- ♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ the two most famous physical therapists on the internet.♪
- [Bob] Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- [Brad] Brad Henick, physical therapist.
- [Bob] Together we are the most famous
physical therapists on the internet.
Almost couldn't get that out.
- [Brad] In our opinion of course, Bob
- [Bob] Brad, today we're gonna go provide you,
the audience out there with 60 second fixes
for a tight painful neck.
Stretches and exercises.
- [Brad] Yep. Yep.
- [Bob] Now let's right away.
Let's let's talk about the red flags.
- [Brad] We just thought we'd throw that out there.
- [Bob] We thought it was so funny, isn't it.
- [Brad] We actually, we tried to make light of something.
That's very critical,
- [Bob] right?
- [Brad] Because if you have, so some of these red flags
or these issues that are bothering your neck
you're not gonna want to do some of these exercises.
- [Bob] I want you to be very careful
if you have rheumatoid arthritis, cause
that that's not something where you wanna get real
aggressive on the stretches with. Osteoporosis,
If you're really quite elderly might be a little
- [Brad] Exactly.
- [Bob] If you're on steroid use
or if you had a neck fracture, right.
- [Brad] Or if you had a herniated disc
in your neck, you know, something like that.
- [Bob] Yeah. This is, this is really more
for people who are feeling the pain in the neck, right?
Maybe a little bit into the upper traps.
- [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] But not this isn't the one that goes
into the arms or stuff.
This is all really just a tight neck or neck pain.
- [Brad] Yeah. If you're feeling a lot of tension
you've been working at the computer
for a long time and you feel those muscles tight
you wanna get 'em loosened up.
- [Bob] By the way if you are new to our channel,
you've probably never seen that red flag thing
cause that's new.
But we provide videos on staying healthy fit and pain free.
And if you wanna subscribe, we have the subscription button
over here or down here and we upload every day.
- [Brad] Excellent. Bob,
- [Bob] All right, let's talk
about the first thing you're gonna do
Brad is I want you to do, we're gonna do range
of motion of the neck in all directions.
- [Brad] Sure.
- [Bob] With a stiff neck, right?
Because one thing it's gonna do, it's helpful.
It's gonna get things moving smoother.
But the second thing it's gonna let you
know which directions hurt.
- [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] Cause it's important to know that.
- [Brad] Right?
- [Bob] Cause it's gonna help you treat it.
Exactly. So let's start off with Brad.
Well, the first one, a lot of times we do is just chin tuck.
- [Brad] I'll do 'em this way.
- [Bob] Should do it that way.
- [Brad] Get a profile here.
So it's like this.
- [Bob] So you're not going down and you're not going up.
You're just bringing the head back like this.
This is usually the starting one that we use for every
almost every neck treatment.
- [Brad] Right? Because it's so common.
Most everyone has forward head from working
at the desks or working on books or whatever they're doing.
Nobody uses books anymore.
- [Bob] I don't know what you're doing out there anymore.
We're studying, but I guess they
maybe they don't even study with books anymore.
All right next one.
Let's go ahead and do just flexion.
- [Brad] Yep. Feel a stretch back here.
- [Bob] Yep. Going down then we'll go into extension.
- [Brad] Now this is an exercise.
I don't know why, but I hear a number
of people have the idea that this is gonna harm your neck
and it's and your neck is made to go back like this.
- [Bob] Yeah.
- [Brad] If you get sharp pains
you have something wrong with your neck maybe then.
But for the average neck, this is actually healthy.
- [Bob] Yeah. With all these, if you start feeling pain
I don't want you to keep going in that direction.
- [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] Just bump up against the pain and come off it again.
- [Brad] Sure.
- [Bob] Yeah. This, this actually the extension one
is a really common treatment that we use, and a lot
of people get better just by doing that one.
- [Brad] Oh yeah.
It's a wonderful deal.
- [Bob] So it's not a harmful one by any means.
It's an old wives tale or whatever you wanna call it.
That it does.
- [Brad] Exactly.
- [Bob] So we did flexion.
We did extension.
We did chin tucks.
Now we're gonna do rotations Brad.
Okay. So again, always by the way
very good posture when you're doing these.
- [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] So you're gonna turn to the right turn to the left.
You can do these together
- [Brad] and we're just gonna hold this
for about a second or two,
- [Bob] right?
- [Brad] We're not doing that sustained stretch.
This is just a short, brief stretch.
- [Bob] Now if they, if one direction hurts
you can work the other direction more.
- [Brad] Right?
- [Bob] So let's say this one.
Oh, this just really hurts going this way.
Don't fire it up.
That's just gonna make things worse.
Go to the point where it doesn't, you know
where it starts to hurt then head
to the other direction and just work that direction.
A lot of times you'll find
out this one eventually improves then.
- [Brad] Right. And you might be, it doesn't go
but it doesn't really hurt.
It just feels like tight muscle.
If that's the case, you don't get that sharp pain
then you may wanna stretch, stretch.
- [Bob] Yeah.
- [Brad] And, and then just stretch those tight muscles out.
- [Bob] All right, then the last directions that we go,
are side bending.
- [Brad] Sure.
- [Bob] So side bend and again, good posture.
Trying to put the ear onto the shoulder.
Don't bring the shoulder up to you.
- [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] And work in the neck.
And then you wanna show your little bit of the stretch.
You can do Brad.
Usually we take the fingertips.
I don't like to take the whole hand just the fingertips.
And you can just give a little stretch.
- [Brad] I mean one or two fingers is plenty.
- [Bob] Yeah.
- [Brad] Yep.
- [Bob] Again, to emphasize that you don't
wanna pull on it too hard. So now, now if that,
once you started doing range of motion
you found the ones that kind of hurt.
Let's say it's this way.
I turn been this way and turn this way.
So now we're gonna go the other directions
and we're gonna give it a little stretch even.
Yeah. Now we're gonna give that stretch.
- [Brad] We call this a little over pressure
in the therapy world.
- [Bob] Yep. And I'll maybe even side bend and
stretch it this way.
- [Brad] Yep. And, and this is where going
to be called end range.
And we're, we're not gonna get real aggressive with this
listen to your body and not a sharp pain
but a stretching pain is healthy.
- [Bob] So now, you know, we're still stuck.
Let's say, Brad, you know, we've done these things.
We're doing it in the direction.
It doesn't hurt, but it's still
I still can't turn to the right.
I still can't side bend
to the right now we're gonna bring the towels out.
- [Brad] Sure. Not the towels, Bob.
- [Bob] The towels.
What happened to my towel?
- [Brad] It's right.
Yeah. It gets serious.
When you get to the towels, actually towels are one
of the wonderful tools that everyone has
in our home that you can use for stretching your neck.
And it really helps.
- [Bob] let's first do extension Brad
why don't you show your method for doing extension?
- [Brad] Okay.
- [Bob] This, by the way
let's say no matter what direction you're lacking
let's say you're lacking rotation and side bending.
You still wanna work on extension.
- [Brad] Right?
- [Bob] Cause sometimes those improve just
by working on extension.
- [Brad] Exactly. And, and Bob
and I have different ways of doing our towels.
So there's, I, I do this thing where you grab the corners
and you flip it around it's it's like one of those things
- [Bob] it's all snap days in the locker room.
- [Brad] Yeah. But we're gonna get low on the neck.
Right Bob?
- [Bob] Yep.
- [Brad] Typically down low and I'm not
gonna pull real hard.
It's just, just support.
And I like to do this in a chair that's
about shoulder blade height and I'm gonna let
myself relax and just stretch
and it can make a big difference when you have some support
and then you can difference can also pull forward
to get your head back up.
Cause if it's tight or sore
sometimes pulling up is uncomfortable
but then you can do this and it'll help.
And so we're gonna gently work this if you bump into it and
after three or four times, it should start feeling better.
If it doesn't or if it starts feeling worse
you stop the exercise for that day.
- [Bob] So then let's another method you can do.
And this one is one where you can go maybe
a few different- you mind if I sit Brad?
- [Brad] Yeah. You should have that seat Bob.
So, so I'm gonna take the high seat.
- [Bob] This is our ongoing little joke.
By the way you take the salvage
that's the little ridge on the end
on the end of the towel.
And you're gonna go like this and now yeah
this is where you gotta bring it up off the shoulders.
Otherwise it's not gonna
it's gonna get caught on the shoulders and not help.
- [Brad] Right. Actually here I'll help you out.
The, the, so what we're doing is getting more specific.
When I did mine, I have a big bundle of towel
which make it spreads out the force.
This one brings that edge of the towel to a
specific vertebra level.
- [Bob] Yeah.
- [Brad] Which can be real helpful.
So yeah, you can work your way up and down the spine.
So here I'm just right underneath the ear.
I'm catching, you know, the higher levels on the spine.
- [Brad] Yeah. He's up at C1 C one down below.
- [Bob] I'm catching more of the lower, the lower ones.
- [Brad] Right?
- [Bob] So you can experiment with this.
Usually we bring it together
and I like to have what we call the little bunny ears here.
You can use both arms or you can just use one arm.
If, if one arm is kind of bothering you.
- [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] And you can pull it together like this
I'm watching the bunny ears.
- [Brad] Here's the bunny ears.
Hahaha. It's cute.
- [Bob] So as I go in extension, my arm goes
along with me, you see I'm always keeping
my eyes on the bunny ears.
- [Brad] Right. And what that does is
that changes the direction of force on the,
on the vertebra, which can help that range.
- [Bob] Yeah. So very simply like this again
I think you'll find out that you're gonna move further.
- [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] You know, once you have the towel placed with either
either one and you can move up
and down the spine, all right, let's go into rotation, Brad.
Okay. With the towel, this is the same thing here.
You're gonna get the, the Sulfage underneath at
at the certain level.
Usually a lot of times right underneath the ears.
And this is a little complicated now, Brad, what
what I like to do is let's say I'm gonna work
on right rotation.
I drop this one.
Okay. And then I switch hands.
- [Brad] Yep.
- [Bob] And now I'm gonna, I can pull
over like this
- [Brad] and then you grab the other one.
- [Bob] Yep. This one's going down.
- [Brad] This one just stays down on the chest.
- [Bob] Yeah. And this one's going across.
- [Brad] Yep.
- [Bob] What you don't want is your shoulder
to be moving like this.
- [Brad] Exactly.
- [Bob] Sometimes they even have people hook
their arm behind on a chair to kind of hold it back.
- [Brad] Right here.
- [Bob] And this is this, by the way,
all these should be pain free.
If this hurts, you don't do it.
- [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] It's very simple.
- [Brad] Exactly.
- [Bob] So let's go the other direction, Brad
I'm gonna be up here.
I start up here then with my two little bunny ears
I drop the side that I want the direction I want to go to.
I'm going this way.
I switch hands.
I put this down and now I can go this way.
I can hook the arm behind here
and I can go work on this direction here.
Just a great way to stretch.
- [Brad] Now, one thing to be real important that is
that you go above the jaw bone here
not below it because nothing will stretch
and you just end up cutting off your, your breathing.
So that's not a good thing.
So get it up here and, and you can see
- [Bob] Good point Brad.
- [Brad] Mine is Bob is using the, the salvage yeah.
System. And I'm using one with the, the roll.
- [Bob] Yeah. See which one works for you?
- [Brad] Yep.
- [Bob] We're we're not tied to either one.
- [Brad] So it is I'm.
I gotta keep stretching about it.
- [Bob] Works out good.
Doesn't it.
All right.
The last one I'm gonna show Brad right now is just what we
this is the one I like to do.
And it works really well for me when
when you're having trouble with the side bending.
- [Brad] Sure.
- [Bob] I first do a chin tuck and then I bend to
the side again that does not hurt.
- [Brad] Okay.
- [Bob] So a chin tuck bend to the right.
And I do a bunch of these and you know, I
I was getting some pain down here and this just
did so well at taking this away.
- [Brad] Now, wait a second.
You said bend to the side that does hurt or doesn't hurt.
- [Bob] Doesn't hurt.
- [Brad] Okay. But you said it hurts here.
- [Bob] I, I was having pain here
but when I did this, it stopped the pain.
- [Brad] Okay. Okay.
- [Bob] So yeah, that, I, I, I guess I wasn't clear on that.
If it, if it starts feeling better, the pain.
Yep. You can go to that side.
- [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] You wanna find the side that helps relieve the pain
- [Brad] and, and you know, you may experiment both sides
and see which one, if it responds better to
as far as getting rid of the pain
it may be different from person to person.
So it, you know, there's no one answer for everyone.
- [Bob] This is what we do.
When we see patients, we try things and we see what sticks
you know, whether they throw the spaghetti
to the wall and see what sticks.
But I don't know.
I don't know.
- [Brad] Spaghetti.
- [Bob] Yeah.
That's how you tell whether or not spaghetti is done.
- [Brad] Oh, really?
- [Bob] Throw it against the wall.
You never heard this.
- [Brad] You do that at home.
All could just see your wall is spaghetti hanging.
We got, we we're going some anyways.
- [Bob] We're not just pretty.
- [Brad] We're pretty ugly.
- [Bob] We're pretty handy.
- [Brad] Yeah. Handy.
- [Bob] Helpful. Right.
All right.
- [Brad] We're good stretchers too.
- [Bob] Thanks for watching.