♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists on the internet ♪
(cheerful tone)
- (claps) Hi, 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.
- Today, we're gonna show you how to decompress your neck.
You don't need any equipment,
or you're not gonna put you in awkward positions.
These will be simple to do.
By the way, if you're new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos on how to stay healthy, fit, pain-free,
and we upload every day. - That's right, Bob.
Also go to bobandbrad.com.
We're doing a giveaway.
We always do a giveaway.
Go to the Giveaways section.
You'll see we're giving away a Booyah Stik.
- Booyah!
- The Booyah Stik can be used for shoulder pain problems.
I tried to say pain and problems.
- Balance. - Balance.
- You can even stretch your mid back.
- Mid back a little bit. - You better believe it.
- You can also go to Facebook.
It'll be pinned at the top of the page.
You can go to Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok
if you want a 60 second version of our program.
- And we have podcasts out there,
and they are incredibly excellent.
We have a really wonderful people.
I don't know why these people agreed to talk to you, Bob.
- I don't know either.
- They're very intelligent. - It's a mystery.
- Okay, Bob.
So you realize, before we started, I gotta mention this.
I am literally an expert on cervical and neck decompression.
You know how I can tell you that?
- How can you tell them that? - Look at my name.
My name is Heineck, high neck.
Get it, high neck, decompressed neck.
- I thought it was Bread.
(both laugh)
- Yeah, I'll give you more about that
- He doesn't like that. - With this Booyah Stik.
Anyways, seriously. - Brad Heineck is his name
for those that don't know. - Yeah, that's my name.
Some people don't know.
They just think I'm Brad.
So, we had an overwhelming response
when we did the full decompression of the spine,
which was the thoracic spine and the lumbar,
but we did not put the cervical and neck spine,
because you can't combine them very easily.
- No, you can't. - So we're gonna put this,
so you have the complete spine decompression series
we have done.
I know I have.
And I'm quite sure you have done a fair amount of traction
or decompression on the spine over the years in the clinic.
- Especially manually I will do it for a while
just to calm things down
and not try to go into something else.
- And sometimes I would just use it just to assess,
and then go back for treatment, but we won't get into that.
We're gonna talk about how you can do this at home.
You need to be careful when you're working with the neck.
Anything we do here should not create any pain whatsoever.
You're only gonna do these techniques if they feel good,
it feels like a good stretch.
- Generally, it does.
If it starts to hurt, you stop immediately,
because it's not one of those things
that are gonna hurt now and feel better later.
No.
So, hurt now, hurt later.
- Yeah, (chuckles) exactly.
So we're looking for a very good response initially,
as well as afterwards.
Tanner, you're playing with the camera.
We okay? - Yeah.
- Okay. (laughs)
So let's talk about the cervical spine.
There's seven vertebra from the occiput.
- Seven bones stack up.
- Occiput down.
You can count the little bumps,
but they're kind of hard to see or feel,
but through here you can see that.
And the tissues that connect the cervical column,
they're pretty tough.
And what we need to do is loosen things up,
so that these nerves here,
there may be one of those becoming pinched,
which can cause problems, pain,
even down in the shoulder and all the way to the hand,
actually, in the arm.
There's also the facet joints.
We're gonna maybe able to gap those
and loosen those things up,
so you have better range of motion.
- Those are the joints it's just like a knee joint.
They can wear out,
and they've got pressure on them,
you sometimes give some relief by pulling them apart.
- Right, exactly.
Excuse me.
I'll just throw that over there.
- Ooh. - Wow.
I just gave it a manipulation. - Good.
- Anyways, so I think a key part seriously
is when you wanna decompress or do traction
on the cervical spine is that you're
in a comfortable position.
You can relax, breathe, and really-
- 'Cause if you tighten the muscles up here,
you're not gonna get traction.
- Those muscles tighten up
without you really thinking about it.
If you're a little tense, this is not gonna work.
- In spots, yeah. - Right.
So we're gonna pick two positions.
I've seen people do these kneeling down
and putting bands around their head and everything else.
But I think these three options are safe
as long as you do them as we say,
and you're comfortable doing it,
so either in a seated position or lying down on your bed
or a comfortable carpeted floor
with a mat or whatever maybe.
So, is there anything else I missed, Bob?
- No, you're right on.
- Okay, good. - For once.
- The first one, this one's simple.
This one you can probably only do in a seated position.
No, actually you could do it lying,
couldn't you? - You could.
I would try it seated though.
- Yep, I'm gonna show it from the profile.
Bob will show it straight on.
You make a fist.
It doesn't have to be a tight fist.
You can go a thumb down or a thumb up.
- For some reason I'm more comfortable with thumb down.
- So am I.
We're gonna put it under our chin
and the top of your sternum.
Now I'm gonna unbutton just a little bit, Bob,
So it's that notch right there,
and that's where I put that knuckle right there,
right in that notch,
and then this knuckle, the pinky knuckle on the chin.
And then you can take the other hand.
I'm gonna sit back.
I like to do this in a relaxed position,
so it's nice to have a backrest.
And this hand pulls the head forward, and it's just a lever.
And I can feel as soon as I can feel.
And I can't talk when doing this.
- And it's fine to have the neck go
into a little bit of flexion,
'cause that's actually a beneficial position for it to go
into a little bit flexion while you're gapping the neck.
I don't know if you've seen anybody else do this,
but Brian Mulligan, I wanna give them credit,
'cause that's where I saw it first.
- If you don't know, Brian Mulligan is a world famous PT.
He's developed his own systems.
The thing that limits this, as with all of them,
is you're not gonna hold it probably for 30 seconds
unless you've got a pretty strong arm or fatigue,
'cause you get fatigued with it,
but you can easily do this pretty much anywhere,
at work, at home,
not driving. - Just a warning though.
You can actually get pretty good stress on there.
So you wanna start off gentle,
and then later on, maybe you go a little more aggressive,
but you can put pretty good torque on there.
- Sure, and, again, wanna do it lying down, Bob.
- Sure.
Just to show that you may be more relaxed in doing it.
There you go.
Try it the other way then,
'cause I think this arm might be in the way.
There you go.
Now it's still in the way. (both laugh)
It's the same. - How about this?
- There you go, sure.
Excellent.
Okay, should we go to the second one, Bob?
- Sounds good.
- Now, this one is, again, seated position we'll show it.
So you take your hands out.
Bob, you read something about the cupping of-
- Well, I've seen them where they actually cup the ears
and go up like this,
but that's one they had the elbows usually on.
- Sure, yep.
And I'll do this.
I actually don't cup on the ear itself, that bone.
- Right where the bone, the skull, attaches to the neck.
- Or even like right behind the ear too.
- Sure, there's a boney protuberance there.
- Right, yep.
And I'll get the pad of my thumb,
just pull my thumb right there,
and then I'm going to flex forward,
in other words, bend forward slightly.
We're not doing this by any means.
And I'm leaning back, then we just pull up.
- Now you're moving your mic, Brad.
- Is that making noise?
I'm gonna have to pull this off.
You wanna talk about, Bob? - Sure.
So you get leverage through the palm.
He's over the boney protuberance of his skull.
And then he's gonna go ahead and he can go ahead
and apply pressure straight up
or straight a little bit forward too he can go.
- And if I clasp- - Yeah, clasp your hands.
He can get a little more leverage and make it easier
to keep the hands in place.
And what are you gonna do, like ten second holds, Brad?
- Right, yep.
- So, there's really no right number to these.
I mean, if you can hold it longer, you can.
You can go 20 seconds, but you wanna see, again,
immediate relief or better.
You don't wanna see, ah, that hurts.
No, then it's not right for you.
It's one of the tests that we do on people actually
when we're trying to see if they qualify
for a regular massage like traction unit,
that mechanical one. - Mechanical device
that we'll hold for 10, 15 minutes, obviously,
or we get tired. - Can we hear you?
- Can you hear me?
Okay, I'm doing a manual mic thing here.
- All right, the last one we're gonna show
is a towel roll, using that.
Brad's gonna roll up the towel.
And he got kind of a thin towel a little bit here.
- Yeah, but it's nice to have a towel,
because it's more comfortable on your skin,
and it does grab into your skin.
It doesn't slip as much is what I feel.
I'm going to take this here.
Again, good posture.
And I'm just gonna pull up.
- And, again, he's pulling the boney protuberances
right behind the ear, giving him a place to hook onto.
- And I've got no neck problems at all right now,
but I can clearly feel a nice stretch all the way up.
I'm gonna adjust a little higher,
so I get to stretch more up to the occiput,
which is that skull pan bone, if you will.
Now I'll show you this lying down.
Can I show them, Bob? - Sure.
- See what happens-
- You can also do it with one arm.
If let's say, for example,
you're getting pain down the arm,
you can just do it with one arm.
So let's say, for example,
he's getting pain down his left arm.
He's gonna push down with his right arm.
- Or the other way. - Yeah, or the other way.
- Or both.
Sorry, I'm making mic noises.
I know I am, 'cause it's touching my skin.
But this is, I think, better,
because you get to relax.
It's more lying down as opposed to in the chair.
- You think they could try a belt, Brad?
- Oh, sure.
- They could probably use a belt.
It might even hold better in position.
- Cloth belt or leather belt,
something that doesn't slip
and kind of wants to catch to you.
You'll know what I mean when you're trying that.
Like these are three really handy, useful, easy ways,
safe ways, to apply traction or decompress your neck.
I feel a little taller again.
- Well, when you do this,
you can actually do it throughout the day.
You can do it like six times a day
to give yourself some relief.
And it's also kind of a good posture reminder.
- Absolutely, Bob.
Any time you're improving your posture,
you're getting at the root of the problem as well.
- Remember, Brad and I can fix just about anything-
- Except for- - A broken heart.
- A broken heart.
And this has got nothing to do with a broken heart.
- No, it doesn't.
We're not even close, but we'll work on it.
(cheerful tone)