♪ 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 are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today the title of the program is,
"How to Put on Socks and Shoes
with Back Pain and/or Sciatica".
Now this video is a part of a series of videos
on back pain and sciatica.
If you want the entire series,
go to bobandbrad.com and go to the program section,
it will be underneath there.
- And these all have PDF printouts
so you can put out the information on paper
and then it's much easier to refer back to for remembering.
- Excellent!
So, when you're trying to put on your shoes and socks,
one of the main goals that we are trying to do
is stop your back from going into the C position,
which, if we show (metal clashing) on this spine here,
wow, we're really making a lot of noise here.
This is the C position.
So, when you're in a rounded out position,
this is a bad position for most back pain issues.
- Right.
- Definitely for sciatica.
- Right, if you've got a disk issue,
that's more than likely gonna make it a worse disk issue.
- So we're trying to keep you as straight as possible,
and sometimes we actually use the Booyah Stik,
for people to...
As a good visualization, especially when sitting, Brad.
- Yeah.
- I think this works out great.
So if you sit down,
and if you were to have a stick along here
you've got three points of contact.
- Here, here, and down at the belt line, they're touching.
- So when I'm trying to put on my shoes,
I'm trying to keep those three points of contact.
Now obviously you're not gonna have a stick here
but it's a good reminder, a visualization.
- Right, and we're actually gonna show you options
so you don't even have to bend like that
with a straight back.
- Let's go with the first one, Brad.
So putting your pants on
or your socks and shoes even on in bed--
- Oh. - Is a thing to try.
- Yeah, because what we're,
the whole goal is...
- Why don't you take your shoes off first, Brad?
Because you've got slippies, don't you?
- Yeah, these are handy.
It's a nice option if you do have sciatica
to have shoes on and off.
Um, to keep your back supported and straight
while you put your pants on
as apposed to in a seated position,
where you lean forward and irritate that disk,
this is much better.
So obviously, I'm not gonna show my body off
and take my pants, my real pants on and off.
We're just gonna go over the top.
- Show his body off (laughs)!
- Well, Bob, you know I'm trying to...
- It's nice to have some false pride there.
- (laughing) But yeah!
- You can see how he kept his back.
- Yeah, my back is all straight.
- Yeah, all supported.
- There you go!
And then now, once I get them up like this,
I'm gonna tighten up my core
and slowly keep that back straight
and slowly come up and--
- That's why we have you work on bridging sometimes.
- Ah! - Now, Brad,
if you were to put your shoes on in bed,
how would you do that?
- Oh, that's a good question.
So, with this, it's really nice to be able
to have enough flexibility in your hips
to do the figure four position,
which is here.
- You've got the wrong shoe there, buddy.
- Oh, the wrong shoe, that's all right.
Kids do it all the time.
(both laughing)
- It's all right?
- Well, I would have the shoe up here.
I'd have my grabber, but Bob's got my grabber.
- Sure.
- Thank you.
Yup, so then you can do this.
And then of course,
in another video we covered
how to do the,
you know, do the log roll and keep your back straight,
and tighten up the stomach, go up,
everything is nice and stable and straight,
and there we go.
- All right, Brad.
- Don't I look like something from Hollywood?
- Yeah, now you need to take those pants off, Brad,
because I need them.
So anyway, we're gonna do it in a chair,
which is a little more difficult,
I have to admit.
Because, you know, as soon as you bend forward,
and especially for a tall person like me with long legs.
- Yeah.
- It's just a lot more difficult.
But we'll show you, you know, we can try.
So the first thing you can do is straighten out the pants
and get them all ready.
- Right.
- And you can just feed your foot into it down here
while I'm keeping my back straight.
I'm even leaning up against the support of the back--
- Yeah.
- Of the chair while I'm doing this.
Pull it up, same thing,
you got to kind of feed it back down there.
If you have troubles you might be able to use a reacher,
and...
- It's got a little grabber thingy you can squeeze and--
- Yeah.
They call them reachers, right?
I believe so.
- Yeah, okay (laughs).
- So well, yeah, you can feed it on.
These are real handy, especially for people with back pain
because they can pick stuff up without you bending forward.
- Right.
- It works out really well for that.
- And they're not that expensive.
- Right.
Yeah, that's one thing why we like you
to work on hip range of motion.
- For sure.
- Because that can save your back.
The more range you have in your hip,
- Yeah.
- The less you have to move with your back.
And if you can do this, like figure four,
now you are able to get the pant leg on very easily.
- Right.
- As opposed to if you're not,
if you're not able to lean forward,
and then you're gonna have to maybe use something like that.
Now for putting your shoes on,
they do have long handle shoe horns.
- Yeah, those are handy.
- They are very handy,
because you can get your shoe over here.
I'm maybe gonna pull this one over,
and the shoe horn, I'm gonna get this...
I have these really tight too, the laces,
and you can see I slide it right in there.
- Yup.
- Now this might be cheating to some extent
because these shoes were actually...
These are special shoes called Zeba shoes, Z-E-B-A.
And they're designed right to slip on.
They're really a cool design,
I've never seen anything like this before.
- Yeah.
- So if you're gonna come up to these, now I have,
again, these are set very tight, my shoelaces.
- [Brad] Yup.
- [Bob] So you put them in here.
Now watch how this collapses back there,
see how it collapses?
- [Brad] Right here.
- [Bob] But it's got like a little shelf on the top.
And I go further, and it pops right up,
it doesn't squish the back down forever,
you know, it stays in place.
- [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] And now my shoe is on tight.
Now for taking it off,
they actually have a little bit of a ledge back here,
and I can grab with my toe and it pulls it right off.
Were you able to catch that, Mike?
Do you want me to do it again?
Okay. - Beautiful.
- (muffled speaking)
So these are not a bad investment.
We're actually trying these with your mom.
- Right, she--
- 'Cause that's a big issue with her.
- She doesn't have a back problem but she's older,
and she has a problem reaching over, it's a safety issue.
- Right.
- We don't want her to fall out of a chair.
- Now if you don't wanna invest in the shoes,
you can get elastic,
you wanna grab those elastic shoe laces there?
- Oh, yeah.
- They do have elastic shoe laces that you tie,
you know you tie the shoe,
and they'll allow it to
get your foot in there. - Expand.
- Expand, to get your foot in there.
So it's a lot easier using a long handle shoe horn
and elastic shoe laces.
- Yeah.
- You can quite often get them on.
- Once you get them in, you tie them.
You can tie a good knot on there
and you never have to tie them again.
- Right.
- With the elastic laces.
- So that's another option.
Anything else we want to cover, Brad?
I think that's the ideas of what we can try when you're...
You know, the final thing is, if you can't do it,
and if you have a spouse or a friend at home,
you may have to have them put them on for you.
- Right.
- Especially when you're in the throes of back pain.
- Yup, when it's severe.
- Okay.
- All right.
- Thanks for watching.
- Thank you.