Dr. Neil Boecking, DC, with Pro-Care Medical Center, shows you how to do the seated flexion using the McKenzie Method.
This is one of my favorite exercises. This is called McKenzie Seated Flexion. McKenzie Seated Flexion is typically used for people who are having low-back pain and the radicular type of sciatica symptoms that are coming into their leg or their lower leg when they typically get these types of pain while seated. Okay?
So it's very important to understand that we particularly use this exercise for people that have pain in their back and pain in their leg when they're seated, all right? So this is called McKenzie Seated Flexion.
So I'm going to have Caitlin come into ... She's seated in a neutral position, and now she's pulling herself up into an extended position. All right? And you want to stop at that point in which you have pain. In the spine, we don't push through pain. There's a saying out there that there's no pain, no gain. And with the spine, that's not true. You need to work with the pain, so at the point and when you work into extension and you feel it, you stop there.
And then we move into a slouched position, like I always say a middle schooler, and then we move into a genie pose. Okay? And then we come down. We put our spine into flexion, and then, notice that she hasn't dropped her head until the very bottom. So go ahead and drop your head. And now she has moved into the spine being into a complete C-shape. And then she's going to bring her head back up, and then she's going to sit back up like this, put the hands on the knees, move into an extended position, chest out. Again, don't push through the pain. You stop there. Move back into a slouch position, genie pose, and she's going to do several of these while I'm talking.
You want to do 10 of these in a row. You don't want to go too fast. You don't want to go too slow. You stop where you feel the pain, and if at any time that you ever feel extra radicular pain or extra sciatica in your leg, please discontinue and call a professional to help you out.
