♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
(Green Acres Theme Song) ♪ Da da da da da, da da ♪
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 show you our five most effective
shoulder pain exercises, and these will help often
with rotator cuff problems, arthritis, or impingement.
- Right.
- But before we do that, by the way, if you're new
to our channel, please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos, how to stay healthy,
fit, pain-free, and we upload every day.
Also go to bobandbrad.com, go to the giveaway section,
always giving something away.
This week we're giving away the Renpho stationary bike.
It's a beauty.
This will solve all your cardiac needs.
- Right, bad weather, winter time, whatever,
you could even hook a Bluetooth up to your phone
and see where you're going, nice programs.
They talk back and forth.
- It's amazing technology.
Okay, you can also go to Facebook.
It'll be pinned to the top of the page, to Contests,
go Twitter, Instagram or TikTok.
- Wow.
If you want a 60-second version of our program.
And what do we have?
- You've been practicing, Bob.
We've got the podcast out there.
We've got wonderful programs
with experts and even us talking.
So you can't go wrong with that.
- (laughs) So now this is a little bit
maybe counterintuitive to what you think,
but when you're working in the shoulder,
Brad, do you mind standing and turning around,
facing the wall, yeah that-
- That wall?
- This wall. - That wall.
Yeah.
So your shoulder blades are attached.
I mean, your shoulder blades are attached to your shoulder,
and if these are out of whack, if they're not right,
for example, if you have too much rounded-out posture here,
that's gonna throw these shoulder blades off.
So we got to make sure your posture is good
right in this area here.
Hard to correct this, because there's heavy ligaments
that hold the bones together.
So we're gonna actually stretch these
and mobilize this area
by using a tennis ball or a lacrosse ball.
And this, like, maybe, I don't know if it's clear,
but if you have that rounded thoracic,
or that back is rounded, kind of hunchback thing
then you really want to make sure you address this.
- Yes, and to be honest with you,
almost everybody could benefit from this.
I mean, everybody's fighting gravity and posture.
- I do it.
Well, I use the backpod, - The backpod,
- but yeah, I do it regularly.
- I don't think we have the backpod here,
but yeah, the backpod works really good.
Brad, I just want to show the areas where we do it.
- Oh, sure, the six.
- Yeah. So you can do it on a wall to start off with,
because it might be too aggressive for you,
but I mean, here's the shoulder blades.
I'm doing one area here, one there, one there, one there,
one there, one there.
I'm in between the shoulder blades.
And I'm a little bit above them on this one,
but here I'm actually right in between them.
So again, you can lie down on the floor
and lie on it and feel the pressure,
or Brad actually takes it up against the wall.
- So I'll start on that position up high,
and the advantage of the wall is you can easily roll up
and down, which help.
And I'm gonna drop it down a little bit,
and I actually went to the other side.
But there it goes, and like for me, I'm used to doing this.
So this isn't aggressive enough, but when I first started,
I'm sure this would be fine.
And on a carpeted floor typically works the best.
You cannot do it in a bed, 'cause the ball sinks
into the bed and you won't get
that tissue softening - as a transition to the floor
you might put a towel over it.
You know, it won't be as bad.
- So you'll fold up a towel, lay it on there,
and then you just lay on that.
Do you want me to show- - Sure.
- a couple of different positions on this?
- [Bob] Now, on this you might not roll.
You might just put pressure on it,
and you might even move your arms like that.
That's a good stretch that way.
Yup.
- Boy, that-
- Moving that shoulder, moving the problem shoulder.
- I'm gonna roll it there a little bit,
'cause I got a knot there,
but might want to just,
you can see I'm adjusting the pressure.
I'm not lifting up like this
and lifting, cause that's a lot of pressure.
- Yeah, and on a knot, I think it's good
if you do do short rolls,
just kind of, you trying to massage that knot away.
So at least take the pain intensity down.
All right, so that, you know you can do each spot,
30 seconds to a minute.
If you answer your, you know,
you've got less than five minutes invested
in that hopefully.
Next one is the Statue of Liberty.
So with this, you're gonna need
either PVC pipe or you could probably use a broom handle,
take it off the broomy part.
- Yep, yep, get a piece of doweling from the store,
or maybe you have something laying around.
- Or a Booyah Stik
Booyah! - That's right, Booyah!
(sticks clicking) - Oof!
- All right, so what's nice about the Booyah Stik,
it's got good grips on it
and it's got good grip on the material here.
- Yeah, it just sticks well to the palm of your hand.
- So you're gonna go ahead, and this really works
for people who are like lacking motion,
but it also works for impingement,
but let's say you're only able to raise your arm
up to like right here, you can start right here.
And what you're gonna do is lean forward like this,
and you're putting traction
on the shoulder as it leans forward.
Now you try that a few times.
If it's pain free, then you might creep up a little bit.
- Up, up, up.
- And you start gaining motion
in the shoulder in a pain-free manner.
And again, as Brad leans forward,
he's putting traction on the shoulder.
And eventually, you know, if you get up to here,
you're really getting some good traction
on the shoulder and yeah, you can sometimes
even do it standing, depending on how tall you are,
but you can do these throughout the day.
You don't have to just do it once,
and just keep your pole nearby your seat.
- And you're not gonna spend 20 minutes doing it.
It's only a minute or two, you know,
five or ten repetitions.
Yeah, we've had really good success with this.
- People with arthritis have really liked it.
They like seeing how they're gaining, you know,
that their hand is moving up the pole.
But don't do this. Don't slide like this.
- I had one patient.
He did, he came in, he kept sliding his hand down.
I thought, "Oh, I didn't teach him well enough."
- So the next three exercises, we want to make sure
that you don't have shoulders that tend to dislocate,
or we want to make sure you don't have brittle bones,
like osteopenia or osteoporosis.
'Cause this might be a little bit hard on them.
So we don't want anybody to run into problems.
So shoulder extension is another one.
So here's a painful shoulder and this is palm facing me.
This is a palm away.
And just like you're rowing a boat,
and you're gonna stretch back like this to the point
which it's comfortable.
You don't enter the pain cave, as Dr. Starrett likes to say.
- I don't want to say, but some people might get technical.
It's more like paddling a canoe.
- Oh, I don't know the difference. Sorry.
- You row a boat with oar locks.
- Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. Well, what would be this?
- No, that is kayaking.
- That's kayaking.
(both laughing)
I'm not a water sport man. That's very evident here.
- [Brad] That's all right.
- Next one is, well you wanna show this, Brad?
External rotation?
- Oh sure.
- And maybe even a chicken wing, too.
- Yeah, and this is one I've been getting
through very successfully on my left shoulder.
I'll go like this, and I call it scratching the back,
because, now this I'm doing on my right shoulder.
This is the one I'm stretching right now.
I grab here.
And this arm all its job is-
- This is the one you are stretching right now.
- Yes, the right one here.
And I just go up like this, and this is a stretch here.
- So this palm is forward.
This palm is facing back.
- [Brad] Right, yeah, it's critical to do that.
And I'll just go up here until I feel a stretch.
I'm not getting aggressive.
I'm not making any pain, just a stretch.
Do that 5 or 10 times.
And then I'll go into what Bob has nicely coined
the chicken wing, a stretch like this.
Now you'll notice if I switch to this arm, I'm much looser.
It feels like it's looser.
I can't tell by looking, but I can go-
- It looks like it.
- [Brad] Yeah, 'cause I've been stretching my left arm
and I decided I better even them out.
So now I'm going back after the other one.
I had great luck with this as far as impingement.
It was the one thing that took it away.
You want to be careful with it,
'cause it's quite a stretch on your shoulder.
And again, if you have shoulders that want to pop out,
you don't want to do that one.
- Tread gently.
When I first started on my painful shoulder,
it's much better now, now it feels good.
It just feels like a wonderful stretch
and I'm happy to do it.
- Now, this is a little variation
of what Dr. Kirsch likes to talk about.
Dr. Kirsch has wrote a book on hanging
for shoulder problems,
and it's a wonderful book and it's got a lot
of testimonials in it, but this a little variation of this.
Let's say you're having trouble with the right shoulder.
I'm gonna actually gonna put stress on it
and put some traction on it.
But while I'm doing that,
I want to put the shoulder into a stable position.
The shoulder is most stable
when it's called externally rotated.
- Palms going up. - Palms, yeah, up.
So I'm gonna actually hang and stretch.
And I'm gonna go to the right and pull
into the external rotation.
- So the thumb goes up and away.
Now, Bob, we got to admit,
neither one of us came up with this.
This came up from a real expert, right?
- Right, Dr. Starrett.
I always want to say his name,
but he used it a little different way-
- The same concept?
- This worked out really well.
And yeah, we stole it, but that's what therapists do,
borrow from each other.
- Right, well, we're in this together.
- We're all trying to help people.
So I mean, we share our ideas,
and he puts them out on the internet like we do.
- We're gonna have a podcast with him.
- Yep, we're gonna have a podcast with him,
so we'll have him forgive us at that time.
- Yeah, what has he written, like three or four books?
- He's written four books.
- Four books, yeah.
- One on paddling.
(both laugh)
Seriously, I didn't order that one,
because I don't paddle.
- You mean, really the book shows how to paddle a canoe?
- Yes, I think so, yeah.
He was like, I don't know, Olympic version,
but I think he did in college at least.
- Oh, really?
- Yeah, he was quite an athlete.
- Wow. Excellent, good. Well, we'd better get out, right?
- All right. I think we're done.
Brad and I can fix just about anything-
- Except for-
- A broken heart.
- Well, now we're working on paddling,
'cause I'm interested in the J stroke.
Any of you paddlers out there?
You know, the J stroke that keeps you straighter.
- The joker stroke?
(both laugh)
All right.
(upbeat music)