- 1, 2, 3. Ow, Bob.
Oh, look at you. Look at the biceps bulge.
I just hurt my bicep, Bob.
Oh. So bicep strains.
We're gonna show you a solid treatment method,
There's three primary steps to get through,
to get back in the game
and start moving that arm again without pain.
Ah, and start looking like that.
Bob, you've been really working those, haven't you?
Oh, we are just two
stud muffins. - Yeah, mashed potatoes.
♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapist ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- All right, so if you've injured your bicep.
It's tender, it's sore, it hurts when you move it.
The first thing you do is give it a day or two of rest.
When you sit down, have a arm rest.
It's really important to put a pillow here.
It makes a big difference.
- Keep it supported.
- Yeah, it really makes a difference on having it relax.
Get a cold pack.
- [Bob] You might have some swelling.
- Yep. We wanna get that swelling down
and just let it calm down so it's not so jumpy and tender,
just when you just move it a little bit.
15, 20 minutes of the cold pack.
Three times a day.
- [Bob] Sounds good.
- Gentle motion.
Gentle. And then we'll show you the next step.
(air swooshing)
Okay. This isn't the next step, taking a nap.
But this is a position you're gonna get into
for the next step.
- I'll stay awake.
(both laughing)
- Bob is with us.
So he's gonna demonstrate how to do technique,
as I talk through it.
This is called the strain, counter strain.
It's been around for years.
It can be very effective on an injury like this.
So if this is the bicep that's got the muscle strain,
the first thing you're gonna do
is bring the palm up like that.
We call that supination.
The next step, flex the elbow as far as it can go.
You're gonna use the other hand.
While you're doing this, this arm is to be,
and shoulders to be relaxed as possible.
So get a comfortable position.
So that's the second step, maximum elbow flexion.
And the third step is shoulder flexion.
So you bring the elbow up like this.
Bob is supporting here.
You might want to grab the elbow or here.
There we go.
And now at this point, we got the bicep
at a real flacid position, and you can noodle it around
a little bit to get the most comfortable position.
So the pain, at this point, should be very close to zero.
If it's at a one or two
and you move it this way, it drops down to a half,
keep it there, as comfortable as possible.
And then you have to time this.
Get the position of maximum comfort and for 120 seconds,
a minute and a half to two minutes,
you're gonna hold it there.
Very relaxed. Everything is quiet and calm.
The dog isn't around licking your face
(Bob chuckling)
or the kids aren't jumping on your stomach.
And you're gonna hold it there and relax
for at least 120 seconds, a minute and a half.
When you're done with that, slowly in a relaxed manner,
you bring the arm back to its original position.
There you go.
And you plan, after this technique,
you're gonna do nothing but relax.
Maybe watch TV, read a book.
You can massage that bicep a little bit,
gently but not real aggressive.
Just enough to get that muscle to relax.
We're getting blood flow to the area maximally.
It's gonna heal much faster.
And you can do this two or three times a day,
but within a couple days
this should get that initial healing going
to get to the next step.
And I will show you that shortly.
How you doing, Bob?
- Good.
- Yeah, maybe- - Oh, sorry. Good.
- Yeah, maybe you can get your wife
to do a little massage on you.
- I doubt it.
- Yeah, it's not gonna work at my house either.
Okay.
(air swooshing)
So here we are after a few days,
the counter strain is working out well.
It's starting to move.
And you can start to do range of motion,
but with the bicep you'll wanna bring your hand like this,
down by your side.
You can do this seated or standing
and then you're gonna start going back like this.
Not like this, but up tall.
And this is gonna stretch it a little bit more.
When you can get all the way back to here
with not much pain, just a little stretch pain.
If it gets sharp pain, you're going too much.
So just gently work it five or 10 repetitions
every couple hours.
But when you can get to the point where,
"Ah, it's not too bad," back to here,
then you can take a stick and bring it back like this.
And then you can drop your knees
and stretch it a little more.
But don't get too aggressive,
we're just trying to get a little more stretch out of it.
- No pain.
- Yep. No pain.
When you're back to here, woo, that's okay.
I mean we're not trying to get your arm
to go all the way around.
Just a normal,
(both laughing)
you know, like one of those things.
All right.
(air swooshing)
So we got it stretched out. It's moving pretty good.
And at this point
it's probably ready for a cross-friction massage.
It's a technique to start breaking up the scar tissue
that's developed from the healing of the injury.
So we're gonna find that tender spot, wherever it may be.
If it's in the muscle belly
or more towards the crease - Also increase blood flow.
- Yep. And get that blood flow going.
That's a key to healing.
So let's say it's right there.
Oh, it's tender right there.
You can kind of feel it's healing up.
There's a little bump in there.
- You go across it.
- Yep. Fibers go this way.
We're gonna go across it this way.
It may hurt at first,
but after about 20 seconds, 30 seconds,
it starts to feel better.
Then you keep at it.
If it starts to hurt more after 30 seconds
and it's just irritating it.
It's not ready for this yet.
Give it a couple days or whatever.
- Keep icing.
- Yep. If it's feeling good,
then you can do this for a while.
You know, until your fingers get sore, typically.
'Cause Cyriax the surgeon who invented this, doctor-
- 15, 20 minutes.
- Yeah, you're never gonna do it
without busting your fingers.
So do it 'til your fingers get tired
and then give it a break.
Come back.
The other option is if you happen to have a massage gun
a lot of people do nowadays.
We've got a couple of them here.
- The Q2.
- Yep, if you got, some of these smaller ones,
this one works really well.
- Very powerful.
- Yep. It'll work just as good as this bigger one.
For something like this.
This is a airhead.
You don't want that.
Use the round head.
Okay. And the reason you use a round head,
because you do not wanna go directly in on that injury,
it's gonna just beat it up and it's gonna get it sore.
We wanna go sideways, because remember these guns,
they reciprocate back and forth.
So we're giving it a cross friction technique.
And you don't wear your fingers out.
If you wanna get more aggressive
you can put a little more pressure down.
After you've done this for a few days.
- It feels good.
- Yep, it does.
Now, if it's sore right on the injury, you can work above it
and you can do this with your fingers as well and below it.
- Around it.
- Yep. Work your way towards it.
As it starts to, you'll find out that within a day or two,
once you break that scar tissue up
things really start moving faster there.
And then you'll find that you might wanna work here
just 'cause it feels good.
Or work other parts of your body.
But anyways, the round head, three to five minutes,
you should be good.
All right, and we've got the recovery
to get that muscle stronger.
Strong like bull.
All right. Quit playing with the gun, Bob.
- Have fun.
(air swooshing)
- All right. We're getting into the final stages of recovery
for that bicep and that is strengthening.
Now you can use your traditional dumbbells,
however we feel that actually resistance bands
particularly recovering from an injury
can be have a big advantage.
Number one, you can vary the resistance
without having to buy six or different dumbbells.
But if you have 'em around you can use dumbbells
if you'd like, it'll work fine.
We'll demonstrate.
Bob's got the large loop bands, which work good.
I've got the two bands.
And you can just start out with simple.
Now I'm just gonna start with one, like this.
Start light.
Don't try to break through this
and get strong all in two days,
'cause you're gonna re-injure it
and you're gonna set yourself back
and start from the beginning again.
I know, I've done it.
So don't do that.
I've had patients do the same thing.
10 reps is a good place to start.
And when you start,
it shouldn't even really get to that point
of burning muscle.
We're just starting to activate those muscle fibers
with a little resistance.
Set of 10, do it later in the day,
two or three times after, the next day
and there's no injuries
or there's no soreness. - Or soreness. Right.
- Then you can start to increase the resistance.
This red band's pretty small.
I'm gonna double it up.
That's not a lot more.
And you notice how we're working good form.
We're not doing this.
Okay, I'm just keeping the elbow at a hinge point
and just working elbow resistance.
Bob is increasing his, if you have a loop band, they're-
- Double it.
- You can get very creative with bands.
Okay, I'm gonna show you if it happened-
- Oh, that's working!
- Oh Bob. See now that would be too much, too soon.
- Too much? Alright.
(Brad chuckling)
- If you have something that you can anchor your band to,
either the wall, you can use a post,
a handrail off a staircase
or we used to use the one off your bed, right?
- Right. - Yeah.
- I ruined the post.
- Yeah. Well, I won't worry about that.
- Use the wall anchors.
- So you can do this.
This is a nice way to start it.
And the really nice thing about this,
is you can vary the resistance by how far you stand back.
These things don't break.
Well, they do break occasionally,
but typically just keep an eye on 'em.
You'll see if they're wearing.
- That's probably more the short head of the bicep.
- Yep and then that's a nice thing about this.
We can simply-
- Turn around and get the long head.
- Yep. Turn around.
I'm just gonna use one.
So if this is my injured arm,
it allows it to go all the way back.
We're getting full range of motion all the way to here.
You know when that feels good after 10 repetitions
and no pain the next day,
you may wanna increase to the next level.
Don't increase too fast.
Good judgment.
And then you can also double it up
and get it from two directions, get real functional.
And then if you change the level of where you anchor it to,
that's one of the benefits of using the wall anchor.
They're so versatile
and functional for these type of things.
Now this is a little bit different
than at the level I was before, as well as working here.
Change the resistance from here. It's easy.
Oh, here oh.
- We use these ourselves.
- Oh yeah.
I've got a whole wall full of these anchors
and I've got bands hanging all over it.
It looks like-
- Your wife must love you.
- Yeah. She stays outta that room.
No, she comes in every now and then.
So once you get to that point,
you know, get back to your activity.
Depending on what your activity is,
it's gonna determine on how aggressive you get with that.
We're not gonna get into
the return to activity aspect of it.
But again, three sets of 10, maximum fatigue
and it feels fine, the next day it feels fine.
You're probably above 90% healed
and you're ready to get back going.
Well Bob.
- Go to it.
- Yeah. Strong like bull.
Get those biceps going and it's a big part of life.
So we can fix just about anything except for...
- A broken heart.
- That's right.
And we're gonna keep on working until the thing is fixed!
Sorry, Bob.
Oh, it's all right Brad.
- It's Christmas season.
- That's all right. That's all right.
- I haven't got my Christmas shopping done yet.
- I understand.
- Yeah. I'm losing my filter.
(Bob chuckling)
(upbeat music)