♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi folks.
I'm Bob Schrupp, Physical Therapist.
- Brad Heineck, Physical Therapist.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- Well, Bob, in our opinion, of course.
- That's all that matters, right, Brad? (both chuckling)
So we're gonna talk today
how to use a massage gun on calf muscle pain.
This is gonna be a pretty easy video, Brad.
- Yeah. It's a good thing though.
- The only thing is though, when you have calf pain present.
You wanna make sure that it's not anything serious.
- Oh, that's a good point.
- Like a blood clot that you can get DVT.
Deep Vein Thrombosis. - Deep Vein Thrombosis. Yes.
- And in that case
you're gonna have probably some swelling, maybe redness.
- Yeah.
- And when you squeeze it, it hurts.
- Yep.
- Diabetic neuropathy. Obviously.
Although, we have found
a little bit of circulation to the area
does seem to help that, by the away.
- Sure, sure.
- And arterial claudication.
Arterial claudication, I had to say that right.
- Oh, that's a big one. What're we talking about?
- That's also talking about
that your blood is not flowing like it should be.
A lot of people -
- A little clogged up in the arteries? So to speak.
- Yeah. A little narrowed up.
- Yeah.
- A lot of times you'll walk for a while
and it'll start hurting.
- My father had that very clearly.
- Did he? - Yup.
- But now, if the pain is due to a muscle strain
or a micro tear,
you should first find the area where it's torn.
And all you gotta do is use your fingers or your thumb
and find the spot.
Now often it, it may be in the mid calf.
- Yep.
- Or it may be right where you attach to the tendon.
- Down here? Yeah.
- Yeah.
- I think this place where the gastroc goes,
it ends right here and there's the soleus.
That's a fairly, common-
- Yes. It is.
If it's down here on the tendon,
we have a different video for that.
- Yep.
- So, but what are you gonna do,
is you're gonna find that tender area
and I usually like to work from the outside in, Brad.
- Sure. On both ends, going in.
- So you're gonna massage around the area.
And then eventually you go into the area itself
- And you'll know if you have a tear or a strain,
because it's pretty point tender when you get on it
and you have to kind of palpate deep.
You're not just gonna go on the skin,
but it'll open your eyes up. (laughing)
- Yeah, you should find a spot. Yeah.
And we're gonna recommend that you,
when you use a massage gun,
no matter which one you use,
probably go with the fibers and against the fibers.
You can do a little bit of both.
So now, we have a big variety of massage guns here
but we want to talk about the heads.
So to begin with if you want to go with one
that is very innocuous.
- Oh wow, Bob.
You've been looking in the thesaurus.
- Yeah. That's right.
Is the air-filled one,
this one, you could take this over bones
and it wouldn't even bother you.
- Yeah. It's cushy. - Boney areas
yeah it's a cushion.
- It's a good way to start.
- So, and then you can get a little more aggressive
maybe could yeah, I would say the round one.
- Yep. I like the round one for going sideways.
- Right.
- Which we'll get into in a little bit.
- Yes. This one also works quite well.
It's not too aggressive.
- Nope. A lot of surface area.
So it spreads out the force a little bit.
- Yeah, if you go sideways on this one,
it could be a little more aggressive.
- Sure.
- I think for the smaller one,
that's all the ones.
Now, like in some of these other ones,
like the handheld massager,
you got this one, which is pretty aggressive.
It's got knobs in it.
- Yep.
- A large area too.
- Spreads it out more. Larger area.
but that one is not as aggressive
in regards to the reciprocation or the travel.
So that changes there.
- So Brad like we said, we're gonna go ahead
and I like to go over the clothes, to be honest with you.
With this one.
- Oh, well, sure. Yep.
- With this one, because it just feels better.
- Sure.
- Now this is, I got an aggressive one.
This is the pointer, bullet one, you could be,
on some of them.
And I'm going to work away.
Again, around the area of tenderness.
- So Bob's going over his clothes.
I'm going direct skin,
you can do whatever feels best for you.
- And then start creeping into the area that's painful.
And it's nice when you find the area that's painful
to actually do cross fiber.
To actually go across the fibers.
- So the fibers go vertical on all the calf muscles.
So we're gonna go actually this way, which is-
- Right, we're trying to do a little cross fiber massage
because we're assuming there's some scar tissue
that's been laid down.
- Yup.
- And we want it to break that up, that scar tissue.
And we want it to get more blood flow to the area.
So I think it'll help speed along your recovery.
- Yep.
- So, the other thing I want to point out, Brad,
is I really like to do a little flossing with this tool.
- Dental floss?
(both laughing)
- Not really it's floss as movement.
So while I'm massaging?
I'm gonna get started here.
I actually like to move the foot up and down.
- Ah! Sure.
- And side to side, Brad.
It's just gonna get different areas
and it's gonna-
- So we'll get over that sore spot?
- Yup.
- And then do this motion.
- Yep and back and forth.
- I like that too.
- It's just a good way to really get into the muscle
and you get different areas of it.
- That makes a lot of sense because when you're active,
you're on your feet, you're always moving your ankle
and working those muscles.
So you're gonna work the injured area.
- I would do a little bit of both, Brad.
I would do without movement and of course with movement too.
Of course you can throw in some stretches and stuff
along with this, but that's not the purpose of this video.
The purpose of the video is just to show massage.
- We just put a calf stretching video out,
just a week or two ago.
- Yeah, remember this video is part of a series of videos
on massage guns and handheld massagers.
And so
if you go to Bobandbrad.com.
Go to the, giveaway section I was gonna say,
(Brad laughing)
go to the programs section
and look for the program on massage.
We actually have ones on plantar fasciitis, sciatica
- Hip.
- Hip pain, shoulder pain.
I believe that one's done.
- Is that one up yet?
(Bob laughing) - You know, if you go in there
and they're not up yet, it means we're still loading.
These take quite some time, sometimes,
- Yeah they do. - before we get them complete.
So be patient.
Come back and look at it in actually a week or two.
- Watch only the videos that pertain to you.
- Right.
- And each video has a PDF with it,
a printout that you can actually print out
the contents of that video,
so you don't have to-
- They're gonna print out what we're looking at right here
on our power screen.
- Right. Exactly.
- So yeah, it's you can't go wrong with that.
It just keeps you from coming back
and having to look at us again.
- And it's all free.
- Not even your email.
- Goose egg.
- Goose egg?
- Yeah.
- Wow.
- All right. - Infinity sign.
- Thanks.
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