Exercises to avoid with sciatica, and what to do instead

Which exercises should you avoid with sciatica?

Fewer than most lists suggest, and rarely for good. The nerve root behind sciatica is irritated, not broken. Your job for the next few weeks is to keep moving without stirring it up further. The NHS puts regular exercise alongside your normal activities among the first things to try, and NICE asks clinicians to match the type of exercise to each person's needs, preferences and capabilities rather than hand out a banned list (NICE NG59). So the rule on this page is the one the sciatica program runs on: a movement that sends pain, tingling or numbness further down your leg gets paused, and one that leaves the leg the same or better stays in.

A handful of things fail that test far more than the rest.

Long hamstring stretches and toe touches come top of the list. Lifting a straight leg high, or reaching for your feet with your knees locked, pulls on the sciatic nerve as well as on the muscle behind the thigh. Clinicians use exactly that position, the straight leg raise, as one of their tests for an irritated nerve root, because it so often brings the leg pain on (van der Windt and colleagues, 2010). Leave strong hamstring stretching until the leg pain has settled, and ask your physio which version to restart with.

Held slumped stretches do something similar. Sitting with your back rounded, chin dropped and one knee straight puts the whole length of the nerve on tension at once. Held for 30 seconds, that asks a lot of a sensitive nerve. The same seated shape done as a moving glide is a different thing, covered below.

Heavy lifting and loaded bending are not banned, but the load comes down first. That covers deadlifts, heavy squats, and lifting boxes or children off the floor. Stage 3 of the program rebuilds these movements with sit to stand and the squat once the leg has calmed, and returning to the gym after injury has a step plan if you train with weights.

Running and jumping come back later rather than first, and sprint sports come last of all. Walking keeps you active in the meantime, and the running hub covers building back up once brisk walking leaves the leg no worse.

Long spells in one position count too, even though they are not exercise. An hour in a chair is often what turns a manageable leg into a bad evening, and sciatica pain when sitting covers how often to get up.

Why does your leg matter more than your back?

Because the leg tells you what the nerve thinks of a movement, and the back mostly does not. Some ache in your back during or after exercise is common with sciatica and fine if it settles within a day.

Watch where the leg symptoms sit after each exercise. Symptoms that pull back toward your buttock or lower back are a good sign, which physios call centralization. A review of back and neck pain studies found that 21 of 23 linked centralization to a better outlook (May and Aina, 2012). Symptoms that spread further toward your foot are the signal to stop that movement for now.

This is also why forward and backward bending are not on a banned list. Stage 1 of the program offers both directions: the pelvic tilt and knee to chest stretch bend the back forward, while prone lying and the standing back extension arch it back. One person's leg eases with the first pair and another's with the second. Try each gently and keep whichever leaves your leg the same or better.

One pattern overrides the rest. If the leg pain eases but numbness or weakness in the leg gets worse, stop the exercises and get medical advice the same day. A foot that drags, catches or slaps down as you walk also means getting medical advice the same day, and the warning list below says when to go to an emergency department instead.

What should you do instead of stretching the nerve?

Move it gently instead of pulling on it. A nerve glide, sometimes called nerve flossing, bends one joint while straightening another, so the nerve slides through its path without the tension building at either end. In an ultrasound study of 31 healthy adults, the sciatic nerve moved furthest with this kind of sliding exercise (Ellis and colleagues, 2012). Those volunteers did not have sciatica, so the study shows what the nerve does, not that glides cure anything.

The treatment evidence is modest. A review of nerve mobilization found improvements in pain and disability for chronic low back pain, but the evidence was limited and of mixed quality (Basson and colleagues, 2017). Exercise in general shows the same pattern for sciatica: a review comparing structured exercise with advice to stay active found only a small, short-term gain in leg pain, from low-quality evidence (Fernandez and colleagues, 2015). Glides earn their place as a way to keep the leg moving while it settles, not as a fix. Sciatic nerve flossing explains sliders and tensioners in more detail.

Glides are not for every stage. The program asks you to have a physio check your leg before you start them, and anyone who has had back surgery recently should get checked first too.

What can you do while the leg settles?

Keep the parts of you that do not upset the nerve working. The bridge and bird dog train the hip and trunk muscles while the back stays fairly still, walking keeps you active, and the two glides replace the stretches you have put on hold.

Exercises that can help

These five keep you moving while the leg settles. Ask a physio to check your leg before you start either nerve glide. Typical starting doses from each exercise page: seated and lying sciatic nerve glides, 5 to 10 slow, easy glides, 1 to 3 times a day; glute bridge, 2 to 3 sets of 10 to 12 with a short hold at the top; bird dog, 1 to 2 sets of 6 to 10 reps on each side, holding each reach for a few seconds at first; brisk walking, 10 to 20 minutes with a few minutes of slow walking at each end, on most days. Your physio will adjust this.

If you are pregnant and past the first three months, check with your physio before exercising flat on your back, which includes the bridge and the lying glide. If you have high blood pressure, breathe steadily through every repetition and never hold your breath.

How do you bring an exercise back?

Take the smallest version of it you can think of, and alter one thing only. A hamstring stretch held for 10 seconds at half the range. A lift at half the weight. Five minutes of easy running inside a walk. Alter two things at once and a flare tells you nothing about which one did it.

Check the leg twice afterwards, that evening and the next morning. A leg that is no worse at both checks has coped, and you can repeat that level a few times before adding a little more. A leg with pain reaching further down, or numbness that has spread, means you go back to the last level that felt fine for a few days. The pain monitoring model sets out a similar system for tracking how your body responds to exercise. If the same exercise flares the leg every time you return to it, your physio can look at how you do it or swap it.

Time matters too. The NHS says sciatica usually gets better within a few weeks to a few months, and how long sciatica lasts covers what slows recovery. Something you put on hold in week two may be fine by week eight.

Who needs to check first?

A few diagnoses change which direction is safe. If you have been told you have narrowing of the spinal canal (spinal stenosis) or a forward slip of one vertebra on another (spondylolisthesis), ask your physio before the exercises that bend the back backward: prone lying, the standing back extension, the cobra stretch and the prone back extension. With low bone density (osteoporosis), deep forward bending and twisting to the end of the range are usually limited, so ask before the knee to chest stretch and the trunk rotation.

After an operation on your back, your surgeon's or physio's plan comes first, not this page. If you are pregnant and have leg pain, ask your physio or midwife for a plan made for pregnancy. A child or teenager with pain running down one leg needs checking by a doctor or physio before starting any of these. If your leg feels weak or your balance is unsteady, do standing exercises next to a kitchen counter or a sturdy chair.

For back pain that stays in the back, exercises to avoid with lower back pain covers sit-ups, toe touches and back lifts from that angle. And if you are not sure whether your symptoms are safe to exercise with at all, when sciatica is an emergency sorts the warning signs by how fast to act.

Related exercise programs

• Sciatica
• Low back pain
• Lumbar disc herniation
• Lumbar spinal stenosis
• Spondylolisthesis
• Osteoporosis

Common questions

References

1. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Low back pain and sciatica in over 16s: assessment and management (NG59). Published 2016, last updated July 2026. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng59
2. NHS. Sciatica. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/sciatica/
3. May S, Aina A. Centralization and directional preference: a systematic review. Manual Therapy. 2012;17(6):497-506. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.math.2012.05.003
4. van der Windt DA, Simons E, Riphagen II, et al. Physical examination for lumbar radiculopathy due to disc herniation in patients with low-back pain. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2010;(2):CD007431. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD007431.pub2
5. Ellis RF, Hing WA, McNair PJ. Comparison of longitudinal sciatic nerve movement with different mobilization exercises: an in vivo study utilizing ultrasound imaging. Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy. 2012;42:667-675. https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2012.3854
6. Basson A, Olivier B, Ellis R, Coppieters M, Stewart A, Mudzi W. The effectiveness of neural mobilization for neuromusculoskeletal conditions: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy. 2017;47(9):593-615. https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2017.7117
7. Fernandez M, Hartvigsen J, Ferreira ML, et al. Advice to stay active or structured exercise in the management of sciatica: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Spine. 2015;40(18):1457-1466. https://doi.org/10.1097/BRS.0000000000001036
8. Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT), NHS England. National suspected cauda equina syndrome (CES) pathway. February 2023, updated March 2026. https://gettingitrightfirsttime.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/National-Suspected-Cauda-Equina-Pathway-March-2026.pdf
9. NHS. Abdominal aortic aneurysm. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/abdominal-aortic-aneurysm/
10. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Abdominal aortic aneurysm: diagnosis and management (NG156). 2020. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng156
11. Darouiche RO. Spinal epidural abscess. New England Journal of Medicine. 2006;355(19):2012-2020. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMra055111

Written and checked by the PocketPhysio editorial team. Last updated 2026-10-16.

This page is general education, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan. See a physiotherapist or doctor for advice about your own situation.