♪ 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're the most famous
physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion of course, Bob.
- Brad, I'm gonna tell a story real quickly.
- Let's hear it Bob.
- So golfers are nuts.
You know that?
- Oh well, of course.
there's no doubt about it.
- They're,
when they get attached to a sport like golf,
they are crazy about it.
And so I have a friend who loves golf,
probably more than life itself.
- Does this have anything to do with therapy, Bob?
- Yeah, anyway. So last year,
he actually had to stop golfing,
because of Golfer's elbow.
This year, we jumped on it right away.
We will show this.
- Yeah.
- We used a massage gun before he would golf,
and then when he was done golfing,
he would use it.
And he golfed all the way through the year.
- So he was grateful.
- You, oh, I'm sure he was.
- So Golfer's elbow, another
the medical term is medial epicondylitis.
- Right.
- Golfer's elbow is a lot easier to say,
and most people are familiar with it.
- You sound smarter with that one.
- That's a good point.
As long as you can get it out
and you know.
So the thing is it,
should we show it on Sam?
Or should we just show it here?
I think we could just show it here.
- I think most people know where it is.
- Yeah.
So golfer, you know, there's tennis elbow,
which is on this side.
- Right.
- And then there's golfer's elbow,
which is on the inside if you will.
And that's the medial,
that's why it's medial Epicondylitis.
That's the bone right there.
These muscles here that are responsible
for flexing your wrists.
And also there's some for flexing your fingers,
they all end up connecting at this bone.
- The funny bone.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
Technically, I don't know.
(laughing)
We'll call it the funny bone and say by your older nerve,
which is under here.
- Right.
- But now if I get someone in the clinic
and you know, this is their diagnosis,
I will you know kind of push around in here.
And almost invariably,
when you get close to that bone,
the most tender spot is right there.
- That will make the job.
- Yeah. (laughing)
They pull away and say don't touch it there.
So the good news is there's some-
- Haven't you had it to?
- I yes.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
It's been a while.
I had more tennis one.
- yeah.
- But the treatment is very similar.
Yeah.
(laughing)
So the good news is,
is you can treat this at home.
You don't have to go to a therapist or a doctor.
- We have a lot of different tools
- Right.
- And we're going to show you
and figure out which one works for you and stick with that.
- Because this can hang around for months.
If you don't treat it right.
And it just continues to irritate it.
- It's chronic
- Yeah. Exactly right.
So people want to know what you're going to say.
- Lets start of.
- All right.
So the first thing i do wanna say,
usually it's from repetitive motion.
- Right.
- Or if you go do something like a weekend warrior thing and
you stress that muscle-
- Yeah.
- For whatever reason.
- she probably tear it.
- Yeah.
Yep.
So the first thing is avoid activities that irritate it.
- Right.
- you know,
if you can, the hardest thing for people at work.
- Right.
- You know,
if it's a part of their job and you have to do this,
whatever activity irritates it,
but we're going to show you a couple of things that can help
with that as well.
So that's the first thing.
The next thing is to say,
you've got to,
it's really tender and it's really inflamed.
You can do ibuprofen.
Some nsaids as long as you're,
you don't have any other meds that are going to irritate
your stomach.
- What are nsaids?
- Nsaids!
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
- Right.
- There you go.
So it's like,
ibuprofen is a primary one across the county that most
people use.
And then the other one
the old mother nature cold packs.
- Right.
- Now you can take a cold pack like this,
a gel and pull it out of the freezer
and wrap it around there.
And then, you know, you're going to hold it there.
- This is nice cause they can form.
- Yes. Yep, that works really well.
Now for this particular injury,
this is where I don't mind using-
- Right.
- a cold ice cup.
So you put water in a cup.
It's a cup that's either paper or styrofoam.
Freeze it.
Yeah. Make sure you freeze it.
So I had this in the freezer last couple of nights,
it comes out and then you go like this.
- I usually to get it ready brad
i smooth out a little bit with the other hand.
I go a little bit of that.
- Yeah. That does make a little smoother.
- It does.
- It will get a little drippy. So have a towel ready.
Now the big advantage of this is it only takes five minutes.
Cold pack usually need 15-20 minutes.
And at first it hurts and then you go through a burning
phase where it's not real comfortable,
but then it gets numb.
And then it puts a smile on your face.
- You can take two fingers
and if it feels like one
that means that the area has numbed up.
- It feels like two. Ya I'm gonna keep going.
No. So that's a real nice option,
particularly for golfer's elbow.
Now, the next thing you want to do is
do a little massage because
these muscles often times get tight.
And when these muscles get tight,
that puts more stress on the point of injury.
- Aa that's what I have found with one of my friend is that
he would get this loosened up,
ready for golf and there was less stress out there.
- So how did he loosen it up?
- I gave him a massage gun.
- Oh you did?
- Yes.
- So if you don't have a massage gun,
you don't have to go out and buy one. It is easier,
but what you'll wanna do is you know
you don't have to put on a towel but a pillow works better
is you're gonna work in these muscles.
You know, I find the thumb works better.
You can get in here like this.
- Based on the location of it.
- Yep.
You're going to feel around on the muscle belly and you're
probably gonna find a ropey spot.
- Right.
- And it's going to be a little tender
- Like a trigger point quite often.
- That muscle kinda nodded up.
You need to get in deep.
In you know after about thirty seconds,
you should feel it started to relax.
- You know what I have been reading brad is that
quite often they think the nods
maybe caused by the Fasanella.
- Oh! The Fasanella.
- Ya the top fibrous material that surrounds the muscle.
- Right.
- But eventually you want to work your way up
to the actual elbow
and you want to do a little bit different massage there.
- The cross fiber massage.
- And you probably won't be able to tolerate
that at the start.
- Right! After it improves
Maybe a few days you get up in here and the fibers run this
way. You're going to go back and forth this way.
Yes.
And you're going to back and forth this way.
And after about 20, 30 seconds,
if the pain relieves and starts to feel better or kind of a
numbish feeling,
then you're going to work on this for probably about three
to five minutes until your thumb gets sore.
- If it gets worse its too early.
- Right.
- It's 20,30 seconds and like Ahh! it still really hurts.
- Yeah. It's tender.
Get back up on the muscle belly. Work that.
Again. See I am already starting to feel tight hand
- It's to help break up the scar tissue that's in tendon.
- Yep!
So let's talk about,
if you don't want to irritate your thumb or your hand,
you can use a massage gun.
If you have one.
which one are you gonna pick Bob?
- I'll grab this one.
- Sure sure.
I'm gonna grab this smaller one,
which is one of my favorites.
- Now Brad really came up with a good way
to use the round head on these.
And this was around head.
He doesn't go directly into the muscle like this
Cause it'll bounce off.
- Yep.
- Especially very good on a tendon.
He goes from the side like this.
- Turn it the sideways.
- And does some good cross fiber massage that way.
Now going down to the muscle, you can actually go like that.
- Yeah, when you get up in here,
but as you get closer to that source by it
turn it sideways. Like this and work at it.
And while I tell you
it really makes a difference on your hands.
You don't get sore thumbs.
- Right.
- And then you know this you can time.
You probably don't need to go more than
five minutes with this.
And you know, you're going to loosen up those muscles,
It's going to create a more circulation,
get things relaxed and allow you to return to your activity
sooner.
Now there's a couple other tricks we want to show you.
The next one is-
- Some K tape?
- Yep. Kinesio taping.
We got this from John Gibbons.
He's got a book when he has all the parts in his book.
The cool thing about what he did was if you Google put
John Gibbons and then put a Golfer's elbow?
- Golfer's elbow yaa.
- His video will pop up.
- Right. And he does a better job than we do.
- Yaa. He's an expert at it.
- He's done it for years and years and years.
- I'm gonna show you how he recommends to do that.
You're going to take,
you don't have to have two different color tapes.
I'm just using that because, so you can see what I'm doing.
You pronate or supinate your hand,
you put this right-
- Palm up!
- over the right over that sore spot.
And then you do not put much stretch on it.
See that, cause this tape stretches quite a bit.
You just get the slack out and hardly any stretch
and you go like this like that. Okay?
Then you take this-
- You heat that one up yet or not?
- I'm going to do it at the same time.
- Okay.
- I probably should do it separately.
But for time we can talk about that.
The neat thing about this is you don't have to sit there and
try and separate it. Just rip it.
It stretches and that works really nice
once you figure it out. It's kind of fun.
Now this one, I cut a tail on it like this.
- Right.
- Right down the middle round the edges.
He'll talk about that in the video, put that there.
And then I'm going to just pull it across like that.
But on this,
you're going to pull you stretch it a hundred percent of the
way then back off to about 75% and then put that-
- Back off about 25%?
- Yeah.
- You leave 75% of the stretch.
- Yaa. 50 to 75%.
You know, it's kind of one of those judgment things,
but you need some stretch on a second one and then you back
off there, then you take,
you save the paper and you rub on it for 30 seconds.
So it sticks to your skin.
- And this will be good for what two or three days ?
- Yep. Typically, as long as you don't pick out or
get really sweaty or wash it with a lot of soap.
Now, like Bob said,
I should rub this down when I put the black layer on and
then do it again.
So you're going to have to set it two different times to get
the maximum, make sure your skin is really clean.
- It's not a miracle worker, but it does help.
- It is one of those things
if you work with in your work irritates it.
It's going to help throughout the day,
make the day go a little bit better
and there's one more! This is a really neat trick.
- This stuff works. I am surprised.
- Yaa. You know I have had a work
and we've had people comment on you know
on a comment section.
All you do is get a pillow right here,
or you do this lying down on your back in bed.
You bend your elbow like this gently flex your wrist and
your fingers gently.
- This is the strain-counter strain technique.
- Exactly.
And then you rotate your wrist right or left
whichever direction makes the sore spot feel better.
So flex, flex, rotate till you get to the
most comfortable position when you feel it comfortable,
completely relaxed don't have the
kids running and jumping on you or the dog.
And for 90 seconds, you have to time it.
- Sure.
- You have to relax for 90 seconds.
- At least 90.
- They say 90 to 120 seconds upto two minutes.
And then when you get done with that
slowly extend things open.
- Release it.
- Yep.
And don't do anything aggressive for like
the next hour or after that.
You can do a little-
you can get the massage gun out.
There's just do a gentle massage on it.
And you'll find out that that can be a really nice way.
I'm not going to get into the details about strain,
counter strain, but it's really easy to do.
And you'll notice it right away when you get done
and it feels better. It's done the right thing.
- It's like you could do it a couple hours before golf.
- Sure.
- You know just to calm it down.
- Exactly.
- And be ready for the event!
- Right exactly.
You can do that if you have success with it,
you can do that you know several times a day.
- Right.
- So wonderful Bob.
This is all the tricks we're gonna give today.
Maybe another video will be more generous.
- You did well Brad. You did well.
- Thank you bob. Thanks for the help.
- Thanks for coming to the show.
- And be careful when you're golfing
with that Golfer's elbow.