♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
(cheerful tone)
- Hi 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.
- Today, we're gonna talk about pistol squats,
and that's a gun, isn't it?
- Well, Bob, carry on.
Why, Bob, why? - They look like a gun.
But why you should stop them.
We have two major reasons, and this is our opinion.
So we'll offer up our opinions.
We'll also play devil's advocate,
talk about some of those-
- Bob, It's more than opinion.
We've got some definite
objective facts here. - By the way,
if you're new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos on how to stay healthy, fit, pain-free,
and we upload every day.
Also go to bobandbrad.com, our website,
'cause we're always giving something away.
Go to the giveaway section,
and you'll find out we're giving away
some exercise bands loops.
The large ones can assist with pull-ups.
but you can do a lot of exercises with these too.
- I don't even use them for pull-ups.
I use them for all my other exercises.
We've got a video on it.
We'll do more. - There's five of them,
and they come with handles too.
- Oh yeah, that's right.
- Check it out.
Also, you can find a shorter version of us on Twitter,
Instagram, and TikTok.
Oh, we forgot about this.
- Yeah, I said that already.
- Oh yeah. - I didn't say Facebook.
- I forgot to put the sign up.
- You can go to Facebook if you want. (laughs)
We screwed it all up.
Just get rid of it.
- Let's get on with the show. (laughs)
- All right, pistol squats.
- Yeah, pistol squats. I've gotta admit,
they're great for strengthening,
good for balance on one leg,
but, on the other hand,
now, this is where Bob says there's somebody
that wrote a big book and he says you can do these squats
all the way down like this.
- Right, he advocates it.
He talks about all the time.
He says it's okay.
He's a young guy.
Well, he even says some of the older guys, they still do it.
And it's like, we don't see that.
We see older people.
They don't even do squats anymore.
- Well, especially that far down.
I'm going on the basis, the premise,
that any time you put a joint at end range,
and you put a very high level or max force through it,
- Yeah, max compression. - it stresses
and risks that joint for injury.
And I'm saying there's no one
that's gonna disagree with that.
- Yeah, well I don't think it's easy to disagree with it.
It's always risk-reward,
so that when you're hoping to strengthen the knee,
there's a million ways to do it.
You don't need to go all the way down
where you actually get the risk of injuring it.
And then the next thing is this spine.
We always wanna keep the spine
in a neutral position when you exercise,
because it's the strongest and at least risk for injury.
So that means a spine like this,
Bob's gonna demonstrate with the Booyah Stik,
head's touching.
- Three points of contact if you got it correct.
Now if you're not correct,
you're gonna round out like this,
and you're gonna only have one point of contact.
And then your back is not locked in,
and then it's at risk for injury, especially with weight.
- Exactly.
Oh, here's the other stick.
(Brad grunts)
Look at that. (both laugh)
- I didn't know he was gonna throw it at high speed
one foot away. (both laugh)
- Well, I gave it a spin, a spiral.
So I'm gonna demonstrate
first to look at the mechanics of the knee.
Again, if I was 20 years old, I would say
I really wanna be able to do these, 'cause they look cool.
There's a lot of benefits
in regards to strength and balance.
- [Bob] See, looks like a gun,
but look at his back.
- I'm rounding my- - He's rounded out.
There's only one point of contact.
And so he's putting that back at risk, especially-
- Particularly the low back.
- Yeah, especially the low back at the L4, L5 region.
And the thing is, this is even if you're young
and you can hurt your back doing that one.
- If you had a history of back or knee pain,
I would definitely avoid these for sure.
Now look at my knee.
I am at clearly end end-range.
- Yeah, he's maximally flexed,
and has maximum compression on it too then.
- And this has maximum force
or pretty darn close to it.
To get from here, I mean, I have to use a stick.
It hurts my knee to do this.
I don't know how many repetitions
some of these people can do in a row.
God bless them.
They're strong.
- Yeah, they're impressive.
- Yeah, and when they're 25 years old,
30 years old, they're doing it,
but when they're 60, I'm gonna think they're gonna say,
"I wish I would have done those. (laughs)
- I know you're gonna say,
"And 60 happens in a second."
First off, being someone that is 60,
and I'll tell you, I'm glad to have great knees yet.
I can still run, and I can still walk.
You wanna show some other alternatives, Brad?
- Absolutely, yeah.
If you still wanna do a single leg strengthening
without damaging the knee,
just do it, take a chair.
These can be challenging, and they'll work out well.
You don't need the stick.
You could use arm rest. - There's an arm rest.
- So I'm gonna go out like this now.
- Now he's able to keep his back straighter.
And he's also able to not bend the knee to maximal flexion.
- I'm passed 90, not a big deal.
I'm gonna try and keep my knee behind the toe.
That's less stress on the knee.
If you wanna do this,
and you are really advanced in strength,
you could hold on to a weight - You could hold on
to a weight, yes. - and work that now.
And you're working your balance.
Yeah, I can do it like this.
- You still gotta watch your posture, Brad, on that one,
but you're not going all the way down,
so, the back is not flexing as much.
- Exactly.
Another option, and this is what I do.
I've worked with that one,
but, like you say, it's hard to keep my back straight.
This protects the back. - Along the wall.
- And then you can do your one legged.
And this is one where it's really easy.
- The back has protected me.
The knee is protected.
- I had a 16 year old gymnast, had a torn Achilles tendon.
She would take 20 pounds, - Wow. (laughs)
- and she would do these,
and she'd do 10 of them really good. (laughs)
So there's ways to really increase it
without hurting your back or putting your knee at risk.
- That's an excellent way to do it.
- So, there we go.
I really think that
we wanna help people.
- Yeah, we want people not to get injured
while you're working out,
because there's nothing worse
than you can't work out anymore.
And you're also gonna have a kind of a negative view of it.
- And we're looking
down the road. - Down the road.
we're always trying to put it out
on a timeline. - I had a guy.
He was 55 years old.
(laughs) He was a football player.
He worked out aggressively hard in the weight room,
and he got busy with life as he got older.
And he came back to working out again,
and his chiropractor sent him to me
to teach him how to do exercises,
so his body would not- - Couldn't handle it.
- Yeah, 'cause he couldn't do anything anymore
that he used to do.
And he says, "I just beat my body up so bad
"that I need some options."
And so we went through things,
and we got them going again,
but nothing like he was doing when he was younger. (laughs)
- Right, but it'll be plenty.
He'll get the strength that he wants.
- He's gonna stay healthy until his 80s an 90s I said.
No, I don't know. (laughs)
Good luck with him. - Remember, Brad and I
can fix just about anything-
- Except for- - A broken heart.
- But we're working on that.
- We're working on our relationship training.
- Oh, not our relationship. (laughs)
- No, not our relationship, or not even with our wives.
We're fine.
We're fine, honey.
Yeah, (laughs) hope she doesn't see this one.
(Bob laughs) (cheerful tone)