♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists on the internet ♪
- Hello and welcome to this video.
I'm Sara Meeks and this is my husband, John,
who's going to help us demonstrate
the decompression exercise.
I usually put it in quotes, "exercise"
because basically what this is, is simply lying on the back.
And the idea is to isolate the back
from the movements of particularly the lower extremities
so that the back can just rest and realign itself.
So the first thing is the positioning
that I showed a little bit with the skeletal model
is that we have John
with his head in a comfortable, good position.
His arms are out to the side
about 30 degrees away from his hips
or some people like them a little bit wider,
but we don't want them way out to the side like this.
Somewhere midway between the shoulders and the hips
to turn the palms up
in what is called the anatomical position.
His hips and knees are bent.
As I have said, the most restricted muscles in your body
include your hip flexors
and also the muscles behind the knee,
the hamstring insertion and the origin of the muscle,
the gastrocnemius, the big calf muscle.
These muscles pull.
If the legs are straight, they will pull on the back
and change the curves of the back.
So we bend the hips and the knees to avoid that.
His feet are flat on the table
and about hip distance apart.
Some people have a problem with this.
And so, John,
if you'll just bring your knees together a little bit.
And they'll try to bring the knees together
and support one leg with the other,
but we want the knees to be apart at about hip distance.
And sometimes I use something like this.
This is called a yoga block.
It's very handy, has three different dimensions.
And I just put it between the knees and have people...
Depending upon the width of their hips
I might use it on its side
so that this helps to support their knees
and keep their knees in this position.
But he doesn't really need it.
He does this exercise himself.
So I think he's used to doing it.
So the idea is, is to do nothing,
is to lie in this position and let gravity do the work.
This is a gravity-eliminated position
and it allows the back to lengthen
and to relax down into the table.
So I usually tell people just to focus on their breath.
So, John, if you'll just bring your attention
to your breath.
It gives them something to do,
besides which it helps the relaxation.
So the first thing I usually do is just notice your breath.
Notice how deep it is or how shallow it is.
What the pace of it is, whether it's more rapid or slow.
And notice what's moving in your body when you breathe.
Just notice it.
Noticing the breath, which we don't often do in life,
actually brings us into the present moment.
And the idea is to just focus on your breath
and let your body relax in this position.
So once we've started with this
the next thing I usually have them do
is just lengthen out from the shoulders
down through the fingertips both of the arms.
So that we get nice long arms
and we create a little bit of stretch in the shoulders,
keeping the arms in the turned up position.
I have this pillow underneath his head,
and I should say that when people are positioning
in the decompression,
there should be no support underneath the shoulders.
We want to allow the shoulders to relax back
toward the table.
A lot of people have protruding shoulders,
they have weakness in their back extensors
and that would cause that.
So what we wanna do
is just not have anything supporting the shoulders.
We also want to have the neck in alignment.
This is a nice pillow that I found quite by accident.
But John, can you just lift your head a little bit?
It has a nice curve on it
so I can get this curve right underneath his neck
and let his head be positioned a little bit further back
and thus protecting the curve that should be in the neck.
So all John has to do is just lie here and relax.
Five to 15 minutes.
And then immediately people will ask me,
"Well, there must be something I can do."
And I say, "Yes, there probably is, but you don't need to."
And the whole idea is just to let yourself relax.
This is the best exercise that I have found
for most back pain.
I'm not gonna say for all back pain,
because there are lots and lots of reasons for back pain.
But a lot of back pain is due to weakness of the muscles,
it's also due to misalignment problems
because of sitting for a lot, disc issues,
and not to mention,
even osteoporosis and compression fractures,
but there are a lot of things that can happen
that can cause back pain.
And just allowing the back to relax
and to realign itself just by breathing
is the single best exercise
that I have found for most back pain.
Not for all back pain.
There may be other things
that need to come into the picture,
but at least this is a start.
So now I'm gonna ask John to lower his legs
down to the table, to straighten his legs one at a time.
I usually have people,
when they're first starting out with the program,
do one leg at a time,
making sure that the kneecaps are pointing straight up
towards the ceiling.
And that also brings the feet
into a little bit better alignment, as you can see.
So the legs are in alignment.
You will see a little bit more arch occur in the back
because of the pull of the hip flexors
and the muscles back here in the back of the knee.
So in decompression, what you wanna do
is have them bend their hips and their knees.
Place your feet flat.
Legs side by side, hip distance apart.
Now, if people have a problem holding their knees,
I already talked about the yoga block.
You can also take a pillow or a foam roller or something
and put it underneath the knees.
Some people like to lie in this position
and put their feet up on a sofa.
Now, when you do that kind of thing...
Can you pick up your right leg?
When people pick up their legs like this,
what can happen is that you'll get some flexion
the lumbar spine.
So that may cause some back pain
and it might be better to leave the leg down.
People have to kind of figure this out for themselves,
how they're going to have their legs.
Because it does require some element of strength in the hips
just to hold your legs in this position
for this amount of time.
The other thing that I want to address with this,
with decompression, is there are people that I've seen
that have breathing issues.
They have emphysema, also called COPD.
They have asthma, they have other problems with breathing.
And they may have some back pain
just lying in this position.
So what I will do then is raise the head of this table up.
I don't have to raise it very high sometimes,
but as you raise the table
it makes it easier for people to breathe and to swallow.
So that may be necessary.
So if you do this exercise
and lying flat on your back is too difficult,
what you might want to do is get yourself a wedge.
Or depending upon your finances and a lot of other things,
they do have beds that you can adjust
where you can elevate the head of the bed
and also the foot of the bed at the same time.
And that will help...
It's called a zero gravity position,
and that will help them stay in this position longer.
So I'm just gonna bring you back down now, okay?
So that's it. That's the decompression exercise.
Five to 15 minutes.
No TV, no reading, no cats, no dogs, no kids, nothing.
Just lie and do nothing but breathe.
Focus on your breath
and you'll be surprised at how good you feel
when you come out of this position.
Thank you for watching this video.
And this is the very start of what I do
with osteoporosis patients.
Thank you for watching.
(upbeat music)