My name’s Dr. Jared Bornstein, and we’re gonna be talking about neck and back pain today and my three favorite exercises for disc injury. So come on in, I’m gonna show you those exercises.
All right, so you have discs in your neck and in your back, and I’m gonna show you two exercises for your neck and two for your back. These are the ones that I’m giving out most commonly. Everybody’s different, but these are the two most common for the neck and for the low back. So here we go.
Neck Exercise #1: Chin Tuck
So the first one for your neck is called a chin tuck.
What you’re gonna be doing is looking straight ahead. You’re gonna bring your chin straight back like this. You’re not looking down.
I have a lot of people do crazy things. The most common one is looking down. This isn’t doing anything.
What we wanna do is bring the chin, I’m gonna get 90 degrees to you so you can see, straight back. So we wanna go in like that.
Another mistake people make with that exercise is going outward. So they don’t have the motor control, so they’ll go in and then they’ll go out.
We don’t wanna go out. Out is gonna make things worse for your neck and worse for the disc injury that’s going on. So you wanna go in, in, in.
I recommend 50 a day usually. You break it up: 10 in the morning, 10 before lunch, 10 after lunch, so on and so forth. Try and get 50 a day.
Neck Exercise #2: Chin Tuck Extension
The next exercise for your neck is called a chin tuck extension. So it’s kind of the same exercise but with a progression.
What you’re gonna do with the chin tuck extension is you’re gonna bring your chin straight back like this. But then after you do that, you’re gonna hold that chin tuck and look back.
So it looks like this: chin tuck, holding, and extension. Chin tuck, holding, and extension.
And you would do it the same amount of times as the first one, just the chin tuck.
The main difference is that the last one with the extension is going to put more pressure on the disc. And it sounds like more is better, but you don’t always wanna do more, especially when you’re acute.
So when it’s really hurting badly, that exercise can make things worse.
It’s important to start with the chin tuck, see how that goes, and then kind of progress based on the symptoms.
Low Back Exercise #1: Prone Press-Up
I’m gonna show you two exercises for your back now, okay? Here we go. And this is for lumbar disc injuries.
So number one I’m giving out, it’s called a prone press-up.
You’re on your stomach, and you’re gonna be at home. You’ll probably be on the floor, and you’re gonna push up and come back down.
And it seems very simple because it is very simple. All you’re doing is pressing up and down.
It’s kind of like a pushup, but you’re keeping your butt down. It’s kind of like a cobra pose from yoga.
And with this, what you’re doing is, you can see my spine bending backwards here. We’re compressing that disc and pushing it in off the nerves. So this is great for the disc bulges and the disc herniations.
With that one, you’re gonna do 50 a day as well. 10, 10, 10, 10, 10.
Low Back Exercise #2: Side Glide
And then I’m gonna show you one more exercise. It’s called a side glide.
So you can stay right there. You’re in perfect position.
This one is specific. A lot of times when people get disc herniations, they’ll be off-center. They’ll be like this, they’ll be like that.
The side glide is what’s gonna correct that.
So you’re not doing this exercise unless you’re crooked. You can see that in the mirror. Then that’s what you wanna correct with this exercise called a side glide.
So, based on what position you’re in, if I’m like this, I wanna push this back in. And if I’m like this, I wanna push it back in like this.
So let’s say I’m like this. I’m gonna lean against the wall and drop my hip in like this. One, two, three, four.
And you would get 50 of those a day, just like the other ones.
That’s gonna correct your lateral shift. So it’s gonna correct this.
If you don’t have that shift, you’re not doing that exercise.
Getting Help With a Disc Injury
If you have disc injury and you want some help, start with these exercises and then give us a call and we’ll get you going.
