if you have low back pain and all you've
been told is that you've got
degenerative disc disease or disc
degeneration you're no better off than
if you weren't told anything at all in
this video we're going to talk about
exactly what degenerative disc disease
is and how you can manage it so that you
have no pain hey it's Coach E here from
Precision Movement and welcome to
another video where we'll be talking
about degenerative disc disease that is
a tongue twister you can definitely try
to say that three times fast now before
we get into the meat of this video leave
a comment if you've ever been told or
given the diagnosis that you have either
degenerative disc disease this
degeneration or your discs are
deteriorating and this is often seen
through imaging from your doctor so let
me know in the comments if you've been
told this and kind of what you've been
told around that what to do about it
how you're gonna go about dealing with
that I'm just curious on what's out
there right now so what is degenerative
disc disease that's a term given to the
fact that these intervertebral discs
these are the translucent discs in
between each bony vertebrae when those
start to shrink yeah as you can see the
discs in the lumbar spine they're maybe
about just under a centimeter high or
for you Americans maybe 3/4 of an inch
you know maybe 1/4 inch quarter inch
high and then in the thoracic and
cervical spine they get progressively
shorter degeneration occurs the thing is
degeneration occurs naturally as we age
so people in their 20s if you don't have
any issues compared to people in their
90's
will always have shorter discs than the
younger people ok this is because over
time these discs they're fibrous
cartilaginous tissue often use the
analogy that they're like a jelly
doughnut filled with Jam inside I filled
with fluid just over time all this all
the
forces going through the spine walking
jumping bouncing lifting weights they
squish those disks and lose some of the
fluid and they get shorter so this is a
natural phenomenon over time the thing
is when you've been given the label
especially if you could they've been
your doctors called it degenerative disc
disease you think of it as something
that only the medical establishment can
fix and address it's like oh I have a
disease and now I've got to do what the
doctor is going to tell me which is
typically pain meds and then and/or
surgery but that's not what we're all
about here and we're gonna talk about
how you can avoid those modalities so
how does degenerative disc disease occur
well there's the natural phenomenon but
there's things that we can do that
accelerate it one for example is poor
posture so let me give you an example
somebody's got poor hunchback excessive
thoracic Chi for so they're rounded in
the thoracic spine here what you're
gonna see is because of this position
there's more pressure on the anterior
aspect of these thoracic discs and those
discs can start that aspect of the discs
can start to deteriorate if there's
little if you get a herniation fluid can
get pushed out and then that disc height
will go down that's one thing that can
happen but oftentimes the thoracic discs
aren't affected by this story because
they're already they're not very high so
not much can be done to get them even
shorter however the lumbar spine is more
susceptible to this posture poor posture
excessive kyphosis can
affect the lumbar spine and here's how
when you're rounded forward at the
thoracic spine the lumbar spine often
not all the time but it often
compensates by going into extension so
you get excessive lordosis of the lumbar
spine now this is going to put more
pressure on the posterior aspect of the
lumbar discs and that's when they're
going to start to squish there's more
forces going through there
so they're gonna generate a little bit
more and you're gonna get degeneration
of maybe l4 l5 which is super common or
any of the lumbar discs can occur when
that occurs you decrease the space in
between the vertebra and then the nerves
that are coming out in between that
little space called the foramen those
can get pinched that's when you get into
issues like sciatica piriformis syndrome
tingling down the leg those types of
things occur when that nerve gets
pinched so what was the root cause in
this case in this example it was the
posture up here up high and the thoracic
spine so if you're just doing court
exercises if you're just doing sciatica
nerve flossing that might be helpful but
until you address the thoracic spine
posture which will help you to alleviate
the excessive lordosis you're never
going to get to the root cause and
you're always going to be fighting an
uphill battle yeah and this is just
again this is just one example this
doesn't apply to everybody who's got
degenerative disc disease so that's one
one example
other examples are excessive heavy
loading of the spine so power lifters
who are doing 400 500 600 pound back
squats on a regular basis they're discs
are most likely going to be a lot
shorter than somebody who's not doing a
lot of heavy heavy back squats and
that's just simply physics there's a lot
of force going through there it's just
gonna squish and shorten those malleable
cartilaginous discs okay that's just
obvious so those are some issues what's
the what's the problem what's why are
you have low back pain there's a number
of reasons the distric generation like I
said can result in pinching of the
nerves that's coming out and result in
low back pain muscular pain or sciatica
nerve type pain but this degeneration
it's also often a symptom of core that's
not functioning correctly so what's the
course supposed to do well there's a few
things
first of all and most important the core
is supposed to stabilize this lumbar
area so if the core muscles aren't
functioning properly to stabilize the
lumbar area it's going to be moving
around a lot and sometimes it's gonna be
tweaked and pushed and pulled in
directions that maybe it shouldn't be
tweaked and pushed and pulled in so
that's gonna cause excessive wear and
tear on those discs and ultimately a
loss of disk height so core stability
that's super important and I've got a
number of exercises that you can check
out I'll link to it over here one is the
damage control routine which is really
helpful if you're experienced perience
that acute back pain where you bent over
to pick something up from the floor it
could be a Kleenex and you tweaked your
back and all of a sudden you can't
straighten up and you're just really
sore so check that out but there's also
just basic core stability exercises dr.
Stu McGill some of his favorite
exercises to stabilize the core so that
these lumbar vertebrae and discs aren't
being sloshed around in there okay
what's another thing to do well we could
do a little bit of decompression of the
spine so one way that we could do that
is hanging and you don't have to hang
upside down from your feet you can do
that but just simple hanging from a bar
that's gonna the gravity is gonna pull
your legs down and she's gonna stretch
imagine I'm just pulling down on my
spine here it's just gonna stretch it
out and allow it to you decompress now
is another way that you could do that is
simply lying over a swiss ball or
stability ball so you're lying there
you're supported so you're not putting a
lot of strain on the discs but you're
still decompressing a little bit because
your head is pulling this way and then
your lower body is pulling down this way
causing a decompression force to go
through the spine okay so some deep
compression on a daily basis can helped
you get the fluids back into the discs
to restore that disc I another thing
that you want to do is to ensure that
the spine is moving so I just talked
about core stability and how important
that is that is like your foundation if
you don't have good core stability
movement is eventually going to cause
you pain but once you've established
good core stability it's really
important to get the spine moving
because any movement of the spine will
help to strengthen these discs the
reason being is because the discs just
like all tissues soft tissues in the
body ligaments muscles tendons they
respond to stress so if we put forces
through them they're gonna get stronger
now it's those excessive forces
especially those related to posture or
poor stability that lead to wear and
tear but when we do it in a prescribed
way in a progressive way over time we
can actually strengthen these tissues so
that they're more resilient and they
stand up to whatever we throw at them
over the course of our active lives so
very simple exercises the cat camel and
you know link to it over here it's in
the video that I'm going to talking
about hunchback and improving posture
which again is super important so check
out the whole video but the warm-up I
use for the hunched back exercise is the
simple cat camel which has you moving
through really gentle flexion and
extension of the spine okay so it's
important to get that movement to stress
those soft tissues so that they adapt
and get stronger and also to pump the
fluid in and out of these tissues
because they don't have good blood
supply so they need a little bit of
extra mechanical help in pumping by
pumping okay so that's something that
you don't often hear because it's all
about core stability these days
maintaining neutral spine
but once you've established that
foundation of core stability and if you
had any pain those tissues are no longer
sensitive or irritated then it's time to
move towards dynamic movements of the
spine and the spine is designed to flex
it's designed to extend and it's
designed to rotate okay so we've got a
maintain and if we've lost them restore
those fundamental movements all right so
that's what this degeneration or
degenerative disk disease is all about
it's not a life sentence many people
most people especially over the age of
we have some level of dis degeneration
and some people are symptomatic while
others have absolutely no pain and the
difference between the two is often
posture movement patterns core stability
okay so there's a little bit of info for
those of you who may have been told
you've got DDD and hopefully this gives
you hope because it's not something that
can only be solved and managed through
pain meds or solved through surgery but
how you how your body is structured and
how your body moves is the greater
factor alright so thank you very much
for listening now if you want to kind of
follow a full program with course
stability at the foundation leading into
dynamic movement then check out spine
control I'll link to that at the end but
otherwise I hope this was super helpful
before you definitely check out the
videos that I link to inside this video
and do those exercises because they're
great for everybody and do that up and
I'll talk to you next time alright
 
