How to Prevent Sciatica When Seated in Chair

In this article, I’m going to show you three easy ways to help prevent sciatica pain while seated. These stretches you can do throughout the day, any time that you feel that you’re having pressure
being built onto that sciatic nerve. It’s not only good for preventing sciatica, because it will help take the pressure off that nerve, but if you do start to feel sciatica, it will help relieve it very quickly.

What Causes Sciatica to Flare-up

So to start off with, let’s address the big cause of sciatica and low back issues. That is poor posture while sitting. So if you have bad posture from leaning forward, typing, computer work, using cell phones, you name it… you have to address that first. No matter what you do, there’s no stretch, no exercise that is going to take the stress and tension that is being built into your lower back, and on that sciatic nerve, if you just constantly put stress on it from bad posture.

Best Stretches Exercises for Sciatic Pain Relief

Once we figure out what the reasons cause the sciatic nerve pain first, then move on to these next steps of how to get rid of sciatic by stretches exercises.

a Sciatic Floss Stretch

The first stretch that we’re going to do is called a sciatic floss. It’s really easy. What you need to do is make sure that you have good posture. You’re going to take the leg of the affected side, so in this case, it’s my left side, and what we’re going to do is bring the toes back towards us while keeping the leg completely straight. If you need a little bit of extra support, you can definitely hold underneath the leg. Once you bring the toes back towards you, it’s really going to intensify a really good stretch into the calf, back of the leg, buttock, into the low back.

So next, we’re going to take the toes slowly away from us, and that’s the floss. You’re just slowly bringing it towards you and then slowly taking them away. This takes a lot of tension off that sciatic nerve. I like to keep doing this until I feel like I’m getting a lot of relief. You can do it for a couple of minutes if you’d like. Just slowly take the toes away from you and then slowly take them back.

So after doing the first sciatic floss, if you still feel like there’s a lot of built-up tension and pressure that needs to be released, we can take it to the next level with an advanced sciatic floss. It’s going to incorporate movements of the first part.

We’re going to bring the toes away from us, and then we’re going to bring him back towards us.

But this one, we’re going to use our upper body weight to help intensify the stretch. I’m going to start with my toes away from me and then I’m going to then lean into it. You’re really going to feel a really good stretch right into the back leg (again), the calf, buttocks low back, depending on how tight your muscles are. Then we’re going to bring the toes back towards us, but while we do this, move your head backward with the movement of your foot. It’s just a nice slow, gliding motion to help relieve tension and pressure off that sciatic nerve. Again, do this one until you feel a lot of release of muscle tightness and pressure off that sciatic nerve.

a Slump Stretch

If you really need a lot of tension relief onto that sciatic nerve, you can then do what’s called a slump stretch. It’s very similar to the floss stretch. So with good posture, we’re going to bring the toes towards us and then I’m going to just slump into it. So I’m taking my upper body weight, my eyes are almost just going right towards my toes and I’m leaning into it. With this one, I can really feel that muscle pull into the back leg, the glute, and the low back. It just takes a lot of tension off that sciatic nerve and can prevent a lot of future issues.

So with this next one, we need a chair with two arms on it and it needs to be sturdy (no wheels). This is a very good exercise that’s going to target disc bulges, disc herniations in the lumbar spine.

You might be also interested on Best Office Chairs for Sciatica Nerve Pain

So think pinched nerves from a disc bulge. We’re going to sit at the edge of the chair, good upright posture, and then we’re going to put our legs out straight, feet together, and then just simply lift up as far as you’re able to go. With this one, gravity is going to help us by just taking our bodyweight and forcing it down.

This helps naturally decompress the low back, and then you’re just going to relax, and then you’re just gonna keep doing it until you feel a little bit of pressure being taken off low back. The nice thing is too, is this is kind of like a dip exercise, so you’ll probably get a little bit of an arm workout with it. It is a very, very simple way to decompress the low back, give it a try.

a Piriformis Stretch

The last stretch is going to be a piriformis stretch. The piriformis muscle (with some people) actually has an opening through it in which the sciatic nerve travels.

You can kind of imagine, if we’re sitting on it all day long, it’s going to compress that nerve causing a lot of sciatic like symptoms. We actually call this pseudo sciatica. I take the affected side, in this case, it’s my right side. I’m going to bring that leg up over so the ankle is sitting right by the knee. We’re not going to press into this one. I think a lot of people are accustomed to pressing into it to get this piriformis stretch.

This one, instead, we’re going to use our upper body weight and then lean into it, and the more that you lean into it you’re really going to feel a good stretch. This one really targets more around the hip area, the glute or buttock area, and I like to hold this one 30 seconds. Come back up and then just keep repeating it, three to five times or as many times as you need it until you finally feel that pressure is taken off the hip area, buttock area, and also off that sciatic nerve.

If you are suffering from lower back pain or SI Joint pain, you have to choose the best chair and seat cushion for SI Joint pain relief. A comfortable chair with ergonomics design in mind is very important especially for an office or home worker sitting in the chair for long hours everyday.