Gentle Nerve Glides
Helps a healing nerve move freely and can ease leg symptoms — gentle, never into sharp pain.
What it helps
Helps a healing nerve slide freely, which can ease leg or arm symptoms. Gentle is the rule — never push into sharp pain.
How to do it
- Sit tall in a chair.
- Slowly straighten one knee while flexing your foot up, until you feel a light stretch down the leg.
- Bend the knee back down — move in and out smoothly.
Tips
- Stay in a gentle, pain-free range.
- Stop if it sharply increases leg pain.
Commonly done as 1–2 sets of 10, 1–2 times a day.
Where this appears in recovery
Gentle Nerve Glides is part of 30 recovery programs, most often at the immediate recovery (weeks 0–2), early recovery (weeks 2–6) and build (weeks 4–8) stages, among others. Each program shows how it fits alongside the other movements:
- Tarsal Tunnel Release exercise guide
- Tarsal Tunnel Release exercise guide
- Spinal Cord Stimulator Implant exercise guide
- Spinal Cord Stimulator Implant exercise guide
- Lateral Lumbar Interbody Fusion (LLIF / XLIF / OLIF) exercise guide
- Lateral Lumbar Interbody Fusion (LLIF / XLIF / OLIF) exercise guide
- Revision Lumbar Fusion exercise guide
- Revision Lumbar Fusion exercise guide
- Lumbar Microdiscectomy exercise guide
- Sacroiliac Joint Fusion exercise guide
- Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion (ALIF) exercise guide
- Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion (ALIF) exercise guide
- …and 18 more
All exercise guides · Condition guides · Recovery education
These are general exercise guides, not a personal prescription. The repetitions and frequency shown are what's commonly used — your own surgeon or therapist may advise something different, and their guidance comes first.