 A lot of times the hips get really, really tight. So what we want to do is open up some of these hips, stretch some of these tissues right here, so we have more range of motion. It takes a lot of stress off the low back when we do that. Hi everyone, this is Dr. Nathan Cimento coming at you from the Southern California University of Health Sciences. I'm one of the full-time faculty members on campus. So this next one is what's known as a piriformis stretch, okay? Sometimes we call it a figure four stretch. The patient's gonna have their feet flat on the table, bend the knees, and we're gonna do this on both sides. We're gonna take one foot, we're gonna cross it, so that the ankle rests on the opposite knee. And so you can see how this kind of makes a figure of four right there. And now on the side where the foot's still touching the table, you're gonna reach through the legs, and you're gonna grab the back of that thigh. Try not to strain your neck. You're gonna stay nice and neutral right here, and you're gonna lift your leg and pull that towards the chest. And now here on his right side, we're getting a nice deep stretch into that hip capsule, and all those tissues that sort of cross that joint. Okay, go ahead and let that down. And we'll go ahead and try the other side. We're gonna switch legs, okay? Bring the ankle over the opposite knee. Perfect, reach through. Again, we're nice and neutral here. We're not trying to flex the neck. We're not trying to do a sit-up here. We're trying to bring the leg to the body. That way we can stretch this tissue and still protect our neck and our back. Now he should be feeling this all on this left side and the hip. Is that where we're going? Perfect, okay? And again, he's gonna hold this position for about 15 to 30 seconds. When people are in pain and they have an obvious problem, you know, my shoulder's pinching, my back hurts, my knees, my hips, whatever the case is, it's gonna take some time for the body to come out of that as the inflammation goes down, as the joints start to get back into their normal position, as the muscles and tissues start to get strengthened and do more resiliency, that's gonna go away over time. And so the key is being consistent with the exercises, right? We can't just do it for a few days. I start to feel better and then I throw it away. I'm done with it.