Herniated discs

hi, I have the same herniations, 1 cm at l4/l5, a smaller one at l5/s1. For the first 3.5 years, everytime i did something physical it was a pay to play arrangement. play basketball, hurt all the next day. thats how it went, then finally the pain started to taper off. now im 5.5 years down the road, no pain, lifting heavy and extremely active. its going to take time, and dont do anything initially that could worsen the herniation. stretching the AT (i think?) band, the one that runs down your leg will help as it will loosen the pull on the back. Also, the more core work you do , the better, abs and lower back. hypers and declined situps are what i started with, now I work it with declined situps and straightlegged deads. the stronger my core is, the less I hurt. its going to take time, and its going to hurt like crazy sometimes. try to stay away from pain killers as they can drasticallty lower your metablism and energy levels (they did for me). Take care of the injury though, and when you feel like your core is fairly strong, start adding weight to your core exercises. once your core is strong, you can start increasing weight in your other exercises and incorporating full body exercises like deadlift and squat. Good luck, message me if you have any other questions or want to bs about it.