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, we got a three step approach to treating trigger point pain that's including fibromyalgia and chronic pain
But if you just get that pain up in your upper traps
This is that pain that almost everybody gets. These are good solutions for that too so oftentimes
working at a computer workstation
Where your head is forward or you know driving a vehicle if you're in bad posture a lot of times
It kind of enhances and brings it on sooner by the way before we go any further
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Were not liked and we're trying to turn things around here now. Yeah. Yeah, are we doing okay Brad. We're doing all right, Bob
I'm feeling better now, all right carry on so what are trigger points? Trigger points are kind of hyper
Irritable spots in the fascia surrounding muscle. They're really controversial Brad
They don't know what they're caused by for a lot of people or most people or
Everybody doesn't really know the cause of them, but I want you to be careful of and is that the knots could be
Referred pain so instead of having the problem right here
You might actually be having trouble with your neck and it's sending pain down into this area now
You might just have a few knots or in the case of fibromyalgia you're gonna have out of a possible 18 tender spots
You're gonna have 11 of them, so you're gonna have you know maybe tender spots here here here
There's some on the leg. There's some on the arm, I believe so
You're gonna have 11 tender spots so
Some of these solutions you may have to move like if the Thermatex
Yeah, you can look that up and see where those spots are we just don't have them memorized
Yeah
So we're going to talk about if let's say you're just having pain right up in the upper traps
At the neck and upper traps. This is my go-to solution for this, in fact
This just happened to me the other day Brad
I was working at my computer a lot and I try to work on my posture
I was trying to do a lot of movement and keep it moving
Yep, but it once it starts coming on there's nothing that takes it away
Okay, and I actually I had the Thermatex with me
But I had left the strap somewhere else, oh the shoulder straps, so I actually took some
Some of the tubing oh, I thought you gonna use duct tape no and
I just tied it on because I was like I was desperate I mean
It's the only thing that really takes it away once
I start having the pain, okay, so he's talking about I'm Thermatex far infrared heat
Far is actually the frequency. It's not far away. You know it's the technical name for the
Infrared and this is the Platinum model
Yeah
Which is kind of a nice size because you can use it all over the whole body
Depending on how you use the straps and such and in this situation well turn around again
Here we've got it from the neck
We've got a band here and here. It's covering most of the thoracic or the mid-back
Yeah, this is what we had actually talked to the company about is
Adding these extra straps, so now instead of you know not only does it hold it in place it
Also works on your posture so when I slide my arms in here it actually corrects my posture pulls my shoulders back
Yeah, we got velcro, or some elastic straps, so you do have velcro on right
Yep
And we showed it in a video how to go ahead and put those straps on and
It just works great and what I do is usually
If you're gonna walk away from the computer. I just unplug it right here. It's got an eight foot cord, but
And then when I come back I plug it in, the other thing
I've been doing lately Brad is I just leave it on
Sure, and then I take it off
And I walk away and I come back and I slide it back on again because it works out very good if you're gonna get
one of these they are pricey
But we do have, they gave us a code for the people that are watching our video, a discount code
You could look in the description below make sure you use that because you get free shipping
And a discount and it makes a lot more reasonable
This is something you can use your entire life over different parts of the body, so
They're built well. They're gonna last a long time
We forgot to mention the best benefit of it Brad is that it's the deep heat right this isn't just
Normal heat is only like a few millimeters
This actually goes 60 millimeters or
2.36 inches it's literally 10 times deeper than your typical convection normal hot pack
You know the other day we were doing a video on hot packs and such heating pads
I thought oh, you know I gotta try this once. It's good. You know is it really a bigger difference
There's a difference Brad. It just feels different. It doesn't go deep its surface, so all right
Let's go into the next thing Brad you're gonna want to make sure that and this is true with fibromyalgia
This is true with just regular old muscle knots you want to make sure you're doing movement
Exercise and movements and the key is often finding the right movements to do
So we're gonna show you some things to try first off
We're gonna help you determine whether or not that pain is coming from your neck or not and going down and creating
Those knots and so all you do you're gonna sit in a chair you're gonna make note of where your pain is at and
Then you're gonna go ahead and do these movements you're first going to do flexion and extension
And if that changes the pain, it's probably coming from your neck
Then try rotations
Does that change the pain, maybe none of them have changed the pain so far, then you're thinking it is coming from the
Mid-back and the muscles right there, so last one is side bending, a bend to the side
So the idea is just
By moving the cervical vertebra or the neck alone if that changes the pain either
Location or the intensity. There's a good chance
It's a referred pain from your neck yeah, and if it's from your neck you're gonna
Want to go ahead and work on neck movements that actually relieve it and generally those tend to be
Extension and Brad we often use the towel don't we? I'm sorry to do this to you
We've got a towel Bob, fear not fear not
So I'm gonna go ahead and just take a towel like this and this works out really good
Even though you're getting pain down below you take the towel pull down like this and you're gonna work on doing
Extensions now these should be pain free, if they make your pain worse you don't want to do on it
Sometimes I'll have people actually
Relax into the back of the chair
Exactly we want to get into the chair like this and you can start working way back like this really start getting that extension in there
Right here so again
Let the pain be your guide if it gets worse or if it spreads out
Or goes down towards your shoulder or arm then it's not ready for it, and then just stop that exercise
We've brought this exercise up a lot, but you know through repetition people start to understand
You know why we do things
And how we do things so that's why we keep bringing it up
Another one Brad is let's just say it doesn't seem to be coming from your neck
You did all those motions, and it still just hurts right in here. It didn't change it at all
Maybe try just you're gonna try
Fatiguing that trapezius muscle, right so there's theory or a concept where if you fatigue a muscle that
It will be relaxed so we want to work it and then
Let it relax because it's fatigued so this one is a little bit complicated
This one is complicated, so you're going to have to follow me. Yep, so you're gonna elevate your shoulder
I'll do it from a profile Bob, sure
Elevate your shoulder move the shoulder back move the neck back
Bend towards the shoulder and then turn away and then in that position you really tighten up
So we're gonna do it again Brad ready, we're gonna elevate the shoulder, move it back neck back
Side bend turn away
Ttighten
That's all the motions of the upper trapezius
Alright let's do the other side Brad. Let's see if we can get it right on that one
All right, I'm gonna elevate the shoulder move it back
Neck back. Side bend and turn away
Move it back neck back
Ear to the shoulder turn away
It really maximally fires that muscle and
So if that's gonna be effective when they get done it should feel more relaxed and less painful hopefully
Next one since you're in the chair Brad you want to do the ball in the chair
This kind of works the mid-back too, it's just a great exercise to do look at him.
Now you're not gonna throw it back like that I was just playing around but
If you have armrests, that's kind of handy, you can use that and I'm just gonna stretch
And go arch back over the ball and the ball should be a soft squishy ball if it's a hard ball like a basketball
It's not gonna work very well at all so get a squishy ball kickball take it from your kids there in the playground
Give it back to them when you're done
You don't want to get a reputation if you're a teacher you want to be a nice teacher
There we go, for me it's usually up a little bit higher right between the shoulder blades. I'm gonna stretch it back
You can bring your arms up too you like this if you want it
You can stretch it a lot of different ways find out
What works for you and keep you know repeating those and this ball is actually you can see it's flat
And that works well. Yeah, it really does work well to have the squishy flat, next one we're gonna show you is again
There's different names for this, but we call it cat camel
We don't know which one's the cat, which one's the camel, but you're gonna
Go ahead and arch up like this and a lot of times when you arch up sometimes it helps to even bring the head down like this
And then you come up and you make the hump, right there he's arching, and I'm bringing my head up
At the same time so I think that's a cat, and this is the camel
I don't know Bob. I've seen cats when they get you know scared
They go up like this, but the camel never has a thing like that? I don't know, that's true. Good point
I just call it the cat camel. Don't worry about it. Just do it right. It's the cat cat
All right next one Brad you want to show the wall angels? Oh, yeah, so okay
It works better if you have a wall that doesn't have the wall anchors on but
We can certainly work with it, so we're gonna bring the shoulders
And I'm going to take my butt and put that against the wall my shoulders elbows here
And then I'm just going to I've got tight shoulders Bob, I can do this
But it's hard for me to touch everything at the same time
So he's really tightening up the muscles as he goes back because he has to in order to keep the elbows against the wall, so you're
Getting that contract, and then they're gonna relax, and that's good for posture as well
Then if you want to flip around, do the elbow stretch here, so I'm gonna grasp behind my neck
I'm not gonna pull my head forward
I'm just gonna get back here if I get my hands there, elbows against the wall and then bring my elbows up
I'm gonna look up this direction, really stretches that mid-back
Give you some relief, the wall really gives you a nice feedback Bob. Oh, that's good.
I feel like I'm an inch taller. Let me see what do you guys think?
Well forget that
People always want to know how tall I am, I'm six foot six by the way the final suggestion
How tall were you when you're younger?
You haven't shrunk yet? I don't think so. Maybe I have.
The final thing I was gonna recommend if you actually do have fibromyalgia and been diagnosed with it
I really would recommend this workbook, the fibromyalgia workbook. I'll put a link to it below, this by Dr, PT, and PhD Adrian Lowe
Anyway this I can't begin to do it justice because it I just think if you have fibromyalgia
It's gonna help you understand it better and by understanding it better, actually your pain levels tend to go down. It's well-written
It's not written for the clinician
It's written for a layperson so you can relate to what he's talking about without having to look up
Terminology, one of my favorite lines from it Brad is nothing in your body is really actually injured
It's just your nerves are sensitive
And they're reacting
So I just think that's a good line because people are thinking I am hurting so much something must be injured
And in fact it's just your nerves are hypersensitive. Alright thanks everybody for watching and please subscribe if you haven't already