Degenerative disc disease is one of those scary-sounding diagnoses that leaves you wondering, “is this dangerous,” when you go to the doctor. Thankfully, it’s not usually dangerous and most people are able to improve symptoms.
Symptoms related to degenerative disc disease can be treated very successfully using an exercise-based approach.
If you’re reading this, you probably would like to avoid surgery, injections, and excessive dosages of medication.
In this article, I’m going to share with you an introductory exercise program designed to help get you moving and most importantly to potentially help with improving your symptoms of low back pain and sciatica.
Exercise Program For Degenerative Disc Disease
Any treatment program that you start should have the aim of making symptoms better while also getting you more active and fit. If it’s not accomplishing these goals, get a new coach, and a new program.
Sometimes it can take several weeks to months to figure out a specific program that works for you. So, keep that in mind and set your expectations appropriately.
Try each of these exercises and complete three sets of ten repetitions.
Only try 2 to 3 in one sitting at the beginning so you can differentiate which ones make symptoms feel the same better or worse.
Child’s pose
Seated chair flexion
Bird Dog
Box squats
Goodmornings
Cobra
Seated chair rotations
Walking
Bridges
Standing hip abduction
Thread the needle
Should I avoid any type of exercise due to DDD?
You should only avoid exercises that seem to make the pain significantly worse. Usually, with DDD, you will feel stiff, mostly in the morning, which gets better with exercise.
This happens because you are warming up the joints and getting more synovial fluid to lubricate the area.
If you’re wondering how much pain is okay, please read this article detailing how much pain with exercise is acceptable.
What types of cardiovascular exercise can I do for DDD?
- Swimming
- Cycling
- Walking
- Rowing
- Hiking
- Running
There really is no limitation on what cardiovascular activity you can do. Limitations are set by your symptoms and how much you feel that you can tolerate.
The good news is that generally, my clients feel much better when they are being active, versus ceasing all activity.
Dropping everything and only resting usually isn’t a great strategy.
The Kadalyst Back in Control 90-Day Program
I’ve personally helped over 100 people with degenerative disc disease, back spasms, and sciatica, get back to living their life on their terms.
Here’s who I’ve helped:
- I helped Danielle re-engage with her social circle after being sidelined from severe low back pain and sciatica for 5 years. She went from only being able to walk 200 steps, to now over 10,000 at large comic-con (dragon-con) conventions.
- I helped John get back to feeling like a capable Dad. He wasn’t able to run with his very athletic daughter anymore, now he’s back to it.
- I helped Joni get back feeling confident in her body again. She’s back to boogie boarding and dancing (she was 70 at the time).
- I helped Ryan get back to being the Dad and husband he wanted to be. He wasn’t able to give his young children a bath or get them out of the crib because of crippling spasms.
Danielle had tried countless times to make progress, failing each time, and was on the brink of giving up completely.
John had been seeing a physical therapist for 1 year without any progress and was incredibly frustrated. He’s young and was frustrated with his body for not healing like he used to.
Joni had been dealing with her pain for 35 years and felt like there was no hope.
Ryan had tried tons of different stretches and exercises on the internet and hadn’t made any progress, leaving him incredibly frustrated, exhausted, and worried that if it got worse, he wouldn’t be able to keep working (he is the breadwinner of the family).
If any of these scenarios sound like you, I’d like to help.
Our program includes:
- Customized exercises and workouts designed to help you make actual progress. These are updated for you every single week.
- Group accountability. You’ll have access to live calls with Dr. Nate up to 3x/week. You’ll also be able to hear the stories, struggles, and progress of other members.
- Detailed information in an easily consumable course that presents you 1-2 new videos per week. We know you’re busy so we won’t overwhelm you with information that you don’t need to know.
- A 100% money-back guarantee if you aren’t happy with the service and product at the end of 90 days. We want you to improve. If you don’t improve and aren’t happy after working with us, we’ll refund the money back to you so that you can invest it into something else that would help you, better.
How’s that sound to you?
If it sounds great or at the very least, interesting, please fill out this form below and we will be in touch with you within 24 hours to set up a 15-minute triage call.
This call is meant to identify your primary goals and whether or not we think you’d benefit from the program.
This is not a sales call and no purchase decision will be made or discussed at the end of this call. This is purely informational on your end and on our end.
Here’s who we can help, 9 times out of 10:
- If you are a hard-working parent who wants to be physically and mentally healthy for your kids and/or spouse.
- If you’ve had to turn down family and friends in the past year for social events due to the pain and not knowing if you’d be able to make it through the day/night.
If that sounds like you and you’d like to chat about your goals and how to best move forward, fill out this form and we’ll get in touch with you to schedule!