♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi, folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- We're the most famous physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion of course, Bob.
- Today we're gonna show you how to strengthen
your shoulders at home without equipment.
This is specifically for shoulder pain.
This isn't for someone who's trying to beef up.
- Right.
- That's not where we're going with that.
- Often times that rotator cuff impingement symptoms.
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All right.
The goals with strengthening your shoulder,
especially when you have shoulder pain,
number one, we're trying to get the shoulder blade
back in place where it should be.
- The shoulder blade is a critical part
of the shoulder joint.
- Yeah, it's the foundation.
- Right.
- If that shoulder blade, and here is one of them,
here's a shoulder blade, if that's
winging like this, or if it's drifted forward,
you're gonna get all sorts of mechanical problems
at the shoulder itself and at this part.
- [Brad] At the ball and socket.
- Look at that!
It causes it even to fall off!
(chuckling)
- [Brad] We've got a dislocation.
- We got a dislocation.
So we wanna get that shoulder blade
back and up against the ribcage.
Back where it should be.
So that's what the number one thing we're gonna do.
Number two, we wanna make sure the rotator cuff,
which is four muscles
that surround the humeral's head here,
the bone here that fits in the socket,
we wanna make sure, it'd probably be better
to show on this side, Brad. - Sure.
Oh yeah, there we go.
- We wanna make sure the four muscles
are gonna help hold that ball the socket securely.
So that's why we're doing some of the
specific strengthening exercises
that we're gonna do today.
And number three, we just wanna make sure
your shoulders are strong enough
to perform daily tasks.
- Right.
- They've probably gotten weaker after being
painful for so long.
- So we fix the mechanics and then strengthen for function.
- Yep.
All right, let's just show number one, Brad.
The easier one you can do.
This is one I have everybody start
when I have shoulder pain,
is I just have them throughout the day
I have 'em do W's.
And what we're trying to do is strengthen the shoulders--
- Oh, I thought you write 'em down
with a pencil. - Yeah, I will move W-W-W.
So you wanna flip the other way,
and go ahead and show a W.
So you can see how he's bringing
the shoulder blades together and you're just starting to
encourage those shoulder blades
to be back in place where they should be.
It's a great one to do, you can do it eight times a day.
I mean, a good set of 10 reps or five to 10 reps.
- We just wanna think about squeezing those shoulder blades
together behind your back.
Then we're gonna move on to being really serious
about strengthening the shoulder blade.
So our next disc case, what we're gonna do,
we're gonna need, you can start without weights if you want,
but eventually you're gonna work to probably,
you can take a couple cans.
We got some organic lentil beans here.
- Oh good!
Good choice, Bob, good choice.
(chuckling)
- You wanna take this?
- Yeah, you can use dumbbells.
Maybe a one pound dumbbell's a good one to start.
- Yeah, if you have 'em. We're saying without weights.
- Oh!
Yeah, oh that's...
Well, this technically is a weight.
We got 16 ounces or 12.
- It's something you can find in your own home, I'm hoping.
So you can start with a couple pillows like this.
You can do it on the floor if you'd like,
and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start
by just going,
I'm gonna do our W again.
And you can do a set of 10 to 20
depending on what your tolerances are.
You probably are gonna only be able
to start off with 10.
- This is a lot harder than it looks.
- Yeah, especially if you haven't done it before.
And then you're gonna go out and do the cross.
So that was the Y.
- So if you're looking from the top down,
this is how his body's looking.
- Yeah, I think I'll straighter like this.
And then I'm gonna do a cross.
- Back like this.
- And then I'm gonna do reverse Y.
- In all of these you're thinking, mentally,
on those shoulder blades.
- Squeezing them together. - Yes.
- So I'd say again, a good 10 to 20 repetitions on each one.
- You'll probably find out when you start out,
you won't even need the beans.
The cans.
(chuckling)
'Cause it is aggressive without it,
and then you can build up to that.
- Right, okay, the next one, Brad,
that we have people start is outties basically.
These are innies, these are outties.
- We're not talking about bellybuttons.
- No.
We're trying to strengthen, this is the infraspinatus
and the teres minor, the two muscles of the rotator cuff,
and they turn the arm out this way,
but they stabilize the humeral head.
The head of your shoulder.
- Yeah, they put it into the socket where it belongs.
- Right.
So this seems like a...
These are small muscles so it doesn't take a lot of weight,
especially if you've been injured.
So if I can just have one of those, Brad.
- It takes proper mechanics though.
- Right, exactly.
So you're gonna lay on your-
lie on your side, I even said it right!
- You've been studying your English.
- Let's pretend it's my right shoulder that's the problem.
So you're gonna just do outties here,
and you can keep your arm stabilized
up against your body like this
and you're gonna lift all the way up like this.
If it hurts you, you can just go up to level.
But if you're able to do so,
go ahead and bring it all the way up.
- pain-free range of motion.
You'll feel the muscles back here fatigue,
and look how Bob keeps his elbow stationary.
It's rotating, but he's not bringing it
away from his ribcage.
- Again, I'm almost surprised at this, Brad,
I work out and all this,
but this one is causing my arm to fatigue.
It's not one I do very often.
So that is the external rotators.
Now the other one that also stabilizes the joint
is the supraspinatus muscles.
Very common muscle.
It's often the problematic muscle.
- Most of the time.
- So what you're gonna do is just
gonna go off to the side.
I usually bring the arm forward a little bit like this,
and you're gonna go up like this.
Now you can also do the empty can
if you wanna focus more on the supraspinatus,
but I tend to not.
- Years ago, empty can plum down
was kinda like every read that
and there is some controversy on it now.
I think for the average person at home,
if you're doing it in a pain-free range,
you're gonna get good benefits.
- Yeah, and for most of you,
I'd probably just go up to level.
You're starting to bring on
that possibility of impingement if you go higher,
and also, you've gotta have really good posture
when you're doing all of these.
You wanna be as straight up as possible
when you're working these.
By the way, I failed to mention, Brad,
this is my fault,
generally with people, besides the W's,
I don't have them start with strengthening.
I have them start with stretches.
So we're gonna show you two stretches at the end of this,
just as a bonus because a lot of people,
we've got this questions, Brad,
people have asked, "Should I start with stretches,
"should I start with strengthening?"
Well, a little bit of both,
but more we lean towards stretches, wouldn't you say?
- Right, the general rule is you must obtain
range of motion and then start the strengthening,
and there's some give and take in that
depending on the situation, but you know.
- In case you're wondering about the repetitions on this,
all of them I'm going to say 10 to 20 repetitions.
Now this one, Brad, I don't even know
if I should mention it.
The internal rotators.
- Let's do the stretches first.
These are more important.
- These are more important.
This one is just one that it's also for the rotator cuff,
but it's generally not weak on most people,
so show the stretches, Brad.
- Right, so this is, let's say you can get up to here
and it's tight or it's a little painful,
but once you get up here then it's okay when it's up here.
Those are situations where this stretch is really--
- I think even arthritis, Brad.
- Oh, right!
Yup, for arthritis. - It comes in handy
quite often.
- So if you take a stick, this is five foot long
and about an inch in diameter, inch and a half in diameter,
that you can get a good grip on,
and it should have something so it doesn't slip.
I'm gonna put it on the edge of the chair,
the corner of the chair.
It needs to grip onto there well,
and I'm gonna reach up as high as a I can,
now you may start out only going to here
and then you're gonna stretch,
but as you get better, you keep reaching up.
We use the booyah stick, it really is a surface--
- Really good grip.
- Easy to grip onto.
And then I'm leaning forward.
Now, you really can't see this,
but I can definitely feel the stretch through the joint.
- It's putting a lot of traction on the joint.
- Exactly, Bob.
It's a easy way to do traction
without hanging or a machine or anything complicated.
And this can be used for people with arthritis.
The first person I used this
was with a 14 year old baseball.
He's a pitcher and he needed to get that high range,
so it's for all levels.
- I've done it with my nephew,
and he also did this next one.
Do you want me to show the next one, Brad?
- Oh, the volleyball player?
Oh, yeah!
Yeah, what about the touching?
The stick, Bob.
We gotta maintain our...
- Our social distancing. - So here we go.
This one, let's say the right hand
is the one that needs the strength, the stretch.
That's gonna behind, palm away from your back, right there.
Now the stick, and you can use any stick with this,
but it should be three to four foot long, minimum.
This one's five, it works really well.
Now, this one, the palm is towards you.
So I'm grabbing the stick like this
and here's the first thing we do, is stretch this way.
No sharp pain should be experienced.
If it hurts to sharp pain up here,
don't go that high, go down here
and eventually, after a few days
of stretching this you'll get better.
Once you get it up here and it's feeling like
just a nice stretch, then
we go like this.
So we got the stretch up
and then this is the infamous chicken wing.
And we pull it out like this. - You don't really have to
lean the body forward, just bring the arms forward.
You're kinda leaning with the whole.
- Yeah, I don't know why it's doing that.
- The whole reason I know you did that
because I had a patient that did that too.
And you can see, he's not hitting his head
because I've had people that too.
- "Ah, that's hurts, that hurts!"
Well, don't do it.
So yeah, and this is typically someone who's higher level,
they're maybe more of an athlete,
they're doing more overhead stuff or they're younger.
Someone with arthritis--
- We're theorizing that.
We think it pushes the shoulder blade back in place.
- It kinda goes along with some of our great mentors
like McKenzie and Mulligan.
- The stretches.
So just a review real quick.
I'm not gonna even mention the internal rotators.
You guys are busy.
You're gonna do the Y, T, reverse Y
laying flat, you're doing the W's while you're sitting,
throughout the day.
You're gonna do the supraspinatus,
which is this right off to the side,
and you're gonna do the outties,
which you lay on your side and you're doing it that way.
All of them, 10 to 20 repetitions.
Once a day to start off with.
You can do it twice a day later on,
and that should get your shoulders plenty strong
once you've got it stretched out.
- Work with it, be careful and enjoy.
- Thanks for watching.
(upbeat tune)