♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists on the internet ♪
- Hi, folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today, we're gonna show you how to fix
a tight lower back in 30 seconds.
- That's right, Bob.
- Actually, you have to decide which exercise works for you.
And we'll talk about that, Brad.
- Right, you're gonna have six options,
and, for sure, at least one of them's gonna do the trick.
- Right.
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This week, we're giving away
some Bob and Brad exercise bands
and also the wall attachment, the wall anchor
that you can attach to the wall,
and you can do your wall exercises from the wall then.
- Wall fitness, Bob.
It's incredibly efficient and fun.
- (laughs) Yeah, go to Facebook,
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Go to Twitter, Instagram, or Tik Tok
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- Tik Tok (taps)
- We also have Bob and Brad Clips now,
another YouTube channel.
- Oh really? - It has 60 second clips.
- Excellent job.
I like clips, Bob.
So, anyways, we're talking about tight low back.
If you feel like you got a a tight low back and it's stiff,
and once you get it loosened up, it feels better.
But oftentimes, as therapists,
instead of doing a whole barrage of exercise,
it's nice to get the one or two exercises
that hit that tight spot.
And we've got six options.
Do all of them as we do them with you.
You're gonna find out if they hurt, create any pain
that one's off the chart, you don't consider that one.
If it makes it feel better, the more you do it
that's the one you're gonna put on your to-do list.
- Yeah, it's a directional thing
trying to determine which direction feels the best.
And the other thing, I hope it's okay,
I recommend this, Brad,
the idea is that you do these once a day.
The idea is you do these throughout the day,
and that's why we usually pick one.
And then usually why it only wants to take 30 seconds.
You take 30 seconds out of your day
to do the stretch real quick and then move on.
And you're gonna have better results
by spreading it out over the day
instead of doing one long workout or stretch.
- Right, and that goes for a lot of our stretches, Bob,
especially our posture stretches.
So shall we carry on, Bob? - Sure.
- Now, again, these are showing success with us personally,
in the clinic with our patients.
So they're the real deal.
Oh, you're gonna have to...
- Oh, I was gonna say
do you want me to do any of them? (laughs)
- Yeah, go ahead. - Well, no.
- No, lay down, Bob.
I prefer hook rotation.
- I'm gonna lie down. - Lie down.
Oh, I would've got an F. - See how I got in correctly?
- Yeah, you did. - I didn't go in like this.
This puts a lot of stress on the back.
You go onto your side, bring your feet up,
and then roll over as one log.
Just don't roll off the bed.
- Now you can do these with a pillow,
but we're not going to now.
You can do these in bed even.
These particular ones in bed.
- Brad likes to refer to these as windshield wipers,
because basically you're putting the heels,
the ankles together,
and you're cleaning the windshield off.
- [Brad] Knees stay together.
- My windshield had snow on it this morning, Brad.
- [Brad] Well, so did mine, Bob.
We're in the Northwoods.
- Now you find out that one direction is painful,
avoid that one to start off with.
Let's say it hurts going to the right.
I'm just gonna go work to the left for a while.
And then eventually, I wanna try it again to the right.
And surprisingly enough, sometimes,
just by working the left side,
the right side also maybe improves a little bit.
- There you go. - or it might take
a couple of days.
But this one is a good exercise.
Almost most of our patients can do this one,
especially with a stiff back.
It's very benign.
It's not that hard of the back.
You don't have weight bearing on,
so it's a good one to do.
Getting the movement in the back,
getting some blood flow going.
- 10 to 15 repetitions typically is enough.
You can do more if you'd like to.
Okay, number two, stay right there, Bob.
This one can also be done in a bed on a soft surface,
or you can do it on the floor,
but we're gonna start with single knee to chest,
and then work to double knee.
- Now, I don't know how long your arms are,
so you might have to grab underneath like this.
You might grab above like this.
You might actually need a towel.
There's one right there, Brad.
- Oh, you want me to use that towel?
- Yeah. (chuckles)
So you can actually have a towel in bed with you,
and you can just pull up like this
and give it a stretch like that.
- [Brad] Particularly if some people that are a little older
and depending on your body proportions,
you need that extra help.
- Now, you may wanna go progress to the double D stretch.
And so you're gonna bring the first one up,
and then bring the second one up.
I don't like to bring both of them up,
That just puts a little stress on the back.
So bring the one up, bring the second one up,
and now you can do a little bit of
even stretching and rocking back and forth
if you want to get a little more--
- [Brad] If you happen to know spinal stenosis,
this one is probably gonna be one of your go-to ones.
- Right, or spondylolisthesis,
which always say wrong, but that's Brad's--
- [Brad] Spondylolisthesis.
I think I got that right.
I even talked to a doctor about it once.
- Okay. (Brad laughs)
Where are we at now, Brad?
What's number three.
- Okay, now we're gonna lay on your stomach and go prone.
Now this one, you can
- I'm gonna lie on my stomach. - lie on your stomach.
You can do it on a softer bed, but you shouldn't.
You should try to do it on a carpeted floor
is your best bet.
- And so, you can start off by
you're gonna have your hands
probably about shoulder width apart.
And you're probably gonna start
with just doing some micro press ups,
because you haven't done these before.
Some people even just start by getting up on their elbow
to get used to it.
But the key to this is not to have your pelvis
come up off the bed or the floor
That it means that your back is so tight
that it actually does need stretching.
So you just work in the range that allows you.
And then eventually, you might be able to go up this far.
If you're still coming off like this,
go up to the point where it allows you to go
and stop right there and go back down again.
- Again, this should not create pain,
particularly sharp pain.
If it does, skip it.
- You might feel a little bit of discomfort
when you first start that, Brad.
Give it a few repetitions.
- If it gets better and it clearly gets better
as you do more, then it's the green light.
But if it gets worse as you do more,
you may have stenosis and may not even be aware of it.
And that would be one indication if someone may have it.
- You got the quadruped neck spread.
- Oh, yes.
Now, the name on this one, there's controversy, Bob.
I call it the cat and the camel.
Some people call it the cow and the horse.
I don't know. (Bob laughs)
Just demonstrate the exercise.
- So, there's a lot of different ways you can do this,
but I like this one where you you're gonna basically arch
up the middle back,
but I like to bring the head down to the same time.
- Stretching all the muscles.
This gets from the low back even in the thoracic.
- And then going up, I bring my head up the other direction,
and I arch the back the other direction.
And I hollow out the back.
- Right in here.
I've gotta admit, Bob,
you're 60 years old, and they're are not a lot
of 60 year old people who have a back
as flexible as he does.
Mine is certainly not near that flexible.
- I make it up for on my hips.
(laughs) I have no motion in my hips at all.
We all got crosses to bear, Brad.
- Yep.
Arch.
So yeah, I guess this would be the camel part,
and this would be the cat part.
- I don't know. - Just go ahead and go up.
- I see cats get afraid, and they're going like this.
- You used to have a cat.
- Camels have humps. - Let's get on with it.
We're getting off track, Bob.
Okay, now, the next one you can stand off.
We can both show this one.
It is just simply, if you're walking or you're sitting,
you get out of your car,
you get out of your seat from working for a long time,
and you really don't have any back problem,
but it feels tight when you stand up,
simply arch backwards.
Now, if I do this, because of my spondylolisthesis,
I don't do this, 'cause it'll hurt
after I do it a few times,
but you can see I'm a little guarded here,
but show it, Bob.
- Yeah, you can go different ways.
You can put your hands like this
kind of along the spine,
or you can put palms on like that.
Brace against it.
Give counter pressure,
and you're gonna work it that way.
- If you happen to have a towel roll or a belt,
you can do that.
And that support makes it more comfortable.
- Right, it makes it a lot easier to do.
- Now, all of these, we're taking time to explain,
but you can do all of these
easily in 30 seconds, - In 30 seconds.
- particularly after you do them a couple times.
- This one, you had said
like after you've been sitting for a while,
or also if you did a heavy lift
like you bent forward,
you put the back under stress in flection,
you wanna go the opposite direction to even things out.
- Balance it out. - You see
a lot of pregnant women do this automatically.
They often do this, because they have the load
leaning forward, so they're trying to balance things out
and stretch it out the other way.
- Did you have that, Liz?
Did you feel that that was a relieving stretch?
Okay, so Liz concurs.
It's not just males talking.
- She has three children.
She's an expert.
- Okay, the last one.
Now this one is gonna offer a stretch in a different way.
It's in-- - Distraction or?
- Decompression or traction.
For this, you need a pull up bar
or something you can hang onto.
We have our hanging handles
with the wall anchor, specifically
for this is for your back, your posture.
It really is a tri-fold benefit.
For this video, we're gonna talk about the low back.
I'm going to gently go down.
And you wanna have it, so when you're standing here,
there's no traction,
but I'm gonna gently lower and lower.
Ugh, and there we go.
I can feel that traction through my back,
and I'm going to round my back forward and this way.
- [Bob] So he's moving the pelvis, basically.
- And I'm gonna go whatever feels best.
You listen to your body.
If it hurts to go this way, don't.
It feels good.
- [Bob] So he's doing pelvic tilts.
- Exactly.
And if you feel good,
you can go full traction like this and just relax.
That may take some time.
You just go like this for the first few times,
and make sure after you're done with it
and you hang for 10 seconds times three,
that will be 30 seconds,
or after while, it might be 30 seconds straight.
After you get up and you walk around and you move around,
it should continue to feel good,
'cause once in a while you hang,
feels good while you're doing it,
but you get up and move around, and then it hurts.
That's not real common,
but if it is, then you're gonna wanna put a caution--
- It'd be very unusual,
but I often do these as a preventative thing too.
I'll be working at my desk,
and I try to, every 20 minutes or every hour,
depending on how often I think about it,
I'll go out, and I just hang on my handles in the office
and my back always cracks, capitates.
- It's great for the shoulders.
There's a whole book written on doing this
by a orthopedic doctor, Dr. Kirsch.
- For shoulders.
- Yep, and it's great for your posture,
because you're right up against the wall.
And you have perfect posture as your head's touching,
all three points are touching.
We can't say enough about that simple, little exercise.
- I think we said enough already. (laughs)
- Oh, we did, sorry.
Anyways. - Remember Brad and I
can fix just about anything-- - Except for--
- A broken heart. - Very good.
- It's about time we get to it, Brad.
- Be careful.
- All right, thanks.
(cheerful tone)