My Hinge Health Member Story: Alex

“I've stuck with the back program for over a year now and my pain is manageable. Without the Hinge Health Program, I’d probably be in and out of physical therapy.”

Meet Alex

Alex, a middle-aged man, was an avid long-distance runner for years until sciatica made running impossible.

How pain impacted Alex’s life

The pain started with some pain in my right leg. In 2019, I was starting to get more pain down my leg and in my hip.

Then the week after my 40th birthday, I had an incident where I had some severe pain down my leg that debilitated me for a whole weekend.

At that point, I went to see my doctor and they sort of pinpointed that my sciatic pain was really due to some muscles in my back. The pain was referring down into my leg. 

Alex’s turning point

When I started with Hinge Health, I had already gotten to the point where I was having less pain due to physical therapy. But the Hinge Health exercises really kind of put me into the next phase of my recovery.

After a couple of weeks of working on my hip and back strength, I started to notice a little bit of improvement.

I've stuck with the program for over a year now and my pain is manageable. I still get back twinges once in a while but it's something I know how to deal with now, which is important to me. It doesn't manifest as sciatica anymore, which is wonderful.

Without the Hinge Health program, I’d probably be in and out of physical therapy. I imagine I would probably slack off on the home exercises and then [my pain] would get worse again.

How Hinge Health helped

One of the things I love about it is that I can choose what exercises I do on any given day. I like to be able to mix up the routine once in a while, not just do the same thing every day, every time I do it.

Whatever I choose, I know it's going to be focusing on the right muscles. Lately, I've been branching out and focusing more on upper-body stuff that I hadn't been doing before.

My son is of an age now where he's starting to get into exercise, so I've been trying to use him as a catalyst to get out [running] again. I haven't run any significant distances yet; I can do a mile or two, but that's about it. But I’m happy that I’m doing it. I'm not trying to do 10-mile races anymore. 

Alex’s advice

It's not a huge time commitment. It’s about 20 minutes a day, three times a week. So, it's not much time, it's free, and you'll see results.