Hernia Exercises: The 100-Year-Old Program Doctors Used
Introduction
At one point, doctors weren’t telling people to avoid movement with a hernia…
they were prescribing exercises for it.
This really jumped out at me.
Because everything I had been told up to that point pointed in one direction: surgery. If you want the bigger picture on that, I wrote more here about can a hernia heal without surgery.
So when I came across this old medical text from 1916 laying out an actual program of hernia exercises, I remember thinking:
👉 Why was this ever a thing… and why isn’t it anymore?
That question alone was enough for me to try it.
Watch this breakdown where I actually tested this program:
The 100-Year-Old Hernia Exercise Program
The book is called The Therapeutics of Activity.
And buried in it is a full routine specifically for hernias.
Not general fitness.
Not “stay active.”
Targeted exercises for the abdominal wall.
What stood out wasn’t just the exercises.
It was the reasoning behind them.
If the structures that are supposed to support the abdominal wall aren’t doing their job…
Then things start pushing through.
I remember reading that and thinking…
That actually makes a lot of sense.
Because around the same time, I had watched a bunch of videos of a surgeon explaining non-mesh repairs, pointing to the same exact area in every video and saying:
“This part is weak… It’s flabby… and has no strength.”
Now I’m seeing the same idea from two completely different directions.
That’s when I stopped just reading about it…
and decided to actually test it.
The Hernia Exercises I Actually Tried
I didn’t follow the program exactly as written.
The original version used an incline setup with your feet elevated.
I didn’t have that.
So I adapted everything to the floor and just focused on consistency.
I gave all the exercises a name to make them easy to remember. This is all of the hernia exercises I was doing:
- Exercise #1 Leg Pulls
- Exercise #2 Sleeping Bag (or pillow) Squeeze
- Exercise #3 Leg L’s
- Exercise #4 Reverse Swim
- Exercise #5 V-Ups
- Exercise #6 Knee Circle Leg Extensions
- Exercise #7 V-Downs
- Exercise #8 Around The World
- Exercise #9 Straight Leg Sit-Ups
- Exercise #10 Straight Leg Side Ups
Nothing fancy.
But I stuck with it.
At that point, I wasn’t expecting anything dramatic…
I just wanted to see if it changed anything at all.
If you want to see a video demonstration of all of the hernia exercises I used, check out this post that walks you through all of them.
The Moment That Didn’t Make Sense
There was one movement that stood out right away.
Straight leg sit-ups
The first time I tried one…
I couldn’t do it.
Not even close.
I had to use a resistance band just to get up.
And I remember thinking…
how is that possible?
Because I wasn’t out of shape.
I was still riding, surfing, training…
But this exposed something completely different.
It wasn’t about strength in the way I understood it.
It was like something just… wasn’t connecting.
That was the first moment when I started questioning what was actually going on under the surface.
Why Most Hernia Exercises Don’t Work
This is where things started to shift for me.
Because most people hear “core exercises” and think:
- crunches
- sit-ups
- ab workouts
That’s what I thought too.
But this didn’t feel like that at all.
This felt like a lack of control… not just strength.
And that led me to the transversus abdominis.
The deeper layer of your core that actually makes up the wall of the inguinal canal.
And I remember realizing:
👉 if that’s not doing its job… nothing on top of it really matters
That was a big shift.
The Missing Piece That Changed Everything
Even after doing the hernia exercises for a while, something still felt off.
I was improving… but not in a way that made me confident I was actually fixing anything.
It felt like I was working around the problem… not solving it.
Then I came across the ab vacuum.
And this is where things actually changed.
Because this wasn’t just another exercise.
This was learning how to activate that deep support system directly.
At first, it felt awkward.
Like, I couldn’t fully connect to it.
But once that started to click…
Everything else started to make more sense
The exercises felt different.
My awareness of what was happening changed.
That was the turning point.
Why Support Still Made Sense
One thing that stood out in that original program…
They didn’t rely on exercises alone.
They also recommended using a hernia belt.
It makes complete sense.
Because if something is already pushing outward…
You need to manage that while you’re working on the underlying issue.
For me, that meant I could:
- stay active
- keep training
- stop thinking about it all day
And honestly, that mental side of it was huge.
What Happened Over Time
I didn’t have some big moment where everything suddenly fixed itself.
It was gradual.
But I started noticing things:
The hernia wasn’t as reactive.
It stayed reduced more consistently.
I wasn’t constantly aware of it anymore.
And at some point…
I realized I just wasn’t thinking about it anymore.
And eventually it was completely out of sight and out of mind.
Now I can surf, ride, train…
without having to think about it at all. Like it was never even there to begin with.
Why Did This Approach Disappear?
This is the part that still doesn’t fully add up to me.
If doctors were prescribing hernia exercises like this…
Why did that completely disappear?
Was it because surgery became more effective?
Probably.
Was it because this takes more time and effort?
Definitely.
But it still raises the question:
Was something useful replaced… just because something faster came along?
I don’t have a perfect answer for that.
But it’s hard to ignore.
Do Hernia Exercises Work?
This is what most people actually want to know.
Do they work?
Yeah… they do.
I wouldn’t be where I am today if they didn’t.
But here’s the part most people don’t want to hear.
It’s not a quick fix.
And it’s probably not something that works in isolation.
What I did wasn’t just run through a few exercises and hope for the best.
I committed to it.
Consistently.
Over time.
While also working on the other things that actually matter:
- how my core was functioning
- how I was moving
- how I was managing pressure
- what I was putting into my body
That combination is what changed things.
So no… It’s not magic.
But it’s also not nothing.
👉 If the abdominal wall isn’t functioning the way it should…
then improving that function matters.
And in my case, that made all the difference.
Final Thoughts
This was the shift for me.
Not:
“how do I fix this thing?”
But:
“why is this happening in the first place?”
Once I started looking at it that way…
Everything I did started to move in the right direction.
And over time, that added up to get me to be completely asymptomatic.