♪ 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.
- Title of our program today,
"Must Know This for Best Results
"Using Inversion Table for Back Pain & Sciatica Relief"
- Right. Now, this is, from a therapist point of view,
as well as a personal point of view,
I've used one of these with my back issues over the years
and there's some things
that I really think you really need to know
- And keep in mind when you're doing this.
- Yep, to stay safe
and have the best results with your back and leg pain.
- By the way, if you're new to our channel,
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You're having pain, back pain, and sciatica
you wanna check out this mattress.
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- (laughs) All right, Bob.
So, very interesting, inversion table.
Hanging upside down, decompression, traction,
all pretty much the same thing,
and it can be done with a unit like this.
- And doesn't necessarily have to be upside down,
you're just, could be at a slant, right?
- Yeah, and we're gonna talk about that
in more details, right.
So, the first thing
if you're gonna consider using one of these
is make sure you get a good quality one.
I think this is made by Teeter.
I've looked into 'em thoroughly, I've used this one.
I had a different one that wasn't Teeter
that I had used for my back problem a few years ago.
This is well built.
This is their model LX9 which is their premiere one,
their most expensive one.
It has a few more bells and whistles.
- Brad's got a background
that he has a understanding of how things work.
I mean, do you wanna just tell real quickly?
- Yeah, I was electrical mechanical
mechanic technician, whatever you may call it
- Don't even remember what you were!
- Yeah, it's been 20 years, or 25 years, extensively,
and this is something I take around at home, I got a --
- He knows products. - Yeah.
So, this particular product is built well,
and it really does what it's supposed to do.
So the first thing you need to do is adjust it,
and no matter which one you get,
there's gonna be adjustments, you have to adjust.
I'm not gonna go into adjustments in too much detail,
but you have to get the leg adjusted right,
there is an adjustment here, there's three adjustments.
- I see there's a reading on here, Brad,
is that based on your height?
- Exactly, and on this particular Teeter,
what they do is they put your height on here,
but it's not exact.
So, I'm five foot 10, five foot 10.5,
I put it on five foot 10, and it actually works good for me.
But if you have shorter legs and a longer torso,
that may vary in inches.
So it gets you in the ball park.
The other one is, you wanna get the
there's an adjustment here that you only adjust once,
there's three positions, and you adjust that once for you.
That one's a little harder to adjust,
this one's very easy from person to person.
And then also, there's an adjustment here
that there's two positions,
and that allows it to fit your ankle so you have a snug fit.
And that's very simple as well.
So make sure you get it adjusted properly,
look at the manual.
Oftentimes, they have videos, or YouTube instruction for it,
so look at that carefully.
Make sure you get it adjusted well.
- I think before we even get this far, though, Brad,
you probably wanna get this cleared with your physician.
- Yeah, very good, Bob.
You're not just gonna go, if you have back pain,
or whatever you're gonna use this for,
even if you're gonna do a maintenance program
and you don't have back pain,
you heard good things about it.
You have to talk to your doctor, get it cleared,
'cause you can, it increases pressure into your eyes
if you have a eye problem, or a potential problem,
that could be a blood pressure.
- Blood pressure issues, right.
So you wanna make sure
you are a good candidate for using this device.
- So once that's cleared, - Yep, you're good to go.
- Yeah, exactly.
So, let's see, where are we, Bob?
Learned to adjust it.
Now, once you get adjusted right,
and the way you know it's adjusted right
is first of all, this is critical.
When I push this down,
this has really got a nice ratcheting mechanism.
I'm gonna push down, and I'm gonna get it snug.
Not so tight that I lose circulation to my feet,
but you should feel snug in there.
- [Bob] Does this loosen up just by pushing this?
- [Brad] Yep. It works better if you push in a little bit,
and then there it goes.
- [Bob] Otherwise when you ratchet it back,
you just pull it back?
You don't have to do anything --
- [Brad] No, you just push it
- [Bob] click click click click, nice.
- It's very nice, very well padded, very comfortable.
I'm always worried about these things, 'cause when you're,
if you're totally inverted,
and your ankle slipped through there,
and you land on your head, that's a problem.
- Yeah, that would be a problem, so,
so that's really well made.
Yeah, there is no issues. - Not of a concern.
- Exactly. Now, you're gonna learn,
and this is something that takes a little bit of practice,
and I have it adjusted just right.
If I just bring my hands this way, I can go this far,
and if I do this, it's there.
And you should feel relaxed,
and in complete control of your angle.
So this is horizontal.
Nice thing about this,
if you get one that does not have a smooth back,
I know my sister had one,
and it had kind of a chair thing here,
and that's not what you want.
You want it smooth, so when you start to invert
your body will slide,
and then you get your traction or your decompression.
- Right, I can't imagine that
that other way would even work.
- And some of them have pads, and things like that.
- Yeah, you gotta have a slippery surface.
- Right, exactly.
So, here we've got that.
And you wanna only start out at about 20 to 30 degrees.
And I can control that here.
Now, there's a strap,
can you show 'em the strap underneath, Bob?
Maybe Bob doesn't even - I don't know what it
oh, this strap right there?
Okay, so I see that's set so that you can only go so far.
- Right, I've got that set at about 60 degrees,
so no matter what, I'm not going past that.
But I can easily control that,
I'm gonna estimate I'm at 20 to 30 degrees.
And the first time you use this,
you should go back to that position, and have a spotter,
in other words, somebody with you,
just in case something happens,
and then they can help you get back up if you needed to.
- So are you feeling traction at this point already?
- At 20, 30, it's very little.
What you have to do is
relax your abdominal and your core muscles,
(deep breath) through your breathing, as well as relaxing,
and there's a slight traction.
It's not much, but it's a little bit,
and you're gonna hold it there for one to two minutes.
And it should feel very relaxing, very good.
Then, - For the first time,
that might be enough, I assume then.
- Right, exactly.
Then, that's not it, no.
This is a key,
and this is something that I have not seen
anybody talk about in these videos for this,
it is get out, and it should still feel good.
Stand up, vertical,
now the pressure's going back through your spine,
the discs are going through a lot of changes
from the inverted position to this position,
and then it needs to feel good there.
No sciatica pain or symptoms should be changed,
or if anything, they should be better.
Walk around for a little bit, take some time away from it.
As long as it feels good
while you're performing the inversion,
and afterwards as a result,
- You're good to go. - Into the next day,
then you can go from 30 degrees to 40 or 50 degrees,
and one to two minutes to two to three minutes.
- Yeah, you wanna do it scientifically here.
Gradually increase angle, and gradually increase time.
- So, each day you could increase one minute,
and you could go another 10 to 20 degrees,
and go one day at a time,
and you have to feel good while you're doing it,
the symptoms are better, as well as afterwards.
And there's some judgment calls, if you did something silly,
like you had to go out and shovel,
and you didn't shovel right, and you have a sore back.
You may wanna take a break
from the inversion table that day.
It all depends on your symptoms.
It may help you tremendously as well, that day.
- Yeah, it might help you after shoveling.
And this is where you have to,
you're performing a self experiment, basically.
You're finding out what works for you,
and what doesn't work for you.
Everybody's so different.
- And that's what Roger Teeter, the owner of this,
I watched some of his videos,
he says this is a individual thing,
you can't just come up with a program
for everybody that's the same.
It's actually the opposite,
each person's gonna be a little different
depending on your back situation.
Now, I'm gonna go back to 60 degrees.
And now, when I did this on a regular basis,
because I was having sciatica from my spondylolisthesis,
which is another story.
I did not have a bulging disc, it was a different situation.
I would go back like this, and my leg pain would go away.
So I knew I was doing the right thing, and I'd hang out.
Now, the first day I did this,
I was one of those silly boys, like I am oftentimes,
and I went for five minutes.
While one or two minutes is good --
- But you were fully inverted too.
- No, I wasn't. - Oh you weren't?
- I was at about here, I wasn't that silly.
(Bob laughs)
But, I got up from it, my leg was feeling better,
I thought, "Wow, I'm right on the money."
And I went to bed that night,
and my head was feeling kinda weird all,
you know, I did that in the evening,
and I went to bed,
I kinda had a headache for the rest of the night.
I did too much too soon.
So I cut my time down from five minutes
to two to three minutes.
And after I did it for a while,
then I could get up to five minutes,
'cause I got used to it.
And you know, the body adjusts, and knows what's going on.
- Adapts, right. - Yep, exactly.
But again, relax, relax, they have handles right here,
and those handles are,
you can actually give a little more traction
than the gravity's gonna do,
so it's like assist of the gravity.
And the only reason you're gonna do this
is because it makes your leg feel better,
or your back feel better.
This is definitely not one of those things
that pain is gain.
- [Bob] You're looking for a reduction.
So the table did help you for a number of years?
- It did, I had leg pain,
actually I could walk only three fourths of a mile,
my leg always would go numb.
I started doing this
along with some exercises for my core,
and that went away, and at that time
I did sell my inversion table.
So there's used market for 'em for sure.
But part of the reason was,
in my workout room where I do my exercise,
I didn't have a lot of room for this.
So I thought it was just kinda getting in my way,
my symptoms were gone,
that way I finished out my spondylolisthesis rehab,
and I still do with my other exercises.
- So, interesting enough,
I brought this up to a neighbor this weekend
that we're gonna do a review on this, and he has one.
And I happened to see this neighbor,
it was probably a half year ago,
and he was having sciatica symptoms.
And he was going in to evaluate
for whether or not he's gonna have surgery.
And I told 'em, if he can hold on,
we've done a video on this,
quite often, the discs can get reabsorbed,
or they can get eaten by those microphages, or they can,
you know, the body can heal yourself
if you can make it through the pain,
if you're not getting weakness in the foot.
And he listened, he actually got the table,
and he's been able to manage it,
and he says now he gets pain once in a while right here,
but no longer down the leg.
So it's worked really well for him.
So he does it like five, six times a day.
- A day? Wow. - Yeah, he does it a lot.
- But he's been doing it, so he knows his body.
- Yeah, he knows his body, and he knows it,
so he's using it.
I think it's not a bad idea, if you have the ability,
and you know...
- If you get positive results like that,
and you've been doing it for a while,
you know what's going on.
That is a good question, people are gonna say,
oh, actually, there is a study
by a university in the United Kingdom
where this, using this,
and I'm gonna do it, we're gonna do a video on this.
55% of the groups had less surgery
using this as part of their treatment.
So there's some science
that we're gonna talk about with this Teeter.
But as far as a general rule
is how long do you stay inverted,
and do you invert completely up, vertical?
I'm gonna say some people may respond well
to 90 degree inversion, complete inversion.
I'm thinking, I don't think you have to.
Roger Teeter himself goes to 60 degrees,
that's what I went to, I think you get plenty of traction.
Some people are wanna go all the way,
only if you follow the rules that we went through.
It's gotta feel good while you're doing it.
And there's some exercises in full inversion,
we're gonna do a video on that too,
that we wanna talk about in therapeutic value.
But probably 10 minutes is probably the maximum.
That's what Roger Teeter does, he's been doing it for years.
- 10 minutes, wow, that seems like a long time.
- I went five minutes at the most,
and that was more than adequate for me.
Once a day, I don't think I ever did daily.
You know, three to five times per week.
But if you have good results
like the gentleman you talked about, multiple times a day.
Has to give you good results.
- Again, we can't say that enough,
it's gonna be different for each person,
so we can't predict how you're gonna react to it.
So, nice device. - It is.
- Go to the link below if you wanna buy one.
Thanks, everybody, for watching!
(jingle)