You stretch. It feels better. An hour later, the pain is running down your leg again. If that sounds familiar, the stretch isn't the problem. It just isn't answering the real question.
Sciatica is a symptom, not a diagnosis
Sciatica means the sciatic nerve is irritated. It is the longest nerve in your body. It starts in your lower back, runs through your bum, and goes down the back of your leg. That's why the pain can show up anywhere along that path.
The name tells you where it hurts. It doesn't tell you why. And resting alone often doesn't fix it, because whatever is putting pressure on the nerve is still there.
What can irritate the sciatic nerve
Different people get sciatica for different reasons. Some common ones:
- Hips tipped forward. Years of sitting can tilt the pelvis forward and change how your lower back carries load.
- A twisted pelvis. When one side sits a little differently, that side can take more pressure.
- A disc bulge or herniation. Disc material can press on a nerve root. Your doctor diagnoses this, sometimes with a scan.
- A slipped vertebra (spondylolisthesis). One bone in the lower back slides forward on the one below it.
- Stress and tension. More on this below.
- Other conditions like arthritis or spinal stenosis can add to it. Rarely, a cyst or tumour is the cause — which is one reason to see your doctor if the pain is new or getting worse.
Different causes need different fixes. That's why a stretch that worked for a friend may do nothing for you.
Why stretching feels good — and why it often doesn't last
When you stretch a sore area, your body sends a "that feels nice" signal. Pain can calm down for a while. That relief is real. But relief and repair are not the same thing.
Think of a car making a strange noise. You can turn the radio up and stop hearing it. The noise is still there.
Massage, heat, pills, and many machines work the same way. They can help you feel better, and they have their place. But if nothing changes how your body moves and carries load, the pain tends to come back.
That's why we don't start with stretching. We start by finding out why the area is under pressure.
Tight doesn't always mean too short
The piriformis is a small muscle deep in your bum. It often gets blamed for sciatica, and people stretch it every day.
But a muscle can feel tight because it is working overtime. If your glutes aren't doing their share, the piriformis may be trying to hold things steady. Stretching it can feel good for a moment, but it doesn't fix the reason it was working so hard.
The better question is: which muscles stopped doing their job, and which ones are covering for them?
Stress can turn the volume up
Your pain is real. It is not "all in your head." But stress can make it louder.
A large review of research found that psychological stress is one of the risk factors for low back pain and sciatica (Parreira et al.). Another study followed over 1,000 people with back pain for two years. Long-term stress, worry, and conflict at work or at home predicted more pain later (Journal of Pain Research, 2020).
So two things can be true at once. Something in how your body moves may be irritating the nerve. And stress may be turning up the volume. If your sciatica flares in your hardest weeks, that's worth noticing.
If you still work out
You may not need to stop training. But you may need to bend less. Exercises that bend forward at the hips again and again can keep the area irritated while it's flared.
Some swaps we often use while working on the cause:
- Bent-over rows → chest-supported rows, lying face down on a bench
- Crunches → Pallof press for your core
- Bike or incline treadmill → elliptical, standing tall and holding the handles
- Heavy deadlifts → hip thrusts, kept pain-free
These are general ideas, not a plan for you. Check with your doctor or therapist before changing your training.
What we do instead
- Assess. 90 minutes, head to toe. We test your muscles one at a time to find which ones stopped doing their share.
- Correct. You get simple exercises aimed at what the testing found — not a generic sciatica sheet.
- Re-test. We test again, so you can see on paper whether it worked.
Read more about sciatica help in Scarborough → · What happens in a 90-minute assessment →