♪ Bob and Brad, ♪
♪ the two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ on the internet. ♪
- Howdy 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.
- So today we're gonna show you
some shoulder strengthening exercises.
This is not for the athlete
or the person who is trying to bulk up.
This is for the person who's having pain maybe
and they're doing our stretches
and they wanna start progressing to some rehab.
- Right.
- Some strengthening.
And so we're gonna show you five basic
not too aggressive exercises.
- Right. Things to get you back in that daily function,
getting dressed,
lifting things in and out of the cupboard,
doing some chores around the house
- without pain.
So the first one,
it's really important that the shoulder blades
be in the right position.
And quite often what we'll find is
those shoulder blades tend to separate out a little bit
too far and we want to make sure
that they're in the right place.
So what we have my patients do is,
I have them do shoulder squeezes throughout the day.
So basically,
you're gonna go ahead
and take your shoulder blades
and you're gonna put them together
and squeeze them together like this.
You can go like this. Do the "W".
- Yep.
This is essentially a posture exercise.
- Yes. Keep a good posture while you're doing it.
- So your head's not forward.
- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Just hit, you know, rattle off
maybe five of them while you're at a desk or,
- Yep. So the chest goes out,
shoulders go back, shoulder blades together.
And the chin comes in, good posture.
- Yep, I'd really like to see you doing this quite often.
I mean, you could do it every hour, so,
- Yep. It's easy, quick.
- Next one, Brad,
we're gonna start working on some shoulder flexion.
Brad's gonna show you, you could use a hand weight
and we want you only to go up to 90 degrees.
- So right to here. Not up here.
- we're starting to work on the rotator coffee.
You get some strengthening.
Brad's gonna show it with a band.
- Yep. So we're just going up and down.
And I like to do this one with a thumb pointing up.
- Yes, me too.
- Works out good.
And the nice thing about a band is
you can infinitely adjust the resistance.
I can make it a little tighter if I want, you know or
- You can have two bands if you want.
- Yep.
Go like different color bands.
Bands have a big advantage.
- Give yourself a challenge.
- And that's why therapists oftentimes
use bands over weights for home exercises.
There's weights. Weights are okay,
but for this, bands are good.
- This next one, we already show people
you wanna show that,
is with the scrub the wall wax on wax off.
- So we're going up like this.
- Again, it's a great way to work on proper form
of the scapula and the arm,
- Shoulders back.
- Good posture.
- I can just feel from here to here,
I can easily, more easily,
go up a few more inches
with my shoulder blades back where they should be.
- Now this is another one you can do.
You can start fairly quickly is just isometric abduction.
So we're shrinking in the shoulder without moving it.
So we're gonna actually move the arm out this way
but you're up against the walls so you can't move it out.
So you push 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and relax
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, relax.
Now you can also do external rotation which
is you bend the arm to 90 degrees the elbow
and you're gonna do the same thing that you
if that wall wasn't there, you'd be pushing out like this
but you're pushing against the wall.
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
And keeping the arm in.
Sometimes you use the, the towel underneath the arm.
- You mean by the elbow?
- Yeah.
- So your elbow stays close to the rib cage.
- Well, yeah, so you don't let this fall out, basically.
If I did it wrong, I would chicken wing like this.
- Yeah.
- And it would fall out.
But then you finally you can do it with the band, also.
We wanna progress to that eventually.
- So you need some place to anchor it.
And again, you know, if you're using the towel.
I usually start my patients with a towel.
Once they get the hang of it,
then you don't really need it.
- Exactly.
- And then we're gonna use this motion.
This is kind of like the, you know
every therapist in the world uses this as one of their
- It's a good universal strengthening exercise
for the shoulder.
It really works that rotated cuff
- Exactly.
- Gets a couple of the muscles of the rotator cuff and
it's usually not painful.
- Right, and when you get stronger,
simply step farther away.
Yeah. If it creates any sharp pain,
it's too early it's not ready for it.
You'll have to back off on the resistance or the range.
- So five simple exercises you can do them
three times a week if you'd like.
Just to get some strengthening
and they shouldn't take you that long.
- That's right. Yep.
Work with them and be careful in everything that you do.
- Thanks.
(upbeat music playing)