I had disc herniation and my mother, who is a retired doctor, said to just do a lot of fast walking. This is the only activity I could do anyways after running marathons just months before. So 10 to 21.1 km walks helped a lot.
I also did some own research. The disks tissue has no blood vessels and the only way to get nutrients is via diffusion, so any activity is essential to accelerate the diffusion and recovery. Walking puts gentle axial load on the spine and knees and is simple and more accessible than e.g. swimming, which is probably even more gentle but hard to do daily for an hour.
> I had disc herniation and my mother, who is a retired doctor, said to just do a lot of fast walking.
Anecdotally slow walking makes my sciatica worse and fast walking alleviates any pain in minutes.
Did your mother, or your research, point to any reasons why fast walking in particular?
My working theory for my body in particular is that I'm more on my toes with less heel impact but I couldn't find anything other than anecdotes here. Also light skipping on my toes helps in a similar matter in a pinch.
My explanation/understanding is that fast walking with larger strides creates rotational movement around the spine axis and that stimulates the tissue. With slow walking, one could do that with no body rotation and only the legs move.
I'll experiment with it and try to isolate it. The description reminds me of twisting but twisting is often associated with more pain. However there are some videos that suggest similar movements relieve symptoms. This one[1] seems quite popular.
I also did some own research. The disks tissue has no blood vessels and the only way to get nutrients is via diffusion, so any activity is essential to accelerate the diffusion and recovery. Walking puts gentle axial load on the spine and knees and is simple and more accessible than e.g. swimming, which is probably even more gentle but hard to do daily for an hour.