♪ Bob and Brad, the two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists on the internet. ♪
- Howdy there folks? I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- So, do you have neck pain? We're going to show you
a simple way to strengthen your neck. And this is
from spine expert Stuart McGill, Dr. Stuart McGill.
He is by far, probably one of the top experts in the world
in treatment of the spine, especially the low back.
- So, it's not just to strengthen it,
but, as you strengthen it the pain's gonna go away.
- I'm hoping, that's what we're hoping.
- Yup
- And you know, it's always an experiment in one
when you do this.
- Right.
- It's, it's, you're the, the client.
You're the research person then.
- Yeah.
- And you've got to try it on you
and see if it works or not.
- Yeah. It's a very easy one.
- By the way, if you're new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos, how to stay healthy, fit,
pain-free, and we upload every day.
Also go to bobandbrad.com, go to the giveaway section.
We're always giving something away.
What are we giving away this week, Brad?
- Bob, look at this. We've got the...
- Pete's choice.
- Pete's choice. Yeah, there's one on the floor too.
- So, Brad's going to show how you can use it for balance.
- Yeah.
- It's a great thing for working on balance.
- It's squishy.
- But I'm sitting on one because, let me tell you,
if you want to sit on a hard surface like the bleachers,
- Yeah.
- And it's cold.
- Right.
- These things work really well for that.
- They really do.
- So, you can always find the contest.
It'll be pinned to the top of the page on Facebook.
- (laughs)
You can also go to Twitter, Instagram, or TikToK
if you want a 60 second version of our program.
- That's right.
- And Brad, what else do we have?
- We do now have podcasts going out,
and we have outstanding authors,
professionals in the field, to help you out.
- People that know what to talk about.
- Exactly.
- As opposed.
- (laughs)
- In fact, we're going to have Stuart McGill
on in a couple weeks.
- Ahhh
- This is going to be an awesome interview.
He's just a great, great man.
- Where does he live?
- Ontario, Canada
- Oh! He's from Canada?
- Yeah.
- Oh really?
- Canada, how do you say Can-nee-dah?
- We better get on with the program.
- Alright. He also was the author of the book,
"The Back Mechanic". If you're having trouble
with your lower back, I highly recommend it.
- Yeah.
- The best book I've seen on it.
So, all right, so, the exercise.
I'm going to tell you first why it works
and is better than others.
Very simply, when you're doing exercises,
like you're strengthening the neck,
and you're doing isotonically,
so you're, you know, you're giving resistance,
- Sure.
- as you move?
- With movement.
- You're putting a lot of stress on the discs and joints.
You might be able to tolerate it
if you, if you tolerate and it doesn't hurt,
- Sure.
- Then it's fine to go ahead. But even isometrically,
let's say you're doing it this way.
I'm going to strengthen the flexors.
- Push forward
- I'm going to strengthen the side, you know,
for side bending. I'm going to strengthen for rotation.
All of that could be causing sheer forces
on the, on the, on the joints.
- Mhm.
- And, and that will not feel good.
I mean, you'll tell right away it hurts.
You, you just told a story, Brad,
how you were showing that one story.
- Right, we were doing a isometric flexion exercise,
which definitely wasn't that comfortable in my upper neck.
So I, I don't do that anymore.
- Yeah. So the, this, this type of thing is isometric,
but it doesn't put sheer forces,
'cause the, the direction of the force.
- You mean the exercise we're going to show?
- Show you, right.
- Yup.
- So, I want you to try it.
If you have pain, stop, don't do it.
If you don't have pain, let's do it, you know one time a day
for the first day, maybe five times, 10 second hold.
- Yup
- And then the next day, you could do it
throughout the day if it feels okay.
- Right, you'll know 'cause it,
it feels good while you're doing it, and afterwards.
- Now, we're trying to strengthen the muscles
to help you have good posture.
- Sure.
- So it's good that Brad's facing this way
because what, what happens quite often,
happens quite often, is that you do a forward head posture
- Yes.
- and you're actually strengthening
the muscles back here, the extensors.
So we want to strengthen the flexors.
- The ones on the front. They're deep!
- Yeah.
- You know you got a throat
- They're deep.
- a lot of things in there, so.
- It's funny how weak they can get
- Sure.
- And you don't even realize it.
So I, I found out when I was doing sit-ups
that are curls. That they got really sore.
So, here we go, let's start off.
So lightly touch your teeth together.
First, you're going to be in good posture.
- Yep. So straighten up, shoulders back,
head over shoulders.
- Lightly touch your teeth together and place your tongue
to the roof of your mouth behind the teeth.
- Kinda hard to talk though.
- Here we go. You do it, I'll talk.
- (chuckles)
- So, now you push the tongue toward the roof of the mouth,
push it, and actually stiffen the front of your neck.
You actually make those, what do you call that?
You had a word for that.
- Platysma!
- Platysma.
- The platysma! Right there! But don't do that.
- Yeah, but you are going to tighten them up,
and then you're gonna take your fists.
Now, you can put them like this,
you can put them like this, and gently,
while you're doing all of that,
- Can you do one fist?
- Yeah, you can do one fist. You can actually push up
like you're gonna put the head back like this,
but you're going to resist it.
- But still maintaining that good posture.
- Yup, mhm.
- So we're pushing up with the hand,
and the jaw maintains that.
- And you're doing that tightening. You're doing the teeth.
The tongue pushed up. All that together.
No motion occurs. It's isometric. Do it for 10 seconds.
You hold for 10 seconds, and you repeat five times.
- You know, that does kinda remind me
of a chin tuck when you're doing this.
- Oh yeah.
- Except for your fist stops the motion. But it,
- You can tell us not sheering the neck, though, isn't it?
- Well it actually feels like it
- Yeah. The pressure's up here.
- There's a little traction
- Yeah
- or decompression.
- Yeah. It feels good. I think you, most of you will find
that this is a really helpful exercise.
So, you know, it, again, if it increases your pain,
stop right away.
- Yup.
- We don't want no pain, no gain.
That's never our philosophy. So again, 10 second hold,
five times, first day, just do it once.
Next day, if everything's okay,
you can do it throughout the day.
You can do it every hour if you want.
- But remember important part is,
between exercises, is you need to avoid this.
- Yes.
- 'Cause you know, you may help it here,
but then if you go back to working and we do that,
then you're, you're jumping back and forth
and you've got one step forward, possibly two steps back.
And we want to go forward.
- Yeah. Give it a try and, you know,
put your results in the comments below,
'cause we always want feedback.
- That's right.
- (indistinct) some help. So, by the way,
Brad and I can fix just about anything
- Except for
- A broken heart!
- Yeah. Well this is not going to help.
We'll have to talk to Stuart about the broken heart problem.
- Yeah.
- Maybe he could put a chapter in the book.
- Yeah, he'll look at us with the same look
that a lot of people give us.
- Yeah, whatever.
- Like, what the heck?
- It's all good.
- Yeah.
(upbeat musical tone)