn more and discover how we can help you on your journey to recovery.

Can Posture Therapy Help Sciatica Pain & Get to the Root Cause? Video Transcript:

Hi everyone today we're going to have another question and today's question is, can posture alignment help with sciatica pain? And how does it address the root cause?

I think that's a popular issue to drive people to come to Activ8 Posture. And I think unfortunately. It is popular for them coming to us because they have done a lot of other stuff that hasn't worked. And if you've ever had sciatic pain, it can be very painful, but also just annoying because it can, you know, make you numb. It can give you tingles down your foot or down your whole leg. And it can just kind of destroy your life or take over your mindset for a while. So we definitely treat a lot of clients with sciatica.

One of the most common things in our Boston clinic that we help people with for sure. And yeah, certainly limiting and really does rob you of your mobility, but then comfort, peace of mind and activities that you might do. So, and it's interesting one too, because there can be a few root causes, and it can be a different root cause per person. So like you were saying, Carrie Ann, and a lot of our clients all come to see us. It would...

trying other things that have not worked. And it's just because it can depend on the person individually. It's not a routine protocol-based thing that we can apply to every sciatic case. But there are definitely a few common things that we will see with people that we'll definitely go through today that do cause that compression of that sciatic nerve and lead to those symptoms you described. 

I think one of the big ones, if we just wanna look at that area regionally, because we expand the whole body and look at all the factors that lead to it, but just compensation. We talked about in our previous videos, if there are certain muscle groups that aren't activating or facilitating properly, then other muscles will be tasked to overcompensate to do the work in place of that dysfunctional muscle, which then leads to them that overworking then becoming irritated and flamed, short, tight, and something that can certainly compress that sciatic nerve. 

So a very common compensation pattern we'll see is if somebody's glute, is under leverage or dysfunctional, that's your butt muscle. And then the piriformis and hamstring muscles that do work along with the glute will then start to overwork to help work around that glute function. The sciatic nerve runs through both areas. So if those muscles then overcompensate for too long, it will start to lead to nerve compression and that sciatic symptom. So for people we see with that mechanism, getting that glute muscle stronger will help the body stop wanting to overcompensate or overuse those piriformis hamstring muscles and help decompress that static nerve. 

Yeah. I think that's a good point. And you know, you're diving in, like you said, to the region. And I think it's important also to expand that back out and, you know, whether you call it regional interdependence or whether you call it, you know, the interconnected body. It's important to know like how the, like asymmetry in the, like, let's say thoracic and shoulder position can affect and influence the pelvic position and therefore affect if it's a lumbar disc herniation that's causing the sciatica down the leg, or if it's the asymmetrical foot position, knee position, hip position, that is then changing the pelvic position from underneath, and maybe it's a sciatic notch, and then the piriformis gets blamed. 

There's different mechanisms of coming at that, and then if we're looking at the whole body rather than just at the site of the symptom, then how we define from a more whole body holistic perspective, how we define root cause can be different than if you go into a traditional symptom focused methodology or system where they go, oh yeah, so the herniated disc is causing this so bad herniated disc and we're just gonna go after that, or we're just gonna go after your back in and by itself rather than saying like, okay, well, your lumbar is affected again, by the imbalance that's in your upper body or by the kyphosis that's there and or by the pelvic position that's created because we have an imbalance of the anterior or front line muscles of the body versus the back line, myofascial system and how those are connected or from right to left, how those asymmetries are. 

I think one of the big things with sciatica is, is it one side, which most people it is versus two sides. And if it's one side, then you have to think right away, there's asymmetry here, rather than thinking of, okay, I just have like, there's a random problem on one side. Well, then those underlying asymmetries or imbalances between the right and left sides have probably been going on for a long time. 

Yeah, to that point too, if it is a one-sided sciatic symptom, oftentimes we'll see that the issue, the root issue is actually coming from the opposite side. Meaning that there's a muscle group that's not facilitating, so say it's right leg sciatic symptom, that there's a muscle group not facilitating on the left side of the body, that then triggers your body wanting to use the more functional side, not use that dysfunctional muscle group, overloads that right side, which then leads to compression either, whether it be spinal, of the nerves as they come out the spine, the disc, that sciatic notch you referred to, Paul, where that sciatic nerve tunnels through the pelvis or that hip, piriformis hamstring area, these regions that the sciatic nerve runs through. I know you see that a lot carrying with your clients, right? 

Yeah. I also want to go back to one of Paul's other points though. It is very rarely can you make sciatic pain go away by fixing one area. Yes, we need to identify the root cause and find where that root cause is, but that like, if it's your glute, if that's the root cause is one weak glute, that's not the only thing that you need to do. You don't only need to strengthen that glute. And I think that's why people get very frustrated. There's tons of videos on like, stick a lacrosse ball on your piriformis, to get release. And it does feel better for a few minutes, for an hour, maybe for a day. But if you don't after releasing that, then go back and tighten the glue or move the spine into the better position, it doesn't go away. 

So it's often a bunch of different things. You have to get your right shoulder back, activate that glute and release the piriformis on the left. Like it's usually a combination of things that you have to do. It's important to find the root cause, but then from there, you have to kind of follow the path of all the affected areas and go after all of those individually. That's when you have lasting relief.

That's right, yeah. Those affected areas being compensation, right? So like the body's way of working around that region. So if you just focus on that affected area, but the body's put in all these bypass mechanisms elsewhere, you can work that affected area of the glute, like you said, your body said, okay, you can do that all you want to, but I've built this bypass network in, so I'm just gonna avoid it, and then it doesn't do any good for long-term lasting relief, yeah. 

Yeah, it's always interesting when people are very symptomatic on one side, and we do exercises both on the left and right, like front and back. So for example, everybody knows, oh, do the figure four stretch, and pull your knees to your chest. And usually when we do the symptomatic like affected side, people will be like, oh, that feels great. And then when we switched to the non-symptomatic side, they're like, wow, why is this side so much more tight? 

And it's one of those things where they're so fixated on the symptomatic side, they don't realize that, hey, it could actually be the non-symptomatic side that is just, again, like Carrie Ann was saying, being bypassed and find these other ways to work around.

Yeah, and nobody did anything with that. You're the first person who's done anything with that side. Like, why hasn't anybody else told me this? 

Something we get a lot with sciatica clients. Yeah, certainly frustrating, you know, that it needs to be a comprehensive view and just doesn't always, you know, the case when people are looking and seeking help for sciatica. And even too, like…

We work with a lot of clients and they have images like MRIs, right? Or x-rays that show disc compression or a spondylolisthesis or herniated discs, bulging discs, stenosis, right? And all those things certainly are happening. We have photo proof of it happening, but then we have to ask, like we're talking about, well, why is that happening? That's not something that just happens. It's not because you're older, because you're any of these things. It's just over time, there's been all these areas of the body that have put compression or tension on the spine that lead to disc herniation, bulging, stenosis, and as that builds, it gets to the degree of compression that then causes, you know, static symptoms. So even if you have images that, you know, that show that this is happening, it doesn't mean that you're stuck or you're broken or you need surgery or anything like that, you know, it's stuff we can certainly help fix. It's again, just finding the root cause of even why that is happening in the first place.

When I do find it happening often with people who are sitting down a lot and they start to get kind of locked up, that can certainly circle back to things like weak glutes or lack of lumbar extension, things like that, that are all going to relate to muscles and muscle groups that can certainly impinge that sciatic nerve. Which is most likely why there was an increase during COVID because what were we all doing during that time? Kind of just sitting around..

But that doesn't mean that it can't happen to somebody who's very active either. Again, it just, it goes back to those compensation patterns that we were talking about, so you can be very active, but still dysfunctional. And that's still going to lead to it. Just like we've all been talking about. That's why, when I'm explaining things, which we've already talked about, I tell clients like we need to, your body's a big puzzle and if those pieces are not fitting together, then nothing's going to happen or it's going to keep happening. The pain is going to keep happening. No change will happen.

It's a great point you make the active population, right? Because it's a large, majority of people we do see with sciatica are very active, runners and cyclists, Pilates, yoga. And yeah, it's just using an improper body mechanism, right? Parts aren't moving as they need to, muscles aren't facilitating over time. Even if you're active, it doesn't mean that everything is in working order. That's an assumption that we kind of make generally, but not the case. And your body will certainly let you know if it's not with symptoms like sciatica. 

Yeah, and some of the symptoms that come along with that, like being people a lot of times have knee pain or they have some SI joint pain or they had some other one-sided thing that kind of was a precursor, a warning that kind of goes on and off with this or some previous injury. So yeah, so then when they're active, like you're saying, then they're overloading that same side or continue to work out of alignment and then the usual thing is like, oh, you're weak or oh, you're too tight. And so they stretch or they work out and they seemingly do the right things, but the missing piece a lot of times is the alignment. And we need to make sure that the body's put into the right alignment and then the right muscles are doing the balancing for us, not just some generalized muscles. 

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, plantar fasciitis, SI joint, pathology, impingement, functional scoliosis, right? Are all things like conditions to your point, Paul, that people come in, we have sciatica, are also told that they have, and it's stuff that we can help you get the root cause to. And it's really all signs, there's symptoms of the same mechanism. That's just presenting all these different areas of pain or different types of pain that we have names for, but it's all a signal that, hey, there's imbalance going on and you gotta correct it. You gotta find the root cause and correct it. 

Yeah, sciatica really sucks. Any nerve pain, if you've ever had it, is like, yeah. That's the stuff that clinches your teeth and it makes you want to, you know, do something drastic. But there are natural remedies and what we do is you know, noninvasive and I would consider it very straightforward in terms of when we look at your alignment and then, you know, realign it and get the right muscles to do their job. It's pretty remarkable what the body can do to recover. 

Yeah. It's always trying to heal, right? Just got to put it in a position where I can so much do it. And like we said, it can be, you know, person dependent. So, you know, if anybody watching this is suffering from it, definitely reach out to us and we'll be able to help create a sequence of exercises customized to your specific body, your movement patterns, because that's what needs to happen to help it heal. And the really big thing that we do is preventative. So once it does heal, keep it from coming back.