♪ Bob and Brad, the two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists, on the internet. ♪
- Well, hi there folks I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapy.
- And we are the most famous
physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course Bob.
- How does inversion therapy, or hanging, help back pain?
You're not talking about hanging from the neck, are you?
- Bob! Why Bob? No, of course not.
We're talking about the hanging
with decompression. - With the hands.
- Getting that spine to lengthen slightly, to relax it,
get that herniated disc backward where it belongs.
The same thing happens with the inversion table.
And we're going to explain-
- We're gonna go into details
to explain this. - Yeah, exactly.
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- [Brad] Yep.
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- Okay.
So Bob, we want to find out inversion therapy
or the inversion table, we have one right here,
a nice teeter one.
Hanging, which is you can hang that also decompresses.
So we're talking about traction, decompression.
That's really the same thing.
- Kind of lengthening the spine,
separating the vertebrae, the bones that make up the back.
- And in these cases we're using gravity to assist.
- Right.
- There used to be inversion or
traction tables. - There is, there are
traction tables.
- Right, but I don't know if they're around as much.
- You don't see those anymore.
You see the home units now that you can get.
- All right, yep.
- But remember the ?? Distraction?
- Sure, yep. Okay.
We've got a video on that as well.
We're going to show you why right now,
how it works and why it works.
So we're going to look at
well let's look at this model of the spine.
- You want me to hold it Brad?
- Yep, I do.
And so we're gonna look right here.
This is L three and L four.
And this red bulge here is a model of a herniated or bulging
disc where the disc is the inside of the disc,
which is like a fluid substance
is bulged out from mechanical forces.
And this nerve right here is getting compressed.
And that's going to create sciatica
because of compression here,
the irritation is going to follow that nerve root all the
way down into the leg.
- [Bob] This nerve is cutoff, I know the model
normally that nerve would go all the way down.
- [Brad] As well as all these but-
- [Bob] All these and formed together
sciatic nerve. - [Brad] Right.
So we want to put some traction or decompression using
one of the two devices.
We're going to show why that works.
- [Bob] Well why don't you show.
Do you want to show the traction on here?
- We can do it right now for, for example,
when you're on the inversion table or the hanging
that pulls the,
now this is exaggerated.
This doesn't happen near this
to this degree, right? - [Bob] So that extent.
- [Brad] But this way you can understand it better.
So here as you hang on the inversion table or by the hanging
handles that pulls apart, can you get that Liz?
And what that does is that allows space for that bulge to
centralize or go back in where it's supposed to.
And when that happens, we will need to keep it there.
So some scar tissue can form over that.
And this happens over a period of days or weeks,
but that's the idea.
- [Bob] But the other thing that happens, Brad is let's say,
you're not even having a disc problem.
Let's say you're having a joint or facet problem.
- [Brad] Sure.
- [Bob] That's these joints right here.
Each level has two facets on each side.
When you pull apart,
you see how that, this is exaggeration too.
- [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] But you take pressure off.
So if you're having like arthritis pain,
it gives you some relief that you're pulling apart.
It is taking the stress off of it.
- [Brad] Good point.
- Now you're going to show what the vertebrae here?
- So we're going to give you a little more dynamic
model of it. So this represents one vertebra.
This represents the one above it,
and the green ball filled with a fluid it's elastic.
It's very similar-
- [Bob] To a disc.
- [Brad] To a desk. And here we are,
we're going to show say,
we've got a bulging disc out right there.
Now when that separates from the traction
or the decompression.
Woop. It pulls it right back in.
- [Bob] That's what we're hoping for.
- [Brad] Exactly.
Now with, in either case where they're using
an inversion table or
you're hanging the symptoms that you have, the pain,
when you do it, it should feel very,
should feel good or very good.
If it increases pain,
you do not want to use either one.
- Right.
- I've used both on myself.
I've had an inversion table for about two years at my house.
I do the hanging right now. It's a little more convenient.
But the inversion table was helpful for me when I used it.
- Yeah. And I hang, I like to like set my timer,
especially on working at the computer.
Really don't have back pain right now,
but I don't want to have back pain.
- Sure, maintenance.
- And whenever I do the hanging,
I get a little bit of clicking in my back.
Like, you know, it actually.
- Crepitus. - Crepitus or,
and it feels better.
- Kind of cracked your back.
- Yeah, kind of crack my back.
- Let's show, the hanging first
and then we'll come back.
So we're going to show you a brief demonstration
on how you do it.
The hanging is probably a little more simple than...
- You can hang on a bar, a pull up bar.
Anything that you have, we have the Haine handles that we,
you actually get a clip that goes into the stud I mean,
an anchor - Anchor.
- An anchor that goes into the stud
and then you clip onto it.
These, these clip off real easy.
If you want to get them out of the way and you can actually
use them with resistance spans too if you want to.
- Exercise.
- I go ahead and just grab on and you can do partial weight.
So I maybe leave my feet on the ground.
- Yep.
- And you know, but I'm still getting some pretty good.
These are good for the shoulder, by the way, too.
- Right. There's a whole book on (incoherent)
- Yeah, so, but then eventually you might actually
take even less weight
on your feet and then eventually you might even lift your
feet up. - Sure.
- And you're really getting some relaxation then.
- Stay there in one spot
because let me show you one thing, bring your feet out.
Down. Yeah don't show off too much.
But what I want to do is what I do is I flatten my back
here into it, and that really feels good.
- Oh yeah, it does.
- Yeah. It gives it a little extra stretch.
- So you're doing a pelvic tilt basically,
while you're in this position,
you actually can do a little bit twisting too, Brad.
I actually, I find this to actually feel good sometimes.
Just gently twisting back and forth.
- Again, when you do this,
it should feel good.
You're not going to do it,
if your pain, if your back is painful with it,
it should feel very good.
And that's exactly why we're doing these extra motions
because you know-
- Yeah I like this because,
basically my home is my office right now.
So, you know, again,
if you do a lot of seated activities,
you can just take the break and it kind of revives you and
gets you get you back, focus back on work.
But it's also good for your back.
- So that's hanging from the back,
now we'll go to the teeter.
- Sure.
So this is so interesting that, you know, this,
I thought this was the perfect name for this.
Cause you kind of like a Teeter totter and it turns out the
guy who invented it, his name is Teeter.
- I don't think he invented inversion tables
per se, - [Bob] No no.
- But he did invent this
and there are other inversion tables
that worked fine.
We just, we like these are very well quality built and
we feel comfortable promoting it.
- [Bob] Yeah, a good price.
- So I'm going to lock my ankles in here.
It's important that you feel comfortable and you have a good
device that locks your ankles in
so you don't tip over backwards.
And you know, once you have it adjusted, right,
we do have a video that shows in detail
how to use one of these.
We're not going to do it for this video.
I have this adjusted. So I just lift my arms up.
Now in either case,
whether you're on the inversion table or hanging,
you have to learn how to relax your core muscles.
- [Bob] You're not going to get the back to decompress
as well if you're tightening up.
- Right, so-
- [Bob] You're going to prevent it from happening.
- I always go back now.
I'm not fully inverted and I never do fully invert.
Some people do. I think it's a little aggressive.
That's up to you.
- [Bob] This is as far as you go, right Brad?
- Yeah. This is about 60 degrees.
I think this is a little more than what I used to go.
But, right now
I'm allowing my stomach to relax and I can feel my back
getting that traction or decompression on it.
As I relax those muscles, it feels good.
I'm not going to hang out here for 10 minutes
the first time, for sure.
One to two minutes to see how it goes.
The first time I did this,
I hung out for five minutes and I had a headache for the
rest of the day.
- So yeah. Be aware if you're just starting this,
there are some precautions. - Right.
- [Bob] I mean blood pressure precautions
and you probably want
to get it approved by your doctor.
- Right, if you've got glaucoma, blood pressure problems,
cardiac problems, check with your doctor.
Cause there's a good chance
he's going to say it's not for you.
Then you can do the hanging.
- [Bob] Sure.
- So a very nice device. I feel taller too, Bob.
- Yeah. You're almost as tall as me.
(laughs)
- Alright. Well we hope we cleared that up and
you can find out if these are for,
for you and help your back.
- Thanks for watching folks.