- Have you noticed you've been getting
maybe a little shorter after age 40?
I used to be as tall as Bob and I'm 60 now,
and look what's happened to me.
Although I'm not too concerned.
(Brad laughs)
- I used to be as smart as Brad.
(Brad laughs)
- I don't know about that, Bob.
- Yeah. (Brad laughs)
- Anyways, what we're going to do
is talk about how and why you get shorter
and things you can do to actually combat that,
and not shrink as much and actually
increase your height just like that.
There's one option that some people aren't aware of.
- Right.
- We're gonna talk about that in 9.3 seconds.
- We'll cover them all.
- That's right.
Sit down Bob, I'm getting a complex.
- Okay (Bob chuckles)
♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapist ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- All right, Bob, I've done a little research on this
and generally speaking, there's no specific
rules for this. - Guidelines.
- But after 40, you start to shrink
and typically every decade you may lose
up to a half of an inch, on the average.
Some people may be a little more, some people less with-
- That can be an inch for us, already.
- Yeah, I think I have shorter-
- We got two decades.
- So, let's talk about why this happens.
And there's three big reasons.
The first one is something called Degenerative disc disease.
In other words, the discs in your spine actually can shrink
and they do with age.
And if you look at this-
- [Bob] They lose water. - [Brad] Yep.
The inside of the disc has a fluid
and it's not really water, but you know,
you can think of it as that.
This red disc represents an older disc
versus these discs.
And look how thick these discs are.
And as you age, you're just actually start to shrink up,
some more than others.
So, if you imagine all these discs shrinking a little bit
that can add up over time. - [Bob] All right.
- [Brad] And that's one of the reasons.
It's hard to do anything about that.
There's a little bit of- - It's life.
- Yeah, it's like getting gray hair kind of a deal.
Some people get more than others.
Let's go on to the next one.
Osteoporosis. - Right.
In fact, this is a sign of osteoporosis, if you lost height.
- Right, if you've noticed, man,
you're shrinking away over the last decade
maybe you should get your bone density checked.
- Right. - And, now,
so, the bones, the vertebraes particularly,
they can decrease in density, they get a little weaker
and they can actually do get these small little fractures-
- [Bob] Right.
- [Brad] And they can shrink and crush, now, if you have-
- [Bob] That's called the compression fracture.
- Yep, compression fractures.
Now, as therapist, we've had people
that had serious compression fractures.
Very painful- - Right.
- And it takes months for them to heal.
But you could have 'em without all that.
- They could be silent.
- Silent, yep. - Right.
- So, here we got a little
model. - Model.
- This is a vertebrae in your low back.
We'll call this L5-
- There's a vertebrae. - Yep.
And then there's another vertebrae,
we're looking at three vertebraes.
And this vertebrae is looks different
because this one actually is going to compress fracture,
if you will.
So, what'll happen is we've got normal height here
and when that bone decays and there's some force on it
that it doesn't like, it can actually crush and shrink
and typically in the forward position.
- [Bob] All right.
- [Brad] And you may lose, you know, (indistinct)
yeah, it's not gonna happen, just like that but over time.
And I did not look to see how much compression fracture-
- [Bob] All right. (Brad laughs)
Height loss, I don't know either.
- [Brad] It is definitely a factor
and there's some things that we can do about this
to decrease the risk factor a little bit.
- And we'll talk about that. - All right.
- And I'll finally, and this is one that everyone
can have a big influence on.
I'm, I'm back, is postural issues.
And all these relate if you have poor posture,
not only are you gonna be shrinker or smaller,
you put more pressure on your vertebraes
and you're at higher risk for,
for those compression fractures.
So, all these things kind of interrelate.
- Trouble breathing.
- Yeah, Trouble breath...
Posture is just so important.
- Right.
- Especially as we get older,
eh, that's important when you're younger too.
So, let's go through some things that you can do
to change this so you get taller
or do not shrink as much with age.
- Sounds good.
- All right, number one, and most importantly
and the easiest to correct,
to get your height going the right direction is posture.
What we need to do is use something
that everyone has available is a wall.
We're gonna use this wall
because it's straight, it's upright
and it's gonna help you find out.
I betcha there's-
- It give you a feedback.
- Yeah, good feedback because I bet you anything
50% to 75% of the people have forward posture
and they're not aware of it.
- Unaware. - Unaware of it.
It's like that one guy who saw a video himself-
- Right, my friend.
- Your friend, and he saw a video himself.
He says, who's that old guy walking all stumped over?
- He had no idea.
- And it was him. - Yeah.
Yeah, so, be aware of where you're at.
So, put your butt up against the wall, bring your feet
about you know, four or five inches from the wall.
Don't get, next to the wall, it's too close.
You'll lose your balance.
And then once your butt is against the wall,
your back and then bring your shoulders back
and then bring your head back.
But, don't do this. - All right.
- This is what a lot of people do.
- Keep it at chin level.
- Chin level, bring it in.
And you're probably gonna find out,
if you're over 60 years old, you may not be able to touch
the back of your head to the wall
while keeping your chin down.
And that is a problem that's gonna get worse over time
unless you work on it.
So, would you agree, Bob?
- I concur.
- If we concur, you know it's going.
- Yeah.
- So, do that and see
if you can get perfect posture just like this.
And then walk away from the wall
and see if you notice a difference on how you're standing.
You're definitely gonna be taller.
- You can also have somebody film you.
- Yeah.
- Or you can use a mirror. - Right.
Or you can just use a family member,
friend, a wife, a husband, and they can-
- They're happy to do it.
- Let you know when you're slouching.
- Yeah.
- But yeah, do it in a friendly way, of course.
So, that immediately will give you that height advantage.
I don't know what happened down there.
Anyways.
Okay, so now that you know
when your posture's good and tall,
what you wanna do is get back up against the wall
and we need to do two things.
Number one, if you're not flat up against the wall,
work on getting flat.
And one thing about your head,
if you're unable to get your head to touch,
do a little chin tuck stretch.
Simply take your fingers or you're palm like this
(indistinct) and gently push in.
Don't push so hard that it hurts,
it should just be a stretch.
It will take some time.
Probably it'll take some time, not everyone
to get your head so you can touch.
Now, once you get this posture, we meet, need to maintain it
by strengthening the back muscles, everything in back,
so, this becomes normal.
So, an easy way to do it, Bob, what do we call 'em?
- [Bob] Wall angels. - Wall angels.
I'm not an angel, but I can do these exercises.
- [Bob] Wall devils.
- See if you can get your arms to the wall.
Now, I have a hard time especially my one shoulder's tight
and you don't have to touch the wall, but do this.
It's like when you were a kid and you laid in the snow
and you did those snow angels,
same thing but do 'em flat up against the wall.
Do five of 'em slowly.
- [Bob] Avoid the Yellowstone.
- Yeah, avoid the Yellowstone, oh, god, dogs.
(Bob and Brad laughing)
Well, anyways, so do that five to ten times.
Make sure you do this at least twice a day.
- [Bob] You can do it on the floor.
- Yeah, on the floor as well, in bed as well.
Now, if you wanna look at more exercises
for posture strengthening go to bobandbrad.com,
posture exercises and you'll find a lot of videos.
- Do you wanna mention hanging down Brad?
- Oh, good point, there is another option
that if you happen to have a pull up bar at home.
- All right.
Or.
- We don't have a pull up bar
but we have something, what we call, pull up...
What do we call these? - System.
- Pull up system. - Pull up system.
- Yeah.
Anything that you can hang your weight on safely
and you don't have to jump up to get to it.
In this case, you know I can grab it here.
- Yeah.
- My back is against the wall.
And use body weight to stretch-
- And decompress the spine.
- Yeah.
- Oh, feels good.
But, the thing is, if you haven't done this before
and you start to do this
you do not want to go to full body weight right away.
It's too much, too soon.
You're gonna hurt yourself.
So, slowly go down until you feel a nice stretch
and hold it, you know, 10, 20 seconds,
then get back up.
- Brad you're taller already.
- Yeah, see that Bob even said,
I'm gonna catch up to him by the end of the video.
- Yeah.
- So work with that, that's a nice way to
simple stretch, use gravity. - Right.
- Okay, the next thing for combating osteoporosis,
weakness of the bones is exercise.
And typically exercise that's weight bearing.
Such as simple as walking on a regular basis,
once or twice a day.
Using resistance exercise.
You can use weights, you know, your traditional dumbbells,
if you don't want that
and actually for people that are older
I think resistance bands can be a really good option.
- In our opinion. - Yeah.
And any therapist will probably agree
but they're very handy, they're easy, they're light.
If you drop 'em on your foot, it doesn't hurt.
- By the way, we have a whole program on osteoporosis.
- Right, and we actually have an expert.
- Yep, Sara Meeks. - Sara Meeks.
If you go to bobandbrad.com, that's our website,
click on the programs tab.
You're gonna see whole program.
In other words, a lot of videos specific to osteoporosis-
- Right.
- How to deal with it, exercises, and Sara Meeks, again,
she's an expert on this
- Were doing for 50 years. - Yeah, she is.
She's the top of the line, there's no doubt about it,
so, check her out,
if you want to do find out exercises specific.
- It's all free. - Yeah.
- We, actually Bob and I made some good videos on exercises.
- We think, we think they're good.
- Well, they're good, but Sara's are better.
She's in a, she is-
- She knows- - Specializes in it.
All right, and lastly, but not leastly is diet.
Bob and I are not dieticians.
We're not nutritionists, but diet,
and I just wanted to mention,
you know, you want to have magnesium, potassium
vitamin K1, vitamin C, basically eat good food.
Milk is a good way to do it.
Although, it's a little controversial, I understand.
- Yeah. - So, there are yogurt.
- Yogurt.
- But green leafy vegetables,
- I think everyone's on board with that.
- Pretty much common.
- Yep, salmon, eggs, nuts,
seeds. - Seeds.
- Yeah, but for that you're gonna have to do a little
research on your own.
- Not our area of expertise.
- No, but it is important, so, search that.
Sorry, we couldn't be more specific.
So Bob, once again, I have a feeling that they understand
that we cannot fix just about anything
but we can't even fix a-
- Heart- - Yeah,
- Broke heart.
- Well, that didn't come in very well.
- My time dove.
(Bob & Brad chuckles)
- Whatever.
Have a good day and work on that height,
you're gonna get a little taller.
- Be tall.
(upbeat music)