♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ the two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists ♪
♪ on the internet. ♪
- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And together we are
the most famous physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- All right. and our opinion is the one that matters.
- Exactly. Let's go to work.
- Okay, today we're gonna talk about how to stand up,
how to get out of bed, when you have a herniated disc,
or maybe when you just have really bad back pain-
- Right - Acute back pain.
- Right, right.
- Because there's techniques that are really gonna help you.
- Right, you can either do these movements wrong
and make the pain worse, or not let it get better,
or do 'em this way and allow 'em to heal.
- And your back's gonna teach you a lesson
if you don't do it right.
- Exactly. So getting out of a chair.
Okay, first of all, when you got that herniated disc
or back pain you wanna think about good posture
while you're sitting.
Not this. You're gonna make it worse.
- Yep, you wanna stay as straight as possible.
- Right, and now when you get up, this is the key.
Normally, when you get out of a chair,
this is normal mechanics.
- Right.
- Those are mechanics that are gonna irritate-
- You're bending way forward to
get your nose over your toes, as we say, and...
- That's just normal. Makes it easier.
- Yeah - Okay, but with the disc,
they're gonna put that PVC pipe on my back
just to represent good, tall posture.
And now when I stand up,
I have to keep my contact with my head here,
my back, and my low back they're all making contact with-
- All one unit.
- So, I know I'm straight and I'm gonna slide forward
to the edge of the chair,
and it really helps to have armrests on your chair.
And I'm gonna go straight up, there we go, and carry on.
- Good.
- This is something, with our patients,
we go through this in detail
and we make 'em get up like that
so they know how to do it before they leave,
so they know exactly how to do this.
- If they don't have armrests on the chair,
sometimes we just have 'em turn in the chair like this-
- Sure.
- and then they can use this side-
- Yeah, - at least to push up.
- Yeah.
- And help 'em, give 'em a little boost.
- Right. It's no different than picking up an object
like this, as opposed to like that.
- Right. Brad, why don't you show
the one way of getting outta bed?
- Yeah, so the transition from the chair to the bed,
same concept, keeping that back straight.
And when I have someone-
- Oh, you're gonna do that one first?
- Yeah. - Okay.
- Done on the stomach. - Yep.
- Okay, so what I have people do at home
is I'll tell 'em roll over,
and we'll practice this right in the clinic
and make sure they know how to do it.
Keep everything straight, like your body's a log.
- So you're rolling over like a log, yeah.
- Yeah, therapists call that log rolling.
So it's not like the log in the water going...
(men chuckling)
- Yeah. - That was funny.
Okay, then you take the closest leg
and you go down tell your toe touches.
Okay, and once your toe touches, you know where it is,
gives you a sense of confidence
and you go to the next one 'til it touches,
keeping the back straight in here.
- Again, you know,
he's keeping his back straight the whole time.
- Right, now, my hands walk up the side,
keeping that back straight. Up, up, up, up.
And there you go, and you go from there.
- Well, I gotta tell you Brad,
because this is the way we were taught, initially,
to do this, is we were taught you roll onto your side
and then you bring your legs off.
- Yep.
- And then you push up and keep your back straight,
like this. - Sure.
- I hurt my back once, and this was a few years ago,
and you had just showed me that other technique-
- Sure, yep. - the that you did,
and I could not get up like this.
I mean it, oh, it just hurt too bad.
- Sure, too painful? - So thankfully, yeah,
I was able to do this and I could get up,
and you could really keep it straight.
- Sure. Yep. - And get it down too.
I mean, I didn't know what I was gonna do,
'cause I couldn't get into bed.
- Yeah. - So it's not a minor thing.
- Yeah, this is, this is one of those savers-
- Yeah. - to take that pain
to a level you can accept.
- Well, one of the things too, which you may not realize,
at night, your discs fill up with fluids.
So if you have a herniated disc,
it actually fills up with fluid.
A lot of times it's worse in the mornings
when you're getting outta bed.
- Right, right.
- And that's the worst time
to bend forward and make the disc worse.
- Exactly.
- And so that's really important
that you get outta bed correctly
when you have the herniated disc.
- But wait, Bob, there's more.
- There's more, Brad has more.
- I just really wanted to say, Bob,
talk about going back into bed, it's just the reverse.
You face the bed- - Yeah.
and then imagine that PVC pipe is still on your back.
I tell people, imagine there's a 2x4 taped to your back
and you're gonna not let it bend
and keep it with you and then roll over.
- [Bob] Yeah.
- And this happens pretty slow
when your back is really sore.
- Right, you can take your time,
but any one of those movements can set off a spasm.
So you really wanna make sure
you're as straight as possible.
- Right. The one thing just reminds me of, Bob,
is I've been working on this over the last week,
and I'm thinking that there's some way we can...
And I got a new idea.
I'm gonna go out in the garage
and I get my welder for a broken heart.
We haven't worked on that yet.
- We can fix just about anything-
- But a broken heart. - A broken heart. And...
- Oh yeah. - That is.
- That's amazing how it just appears up...
- And it's fixed now.
- Okay, just, do your thing.
- Thanks (chuckles)