♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪ (upbeat music ending)
- Go ahead. - All right.
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.
- Deadlifts, Brad.
Can they be done safely?
And if not, can someone give us some alternatives
to doing deadlifts?
I think we can, Bob. - Yeah.
I think we're gonna be the people that do this.
- Exactly. - If you are new
to our channel, I'm gonna get this done with,
- Yeah, let's get it out of the way.
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- Yes. - Brad, take it away.
- Okay, deadlifts. I think the name for it is appropriate.
Actually, I think deadlifts is an excellent exercise.
It's really good overall body strengthening exercise,
'cause it gets your hamstrings, your quads,
your glutes, - It's a full body exercise.
- Your back, your shoulders. - And you're getting
big muscles. - Right.
Yep. - Yeah.
- At the same time, if it's not done properly,
you can really put your back
at risk for injury, - Right.
- As well as your shoulders and neck could it be involved.
But even if it's done 100% properly,
it still puts a fair amount,
if not a lot, of stress on your low back,
depending on- - Yeah, we have
to be honest here.
There really is no way to do this
without putting a great deal of stress
on your back. - Right.
- And I know some people are gonna argue,
"Well, that's how you prepare your back.
You put stress on it,
and that way, it will not get injured
in the future." - Right.
- But that's not how things work, unfortunately.
- Exactly, and also, I think about the time
I went to a high school competition for deadlift squats,
the three and the bench press,
and I'd say 70%, at least 70%, of the participants'
max weight and their posture, God bless them,
they were working their hearts out,
they trained hard for it. - They were rounded out
like this. - They were rounding
their back, and I'm just thinking,
and my nephew was one of them, that's why I was there,
and sure enough, he had back problems by the time he was 20,
and I think his deadlifting was a big part of it.
- A lot of our opinion, Brad,
is based upon the work of Alf Nachemson.
- Sure. - He's a doctor,
he's I think, long since dead,
but he did some kind of landmark studies on the back,
and he measured the pressure inside the disc
when you were in different positions.
- Right. - And he found out
if you're sitting straight up,
or standing straight up like this.
- That's the least amount. - This is 100%.
It's just normal body weight. - Right.
- But as soon as you start going forward like this,
and if you start rounding out,
it increases it by double or 250%.
- And then you add weight to it,
so it's gonna stress the back. - Right.
- There's just no
way around it. - Right.
If you love lifting weights, I don't say you should stop it,
but just be careful, make sure you do it right.
We're gonna go through some of the mechanics
on how to do it properly,
and there's always a little variation,
but we're going through the basic body mechanics of it
from a therapist's point of view,
looking at keeping you safe.
- Right, we're gonna keep it
as safe as possible. - Exactly.
- All right, what are the steps, Brad?
Basic mechanics. - Let's start
from the bottom.
Here, we've got our mock weight set here
so I don't hurt myself.
But first thing is- - Maybe we should
talk about this first, Brad. - Well, okay.
We can, I think a back belt is a great idea.
- Yeah, he's got one on.
You can't see it, because it's black
and he's got a black shirt.
- But you can see here on this one,
you can pull it real tight,
and it's a really nice back belt,
'cause then you can easily loosen up
when you're not lifting.
- This is a back brace by BraceAbility.
- Yeah. - And we really like it.
I really like how it snugs up. - Right.
- This is just an old fashioned,
this is a leather belt. - Yeah.
I don't even know if they sell these anymore.
Do they? - I'm not sure, Bob.
- This is my old one
from 30 years ago. - Okay.
- I see people in the gym, they're still-
- They're still wearing 'em? - Yep.
Maybe they're 30 years old too. I don't know.
But anyways, I think a back belt's a really good idea
for this type of lifting.
Give that lumbar some support.
Next thing is your feet are gonna be flat.
As far as how wide you keep your feet, I like a wide base.
I know some people do like a narrow base,
depending on where you keep your arms,
whether they're out here or in like this.
But I believe most people go on the outside.
Again, we're not experts - So then you might
- On this. - wanna be a little more
narrow then, I would guess. - Right.
- Mechanically. - But the wider you are,
the stronger your base.
Okay, so look at it from this way.
Hand grip. I like the opposing hand grip.
Some people like both hands this way.
Again, that's one of those things that you work with,
and do what works best for you.
- I don't think that's gonna ha play a role
in how much stress is on your back.
- Right. - That's all
a matter of preference. - Good point, Bob.
But this one is gonna make a big difference.
You've gotta keep that bar close to your shins
and up to your knees. - Yeah.
- If you try and get it out here,
that's just plain, basic physics.
It's gonna stress your low back.
The further the weight is from your shin,
the more stress on your back,
and it's gonna make a big difference
on those discs. - Brad and I were
talking about before the video,
the more you're upright here,
if you can go like this, - Right.
- Which you can't, of course the bar would hit,
the less stressors is on your back.
Every inch you go forward, there's more stress,
more stress, more stress, more stress.
- Right. - There's no way around it.
- It's not linear.
It's more like an exponential. - Yeah.
There's basic physics there. - Right.
So should we- - Sure.
- Should we go through the body mechanics of the back?
- What Brad was showing is
when he saw these guys lifting,
what were they doing, Brad?
- They were rounded. - They were rounded out
like that. - Right.
- So we have one point of contact,
which puts a lot more stress on the back.
We'd like to see three points of contact
as much as possible, here, here and here
That's keeping your back a lot straighter.
A lot less stress on it. - Right.
You wanna keep it in a neutral position.
- Right. - And that's the lumbar.
You don't want it over arched,
but you don't want it rounded, for sure.
Okay? The next thing is, how far do you drop the hips?
You don't wanna drop 'em too far like this,
because then you really
round out. - Yeah, you're starting
to round out.
See, I'm one point of contact now.
- Right. So there's the point
right in the middle where it's optimum.
So it's not too low. It's not too high.
It's right in there.
Plus, you get the hamstrings to activate
you get more low back muscles.
You want the muscles to do the lifting,
not the stress on the back,
and you come up and once you get up to here,
don't throw the weight way back like this.
- Yeah, now you're putting stress
in the other way on the facets,
- Right. - The joints of the back,
which can really wear those out too.
- Exactly. So bring it up.
The shoulders will go back into good posture,
and then but not over exaggerate it, but not here either.
And then going back down, it's gonna go just over the knees,
down the shins and you'll have the lift complete.
Now this isn't advice for people who are doing the lifting
for competing or anything like this.
This is advice for people who are doing
lifting for exercise. - Right.
- And for trying to become healthy.
That's why we're saying,
if you hurt your back, you can't lift very easily.
You what I'm saying, it doesn't matter.
You can argue with us all day and say,
"I don't care. I'm gonna go ahead and do these."
Well, if you hurt your back once, you're done lifting
for a while. - Well, this kind of lift.
- Yeah. Exactly. - Right.
This really puts a fair amount of stress on the back.
If you have an injured back,
and you want to start strengthening it,
I would not use lifts. - I would not do this.
There's a much better way, and we're gonna show that
in just a few minutes.
Long term lifters.
We get a lot of comments on our site.
People saying, "Boy, if I would've known
some of this information 20 years ago,
when I started lifting weights, my body wouldn't
be in the shape it is. - Yeah, Brad and I just
had the discussion, if you lift heavy weights,
really heavy, I mean you're gonna wear out joints quicker.
- Right. - I mean, and people
that bench press high amounts,
the end of their clavicle,
or the end of their collarbone, very consistently wears out.
- Sure. - There's just
no way around it.
So you just have to keep this in mind
that there's a price to be paid
for lifting heavy weights over a long period of time.
It's just like everything.
If you go just on a lower level,
things are gonna last longer. - Exactly. It's common sense.
- Right. - Should we
show 'em some options?
Let's see, you do want - Sure.
to strengthen the same muscle groups.
You wanna strengthen the low back.
You wanna strengthen the hips,
the hamstrings, the shoulders.
Let's go ahead, Bob. - I'll show the one
without the ball, first, Brad. - Sure. Yep.
Let's do it.
I understand this is not heavy lifting here,
but this is getting your back, upper back, low back,
and I do these all the time.
I do these every day.
So basically, you're doing the opposite arm, opposite leg.
Now you could put weights on your arm, too.
- Sure. - You can go like this,
and this starts making it more difficult.
Now you are getting up to a little more
athletic level, here. - I don't care
how big of a brute you are.
We have ways to strengthen yourself without big weights,
and we'll get to 'em.
- Yeah, I like to go the three directions here, Brad.
So I go forward. - He's talking about
his arm right now. - Yeah.
Side, and then back, even.
Getting into different muscles.
So he's working different fibers of the upper trap
as well as the shoulder. - And obviously,
I go the opposite direction too.
I'm gonna hit the wall over here,
so I can't do that.
- He's doing some work to the glutes and the low back,
but we're gonna show you a way to get
even more stress on that,
if you really wanna to get higher intensity.
I think the best way I know to do it is using the ball.
- Sure, now you want
me to do this, Brad? - Go ahead, Bob.
- I don't do these, Brad.
You grab onto something or what do you do?
- I do 'em right on the floor. Should I do it?
- Yeah, why don't you do it?
- 'Cause these I do.
I don't do 'em on a table.
I do. 'em on a floor, preferably a carpeted
or rubber mat floor.
But for the camera's sake, I'm gonna do it on the table.
- [Bob] He's gonna make a great sacrifice for our audience.
- Don't do it on a kitchen table at home,
and say, "That's the way Brad did it."
Okay. I put my hands like this.
I rest my forehead right with my thumbs,
or here, or I take a pillow,
and what I'll do, I'll start out with just one leg,
and we'll start working it,
and then I'll work the upper low back like this,
and if you want more intensity,
if you're really a big guy there, you want some weight,
take some plates or some weights.
Where did those weight go, Bob?
- Right here. - And I guarantee you,
you will get plenty of resistance.
- Well, this becomes a balance exercise then too.
- Not really, once get you good on the ball.
The problem is my feet are dangling off here.
- Oh, how I went.
I had tried this. - Yeah.
You go like this,
and iI put my feet up against the wall.
You gotta learn to work with the ball a little bit,
but believe me, the ball's really cheap
compared to getting a whole weight set.
And you work it here like this.
So if the ball, if your feet are up against the wall,
it's easier to put
both arms down. - Much easier. Yeah.
- Okay. Gotcha. - Matter of fact,
I'll just show 'em, Bob.
I'm feeling like a silly person there.
- Okay. - Now.
Okay, now I can do it.
So you do like this.
You see, the ball supports the low back here,
and you get an excellent low back workout,
and then when you go to the front,
and you're doing these.
Great for the glutes, and if you want it more resistance,
then you start doing this, and it gets much more difficult,
particularly if you put the ball under your chest more.
I really can't even do it this long,
but if you're really strong, you could go here,
but I need to go up here.
- Are doing deadlifts, so one thing you may wanna do
after you're done doing the deadlifts
is to go ahead and get down and do some press-ups.
- Sure. Right. - You're stressing
your back into bending.
So now you wanna go ahead and do some of these,
the opposite, where you keep the pelvis down on the floor,
arms about shoulder width apart,
- Yep. - And just go ahead
and do some press-ups like this, keeping the pelvis down.
Don't be lifting up like this.
- [Brad] Right, it's not a push-up.
- And this will at least give you a little prevention then.
Maybe extend your back a little bit longer.
- And then if you wanna avoid the barbell
and doing the deadlifts, and you wanna get the legs more.
This really takes the stress completely off the back,
and it really can work the legs.
And if you really want - That's part of my
daily repertoire. - A good daily work out,
you go to one leg, and go like this,
and believe me, you will get adequate.
Especially if you hold 20 pound plate
or a 25 pound plate on your stomach, which I cannot do.
I'm maxing out right now here.
But there are always alternatives to get the same.
- I'm laughing because a lady gave me
a hard time on Facebook.
I said, I do three sets of 30.
- Yeah. - And she says
she does a set of a hundred some.
- Oh. - She made it sound
like she was an older lady. - Oh,
well, good for her. - Yeah. I know.
- When you do that kind of repetition,
you're working in endurance.
You're not working strength, but that's fine too.
- Yep. - It depends on your goal.
All right, remember, - Wow.
- Brad and I are not just pretty,
- We're pretty ugly. - No, we're pretty
helpful and handy.
So make sure you wanna subscribe to us,
and don't hurt your feet while you're doing it.