7 Best Sciatica Stretches for Quick Sciatica Pain Relief (Pregnancy-Safe)

Hi, I'm Lindsay Baumgrand of Nourishment of Love, and today I'm walking you through seven of the best sciatica stretches for sciatica pain that I've had during this third pregnancy. I've learned some new stretches to help relieve that pain and I'm gonna walk you through them. You don't need any equipment for these stretches, just your body weight. And I do have a box, so you could use a chair, you could use a bench, an ottoman, anything like that that you can do from a seated position that's gonna stably support you as you walk through these stretches. So we are gonna jump right into it, you guys. I have seven stretches. You're gonna do a couple on each side of the body and you're stretch for about 40 seconds and we'll have a quick 20 second transition between stretches. It'll round us out around 10 minutes total. So a quick 10 minute stretching routine. That is awesome if you're experiencing sciatica pain. So first let's talk about what is sciatica pain. Sciatica is a bundle of nerves that run that come off of your lumbar spine and they can get pinched by your paraphoris muscle, which is here, your outer glute muscle that can get pinched by your paraphoris, specifically from flexion. Okay. So if I'm flexing forward. So we're going to work on a couple different stretches to keep the paraphoris nice and loose. We're also going to hit the psoas and the hip flexors because the pelvis is all connected. So anything we do on the back side, we got to do on the front side too. So we're going to go ahead and we are going to start this from a tabletop position. So I'm going to come in, I'm actually going to go to the side. So we're just going to do a couple cat neutral belly breathing right here. Okay. So hips are stacked over knees, shoulders are over wrists, and we're just going to do some belly breathing. So I'm going to inhale, drop the belly, exhale, hug that baby up nice and tight. So I'm thinking about hugging the baby and pulling baby up. You can even gaze down at your baby. Inhale, belly drop, exhale, gaze to baby, hug, belly nice and tight. You're thinking about those deep transverse abdominal muscles. Okay? They're gonna wrap right around you just like shoelaces do to a shoe. Inhale down, exhale. So belly breathing is so important for all those Pregnancy aches and pains. We're working on strengthening our deep transverse abdominal muscles, which support our core. Inhale down. Last one. Exhale. Nice. From here, we're going to move to the box. So I'm just going to scooch the box in, and we're going to go to a seated para femoris stretch. All right. Really great to keep those para femoris nice and loose. So I'm going to come into a nice seated position here, and I'm just going to take my right ankle and cross it across my left knee. And from here, I'm just going to sit up nice and tall. So when I was originally doing this, I was learning I was doing this stretch wrong because I was doing this and I was pushing down on my knee and hinging forward. Well, that's flexion, which caus sciatica pain. So reverse it. Come back up. Sit here. You can option just hold here. Option. Instead of pushing into that knee, take both hands and you can gently pull up on the knee and give a nice gentle twist, which is extension. What we want to relieve sciatica pain. So instead of that flexion, think extension. So I'm just going to gently pull both hands on the outside of my knee. I'm just going to gaze over here and just stretch nicely. This is going to hit that para femoris. Right? Just a nice gaze right here. Sitting up nice and tall. Thinking about spreading my sit bones apart. Nice. You can just take a couple breaths here. Big inhale and exhale. You're gonna do one more here, and then we're gonna go right into the other side. Big inhale and exhale. Same thing. Other side. So I'm just gonna switch it out. I'm gonna take that left ankle to the right knee. I'm gonna set up nice and tall. I'm thinking about spreading my sit bones apart. Thinking about twisting my shin away from my body again. I can stay right here. Option A, just stay right here. Option B, I can go into that extension where I take both hands, that outside knee, give it a nice little gentle hug, and then a little gaze over. Just a little gaze. Big inhale and exhale. Nice. Another inhale and exhale. Just breathing into this, you're going to feel a nice stretch through your paraphormoris. This should feel really good. Just sitting up nice and tall. Let's do one more big inhale. Big exhale. Feels really good, right? Awesome job. Okay, so that is our seated para for more stretch. And now we got the back side of the body. So we're going to move on to the front side, which is my hip flexors. I'm still going to use this box. I love this hip flexor stretch. It has been so awesome for pregnancy. So I'm going to place one leg on the box. Other leg just comes out to a 90 degree right in front of me. And I'm just sinking into right here. I'm just sinking into my hip flexor, letting my hip flexor drop towards the bench. This feels just so good. I could hang up out here for, like, multiple minutes. I've been doing this stretch every morning and it feels just so good. So you're gonna hold here. Option you can just stay right here. Option you can give me a nice little gentle rotation. So gently gazing over my left shoulder. Really gonna get into that right hip flexor. Ooh. You feel it? I definitely feel this one. Nice. You can just hang out here. Like I said, I like adding the bench or the chair. It just allows space for baby. Okay. You can always take this from a kneeling position on the ground, but I really like this position right here. And we're just gonna go in and do the same thing on the other side. So you're gonna hold here for 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Gently release. And I'm just gonna walk over to the other side of my box. I'm gonna do this exact same thing on the other side. So I'm gonna place my left leg on the bench, left knees on the bench, Right knee comes to a 90 degree bend. Again, I'm just sinking my left knee, hip flexor down towards the box. Like I said, everything in the pelvis is connected. So when we're stretching the back paraphoris, we also have to hit the front hip flexors, especially if you're sitting at a desk all day. This is just a really great hip flexor stretch in general for anybody, but also a really great way to keep the hips and the glutes nice and mobile and loose, which is going to help relieve some of that sciatica pain that can creep up during pregnancy. Nice. So just breathing into this here. Again, you can stay right here, or I can give a nice gentle rotation gazing over my right shoulder. It's going to feel really good. And get a little bit deeper into that left hip flexor. Nice. Just breathing into this right here. Big inhale and exhale. Big inhale and exhale. One more big breath right here. Big inhale, big exhale. We actually sat on the other side a little bit longer, so we're Going to do two more big breaths here. Big inhale, big exhale. Last one. Big inhale, big exhale. Awesome job. Nice. From here, we are going to move on to what I called your TFL or your IT band, which is here on the sides. Okay. This is like a think about sinking your hips. So I'm going to bring one form in. It doesn't matter which one. You're going to do both sides. I'm going to come into like a side plank position, take my outside leg and bend it in at a 90 degree angle. And I'm simply going to think about dropping this hip towards the ground. So I'm just like sinking into my hips here, letting my hips fall towards the ground. One, not only does this feel really good, but two, it's a great way to just stretch the the TFL and the IT band and just really just think about letting your hip drop and sink towards the ground. Okay, so sitting up nice and tall, staying strong through the shoulder. Right here. I'm just sinking in. This just feels so good. Letting the hips fall down to the ground. Nice. Just relieving any tightness in that low back. Really great. Low back stretch as well. Right here. Nice. You'll hold here for three, two, and one. You're gonna simply roll over, transition to your knees, and from here you can place either your hands on the box and you can sit back. So just take a nice wide knee stance, sit back and just sink in. So I'm like doing an elevated child's pose almost where my hips are just sinking back, knees are wide, big toes are touching, and arms are just reaching away from me so I could hang out right here. If you had a stability ball, that would actually be more ideal than the bench for this stretch because you could add a little bit of movement and. But in this position, I'm just going to walk my hands over to one side of the box and then I'm going to walk my hands over to the other side of the box. And as my hands go over to this far corner, I'm going to sit back into this hip so opposite. So the hands go one direction, hips go the other direction. Same thing. Hands are going to go over here. Hips are going to shift slightly, just pushing into those hips, opening them up. So again, if you had a stability ball, you could roll it side to side as you sifted here through the hips. Nice. Little hip stretch. Nice Little low back stretch. Nice. And now we're going to go in and do the hip sync on the other side. So I'm simply going to take my other forearm to the box, come into that modified side plank and sweep that outside leg around at a 90 degree and I'm just going to sink my hips in the other way. I don't know what it is about this. It just feels so stinkin good. This is one of the new stretches I have learned throughout this pregnancy. And you learn something new with every pregnancy. I will tell you. This is pregnancy number three for me and I have learned so, so many new things. I never struggled with that sciatica pain, which is like right here, that nerve pain right here. Right. This is what sciatica is. Never struggled that with baby number one and two and now I have it with baby three. So here we are learning about sciatica stretches. Hold this here for 3, 2, last one, big inhale and exhale. Awesome job. So those are the seven main stretches I wanted to show you. I do have some additional tools with me that I do want to show you. So if you want to get deeper into that para femoris, you can use a foam roller and. Or a little massage ball, lacrosse ball, tennis ball. Okay, so I'll show you first with the foam roller. So I'm going to sit on that foam roller with my glutes and I'm going to find that same figure four, that pretzel position. And I'm just going to slightly shift my hip over. I'm just going to roll and you're going to know when you hit your paraphoris, you're going to know exactly. It is going to feel a little bit intense. Okay, you can feel a little bit intense. You're just simply going to roll back and forth. So adding that foam roller, basically it's just pushing fluid through your paris, which is what we want to do. Right? We want the, the joints and muscles to be lubricated. So you're going to push a little bit of fluid around in there. So you can do this parafemora stretch on both sides on a foam roller. Alternatively, if you had a lacrosse ball or a tennis ball, this is a lacrosse ball. So it's basically a hard ball. I'm going to come into a seated position and I'm basically just going to sit on. I'm going to sit on the ball with my outer glute. I'm going to take my leg and I'm going to lift it up and out. Ooh, right there. There it is. And then I'm going to lift it back in. I'm going to lift my leg up and out and just sit on it and breathe into it and lift it back in. And those are some additional paraphoris stretches because the paraphormoris is really what's pinching the sciatica nerves. So that's what we want to focus on most. So those are some additional tools you can add in, but otherwise you can do those seven bodyweight stretches. No equipment needed and it's a great way to help relieve sciatica pain during pregnancy. So I hope you found this video helpful and I hope you come back to these stretches and hopefully it relieves your sciatica pain and you have an amazing rest of your pregnancy. Have a great day and thanks so much for following along with me during these stretches. Thanks so much for following along with these seven sciatica stretches. If you found them helpful, I'd be so grateful if you drop to subscribe to my YouTube channel here. Otherwise, you can find more stretches for your pregnancy aches and pains in this video or you can find all of my prenatal friendly workouts in this playlist right here. Have a great day.