Hi folks I'm Bob Schrupp physical therapist, Brad Heineck physical therapist
Together we are the most famous physical therapist on the internet, in our opinion of course Bob
Science-based how some abdominal strengthening exercises can actually cause sciatic and back pain
There's no doubt about it Bob and this science has been looked at time and time again
over many years, right it's just not in the last five or ten years but Malcomson have started way back
Was it in the 50s i think it was the 50s and you've got a study and they measured the pressure
The internal pressure on the discs
And we know that as therapists a lot of people understand but, we've got to show where the disc is at least Brad
well of course but
the disc is if you've got a herniated disc or bulging disc it's because pressure in the disc, the fluid in the discs is
Causing it right, so we really
Want to be concerned about not creating a lot of pressure in the discs, so the exercises for doing sit-ups can
really increase the disc pressure and this has been done over and over time because there's a lot better instrumentation
Ways to measure it as of the last decade compared to back in the 50s and plus he's got nice charts
that show which position is kind of increased the pressure, so if you look up Malcomson studies, I'll put it down below
there's some really nice charts in a number of them and you can go through them and see
So, again just very quickly Brad in case they don't know
Where the discs are, so you have the vertebrae the bones that stack up to make your back, in between the bones are the cushions
Those are the discs and that's where the increased pressure can occur and the increased pressure can
Cause the discs to actually herniate and bulge, hit the nerve, send pain down the leg or can even just cause
Good old back pain sometimes too, right as a matter of fact a good friend of mine I watched them
At the gym he was doing the exercises we're gonna show and I was watching my thought, was oh no
Anyways later on later that week, we were talking she's said my back is bothering me, I said
You really got to look at your abdominal strengthening protocol, by the way Brad, before we go any further if you are
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And we're trying to turn things around, let's do it Brad, okay here we go, okay, I think it's working too Bob
Okay, so this study we're to look at the pressure in the discs and they're calling standing with good posture
Being 100% normal pressure
So if 100% is normal then the next thing the lowest pressure they got was actually lying supine and you could
Imagine there's gonna be less pressure cuz you're spread out, I thought lying supine was with your feet up, was I wrong?
You're right you're exactly right Bob, that's we always we always advocate, I'm gonna throw
this in there real quick, we always like the leg wedge, but this wasn't at 0%
This was 25% yeah?
yeah
So it went from a 100% here this actually knocks it down to 25%
Pressure on the disc, right, now if you do this and lift
Your back, I'm gonna
do it so i can hold it like this, because i never
Do my situps this way obviously, but if I hold here then and I bring my legs up I go from
25% to 210%
So and this is the position you see a lot of people go in, to try to do some high level abdominals
right they're working on that six-pack, you know I admire their inspiration and their dedication, it's working that
by all means but you're also putting a lot of stress on the back at the same time, now Brad
What if they just do sit-ups?
You know if you're doing full situps
Oh, like this? Right because that's the same, that's causing increased pressure too,
you're doing a very similar thing, right in through, a lot of stress on the back, that's why
they tell you not to do sit-ups, it's bad for your back, but yeah the worst thing is to have both coming up
I just wanted to make sure we're clear as mud and then
people will take either
A plate that comes from a barbell or one of these
And then they'll start putting to get the obliques in and they'll be going like this and i'm not
Gonna do it too long because I don't want to hurt my back
If you want to hurt your back for some reason, you don't want to go to work anymore
And you want to blow a disc
That's a good one to do, yeah keep doing these
Month after month, year after year now I know there's gonna be people out there saying they've been doing them for years and there are
People that have inherently genetically very strong backs
They may be able to, but there's a lot of people whose backs are going to degenerate, I guess is that you're
gonna keep doing it and you're gonna be seeing us in about a year
that's just my thought, I mean you're not gonna get away with it, so Bob what are we gonna do?
We just can't say this is the worst thing in the world, we gotta give some options, let's give some alternatives
What i like to do is keep the spine flat on the floor as much as possible right yeah
Because when you keep it flat you're keeping it safe
So we're not going to come up like this to bring the shoulderblades off at all the shoulder blades will maintain
Contact, the sacrum or the pelvis will maintain contact and all you need to do is you can do
You're still strengthening and you're not putting stress on the low back,
Watch your head, we're not doing this, keep the neck in a neutral position
And work here and at this point I don't have a problem, put some weight here,
If you want to work it harder but there's other options too
One of them is, you want to grab me the ball Bob? Now remember in that position like this
Now this is a little higher than we showed before
But this actually will take the stress off the back, so we're down in that near the 25% range
Now, this will put a little more stress on the spine but we're still, well below standing
and we're just, gonna
And you're still keeping the back flat right, so yeah the stresses are obviously going to be lower right and the abdominals are working
Quite nicely here the lower abdominals and if you want to combine it, make it more challenging
Put them both together, my back stays flat, it feels very comfortable on my back
And i'm working my abdominals as you can hear my voice
And then I wanna do what they did in the first Rocky movie or second Rocky movie where he's going, boom boom
I'm strong like boar
And you can throw the the obliques like this, and here you're working, this one really works
And again Brad's got spinal stenosis and you've been doing these for years and you feel like it's actually strengthened
Your core and helped you out, oh there's no doubt
There's no doubt about it
I can show the dead bug? Yeah show the dead bug Bob, because there I show
some options, so again you're
Flat on your back so everything is nice and stable and
You can, go ahead and do these, I do these, I just go back and forth like this
I can go with the leg straight, flutters,
now there's one point I do
Want to bring up Bob is, I'm flattening my back, if i were to put my hand
Under here, he does a posterior tilt he
Pushes down and he maintains that more neutral spine, the spine doesn't arch up, let's say you're just beginning
Brad, you know this might be a little more aggressive than you should be, just go ahead and touch back
And forth like this
So he's talking about touching right here, there's a big difference between doing it at this state and then going like that
And then you can also throw the arms in like this, that's the part of the dead bug
Aren't you supposed to alternate? It's a coordination thing, either way, your abdominals are really good, you're getting a good workout
Anything else Brad you want to include? Do you want to show the discs?
Actually Bob I do wanna show the ball,
This really works out nice
You're gonna have to hold my
Normally when I do this I have my feet up against the wall it depends on the proportion of your body,
There, now go ahead
I put my toes up against the wall, I don't want to do it over there because it's too hard to get a camera shot but now
My low back is supported by the ball, and i'm gonna do this, and you can really feel the difference
With this how it supports your back, now there's gonna be people including I did this, I thought this was about 15 years ago
I'm gonna get it really worked and I would go back like this and arch way over
and not only that I took a 25 pound plate
Now you're starting to put pressure on it, yeah and I got a real nice backache, so I decided maybe I shouldn't do that anymore
Not a good one to do, and I went back to this, again there's gonna be those real strong tough
People that can do that, they're gonna say
I've been doing it for years
Yeah, and there are some you know
There are some people who can do it but we're talking
About for the average
Most majority of people, be nice to your back, for your core too Brad you can just do stuff like this
Where you're working your back and your core a little bit you know I always like to throw
These in here and that's a good point
Instead of just working the stomach muscles and becoming one sided you need to work the muscles on the opposite side as well
So I'm getting some core but i'm also
Getting the back strengthening here too with that so, Bob before we go any further, have a seat, sure, because we're talking about the core
And the back and all these wonderful exercises but you know it is christmas now
yeah, we've got the christmas tie on here and Lonnie's been working hard all year long, Lonnie come on up
We got a gift for you Lonnie, her eyes just opened up that big, come on
This is the wonderful woman behind the camera,
Alright, thanks everybody for watching
you