One Explanation We Frequently See in the Studio About Pelvic Rotation, Disc Bulges, Sciatica, Lower Back Pain, Hip Pain, and Natural Sciatica Relief in Tampa Bay
Have You Ever Wondered…
Why does your sciatica hurt more when you sit?
Why does it sometimes feel better the minute you lie down?
How can a problem in your lower back cause burning, tingling, numbness, or pain all the way down to your foot?
Those are the same questions I used to ask.
Only a few months before I became a posture therapist, I was dealing with sciatica myself.
Looking back, my body had been trying to tell me something for years.
At the time, I already had a degree in exercise science. I was working as a personal trainer, and I thought I had a pretty good understanding of how the body worked.
That’s exactly why something didn’t make sense.
The sciatica was on my left side.
My frozen shoulder was on my left side.
My knee problems were on my left side.
Even the ankle that never seemed to move quite right…was on my left side.
I remember thinking, there’s no way all of these things are just random.
They had to be connected somehow.
As I met with different healthcare providers, several procedures were recommended. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were talking about treating each painful body part instead of asking why they were all happening on the same side of my body.
So I started researching.
That’s when I discovered posture therapy.
I decided to give it a try.
Within eight weeks, my sciatica had been cut roughly in half.
Within six months, it was gone.
That experience didn’t just change how I felt.
It completely changed how I understood the body.
It’s also the reason I became a posture therapist.
Today, one explanation we frequently see in the studio has become one of the first things I think about whenever someone walks through the door with sciatica.
Let’s talk about it.
Before We Talk About Sciatica, Let’s Finish the Story We’ve Been Building
If you’ve been following this blog series, you’ve probably noticed we’re slowly putting together a puzzle.
First, we talked about how muscles tell bones what to do.
Bones don’t move themselves. Muscles pull on them to create every movement you make.
Then we talked about how nerves tell muscles what to do.
Every time you scratch an itch, wave at a friend, or stand up from a chair, your brain sends tiny electrical messages through your nerves telling your muscles exactly when to contract.
Sciatica is simply the next chapter in that story.
Because what happens when the nerve carrying those messages no longer has enough room?
That’s where things get interesting.
What Exactly Is the Sciatic Nerve?
The sciatic nerve is the largest nerve in your body.
It begins in your lower back, travels through your buttock, down the back of your thigh, into your calf, and all the way to your foot.
That’s why sciatica can feel so strange.
Some people have pain in their buttock.
Others feel burning down the back of their leg.
Some notice tingling in their calf.
Others have numbness in their foot.
It’s all the same nerve.
The symptoms simply show up somewhere along its pathway.
Pain tells you where to look.
It doesn’t always tell you what to fix.
So…What Is a Disc?
Between each pair of bones in your spine sits a spinal disc.
Think of it as your body’s built-in shock absorber.
Its job is to cushion movement, absorb pressure, and help keep space between the bones in your spine.
When pressure is distributed relatively evenly, discs usually do their job incredibly well.
One explanation we frequently see in the studio is that when one side of the lower spine begins carrying more pressure than the other over months or years, that uneven loading may contribute to irritation of the disc.
Discs don’t wake up one morning and decide to bulge.
We’ll talk much more about that in next week’s article because understanding spinal compression is a huge part of understanding back pain.
For today, what’s important to know is this:
A bulging disc doesn’t always cause pain.
Believe it or not, many people have a bulging disc and never know it.
Why?
Because the disc itself isn’t always the painful part.
If the disc bulges but there’s still enough room around the nearby nerve, you may never notice it’s there.
One explanation we frequently see in the studio is that symptoms often begin when the bulging disc starts taking up enough space to irritate the sciatic nerve.
The nerve is caught in the middle.
That’s when burning, tingling, numbness, weakness, or pain can begin.
Imagine Standing on One Leg for Eight Hours
Thankfully, almost none of us actually do that.
But imagine you did.
For eight hours.
Every day.
One side of your body would absorb more force than the other.
Your muscles would begin adapting.
Your joints would move differently.
Your pelvis would gradually rotate.
Your lower back would begin carrying more pressure on one side than the other.
Fortunately, most of us don’t spend our lives standing on one leg.
But many of us do something surprisingly similar.
We always cross the same leg.
We carry our child on the same hip.
We lean on the same kitchen counter.
We shift our weight into the same leg while waiting in line.
We stand with one knee bent and one hip popped out.
None of those things are a problem by themselves.
The body is incredibly good at adapting.
Unfortunately, sometimes it adapts to the wrong things.
Those little habits rarely hurt after one day.
They add up after thousands of repetitions.
One explanation we frequently see in the studio is that over time, certain muscles become “sleepy.” They stop contributing as much as they should, while others work overtime to compensate. As that happens, the pelvis can gradually rotate and one side—often through the area where the spine meets the pelvis, called the SI joint—may stop moving as smoothly as it should.
Now the pressure traveling through the lower spine is no longer as balanced as it once was.
Let’s follow the pressure.
Why Does Sitting Make Sciatica Worse?
This is probably the question I hear most often.
One explanation we frequently see in the studio is that when the pelvis has gradually rotated over time, many people don’t sit evenly anymore.
Without realizing it, they sit heavier on one sit bone than the other.
That extra pressure travels upward through the pelvis into the lower spine.
If one side of the spine is already carrying more load, sitting unevenly may increase that imbalance even further.
As the pressure increases, the disc may take up a little more space.
If that space is where the sciatic nerve travels, the nerve may become more irritated.
That’s why many people say,
“I can’t wait to stand up.”
Not because sitting is bad.
But because standing changes where the pressure goes.
A Quick Self-Test
Here’s something I ask people to try all the time.
Sit in a chair with both feet flat on the floor.
Close your eyes.
Don’t try to “sit up straight.”
Just sit naturally.
Now ask yourself a simple question.
Do both sit bones feel like they’re carrying the same amount of weight?
Or does one side feel noticeably heavier?
Does one knee feel farther forward?
Does one leg feel longer?
Do you naturally lean to one side?
Most people have never paid attention to these things.
But your body has.
And if you’re consistently loading one side more than the other, your spine has probably noticed too.
Why Does Standing Make It Worse for Some People?
Here’s where sciatica gets interesting.
Some people can’t sit without pain.
Others can’t stand without pain.
Why the difference?
Let’s follow the pressure.
If you naturally stand with most of your weight in one hip, that side of your pelvis continues carrying more force all day long.
One explanation we frequently see in the studio is that if the pelvis has been rotated for a long time and the SI joint on one side isn’t moving well, standing may continue feeding that same uneven pressure into the lower spine.
For those people, sitting may actually spread the load out a little more evenly.
Everyone’s movement pattern is different.
That’s why two people can have “sciatica” and experience it very differently.
Why Does It Feel Better When You Lie Down?
This part actually makes perfect sense once you follow the pressure.
When you lie down, your spine is no longer supporting the weight of your upper body the same way it does when you’re standing or sitting.
Many of the muscles that have been working all day begin to relax.
The uneven compression traveling through your lower back often decreases.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the disc magically healed.
It doesn’t mean the nerve suddenly became healthy.
It simply means there may now be a little more room around that irritated nerve.
Sometimes, that small change in pressure is enough for symptoms to settle down.
That’s why so many people say,
“I can finally relax when I get into bed.”
It’s not that the problem disappeared.
It’s that the pressure changed.
And once you understand that…
Sciatica starts making a whole lot more sense.
Why Doesn’t Everyone With a Bulging Disc Have Sciatica?
This is one of the biggest misconceptions about back pain.
Many people hear the words “You have a bulging disc” and immediately assume surgery is inevitable.
Not necessarily.
Believe it or not, plenty of people have bulging discs and never know it.
They don’t have pain.
They don’t have numbness.
They don’t have sciatica.
So what’s the difference?
One explanation we frequently see in the studio is that a bulging disc doesn’t always create symptoms by itself. Symptoms often begin when that disc starts taking up enough space to irritate the sciatic nerve.
Think of the nerve like a highway.
When traffic is flowing normally, everyone gets where they’re need to go.
But if construction narrows the highway from three lanes down to one, traffic backs up pretty quickly.
The road didn’t disappear.
There’s just less room.
The same idea applies to the sciatic nerve.
When the space around the nerve becomes smaller, the nerve may become irritated. That’s when you might experience pain, tingling, burning, numbness, or even weakness somewhere along the path of that nerve.
Pain tells you where to look.
It doesn’t always tell you what to fix.
What About Piriformis Syndrome?
You may have heard someone say,
“My piriformis muscle is pinching my sciatic nerve.”
That absolutely can happen.
The piriformis is a small muscle deep in the buttock, and in some people it can irritate the sciatic nerve as it travels nearby.
But here’s something I find interesting.
One explanation we frequently see in the studio is that many people with piriformis-related sciatic pain also have a pelvis that has gradually rotated over time.
If the pelvis isn’t moving the way it should, the muscles attached to it—including the piriformis—often aren’t working the way they’re supposed to either.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the piriformis is the original problem.
It may simply be responding to the way the pelvis has been moving for months or even years.
That’s why I’m always more interested in asking,
“Why is the piriformis working so hard?”
than simply trying to get it to relax.
Follow the Dominoes
Let’s put everything together.
One explanation we frequently see in the studio often looks something like this.
Certain muscles gradually become underactive.
↓
Other muscles begin compensating.
↓
The pelvis slowly rotates and one side stops moving as smoothly as it should.
↓
One side of the lower spine begins carrying more pressure than the other.
↓
The disc experiences uneven loading over time.
↓
The disc may begin taking up more space around the sciatic nerve.
↓
The nerve becomes irritated.
↓
Pain, burning, tingling, numbness, or weakness begins traveling down the leg.
When you look at it this way, sciatica doesn’t seem nearly as random.
It becomes a chain of events.
And if that’s the case…
It makes sense to ask a bigger question.
So…What Do We Actually Need to Fix?
If you’ve read this far, you may have noticed something.
We’ve spent surprisingly little time talking about the sciatic nerve itself.
That’s intentional.
The sciatic nerve is often the structure letting you know something isn’t right.
But it isn’t always the reason things went wrong in the first place.
One explanation we frequently see in the studio is that if we only chase the painful nerve, we may miss the movement pattern that has been placing extra stress on that area all along.
Pain tells you where to look.
It doesn’t always tell you what to fix.
That doesn’t mean the nerve isn’t important.
Of course it is.
It simply means the nerve may be the messenger.
And if all we do is quiet the messenger without asking why it started talking…
we may never solve the bigger puzzle.
Does Sciatica Always Mean Surgery?
Not at all.
Sometimes surgery is absolutely the right decision.
If someone is losing bowel or bladder control, experiencing significant muscle weakness, or has other serious neurological symptoms, they need prompt medical evaluation.
For many people, an MRI can also provide valuable information and help rule out more serious problems. Having your physician review your imaging and symptoms is an important part of understanding what’s going on.
Depending on what the MRI shows and how severe your symptoms are, surgery may be one of several treatment options discussed.
But here’s something worth thinking about.
If the movement pattern that contributed to the uneven pressure through the spine hasn’t changed, it’s reasonable to ask whether that underlying issue should also be addressed.
One explanation we frequently see in the studio is that helping the body move more evenly may reduce some of the stress being placed on the lower back over time.
That’s why I don’t just ask,
“Where does it hurt?”
I ask,
“Why has that area been under extra stress?”
Those are two very different questions.
Putting It All Together
Over the last few blogs, we’ve been building a simple understanding of how the body works.
Muscles tell bones what to do.
Nerves tell muscles what to do.
Now we’ve added another piece to the puzzle.
When a nerve becomes irritated because it doesn’t have enough room, the muscles it communicates with may not function quite the way they’re supposed to. Over time, those changes in movement can continue feeding the same problem unless we understand where the extra pressure is coming from.
Let’s follow the pressure.
One explanation we frequently see in the studio is that when pressure becomes uneven through the pelvis and lower spine, the body adapts.
Sometimes those adaptations help us.
Sometimes they don’t.
The body is incredibly good at adapting.
Unfortunately, sometimes it adapts to the wrong things.
The good news?
The body can also adapt in a healthier direction.
Looking Back…
Looking back, I’m actually grateful for my sciatica.
I never thought I’d say those words.
It wasn’t fun.
It hurt.
It changed how I exercised.
It changed how I sat.
It changed how I slept.
But it also forced me to ask better questions.
I couldn’t accept that my frozen shoulder, my knee, my ankle, and my sciatica were all unrelated simply because they hurt in different places.
The body rarely whispers in just one place.
Those questions eventually led me to posture therapy.
Today, they still guide every posture assessment I perform.
Pain tells us where to look.
It doesn’t always tell us what to fix.
One explanation we frequently see in the studio is that when we stop chasing the symptom and start understanding the movement behind it, the body often responds in remarkable ways.
It doesn’t happen overnight.
Meaningful change rarely does.
But for many people, understanding why something is happening is the first step toward changing it.
If you’re struggling with sciatica and you’re looking for an approach that focuses on how your body moves—not just where it hurts—Professor Posture may be able to help. My goal is never to replace your physician or tell you what treatment is right for you. It’s simply to help you better understand your body and explore whether improving the way you move might reduce some of the stress contributing to your symptoms.
Coming Next Week…
Discs don’t wake up one morning and decide to bulge.
So what actually happens?
Next week, we’ll take a closer look at spinal compression, why discs bulge, the difference between a bulging, herniated, and ruptured disc, and why understanding those differences may completely change the way you think about back pain.
