(upbeat music)
- Hi. I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist
- And I'm Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion.
- Yeah. We're awesome.
So, what are we gonna talk about today, Brad?
- Well,-
- This is a hint.
- Yeah, actually today is a, is a real good topic.
The, yeah, we're not gonna fight yet.
Maybe by the end of this video, we'll be into it.
But actually with people working at computer workstations
just all over the world,
neck and shoulder problems are very common
and it's oftentimes because of posture
and how you hold your neck, working with neck muscles.
So we're gonna show you a stretch that can help remedy that.
- Exactly. And what we, what we have found
or what we've been, what we have learned is that actually
from about age 20 on your neck begins to deteriorate.
And what happens if you don't keep the motion in your neck
it actually will be, start becoming constricted.
- Right-
I mean, you're gonna have a lack of motion
and I have found, and Brad has found too
that there's a correlation between usually
if you don't have full motion and pain, right.
I mean, if, you know, generally, like we'll see somebody
and we'll ask 'em to turn to the right.
We ask him, turn to the left.
And if, if it to the right, it doesn't go quite as far.
It generally that's where the pain is too.
So we wanna maintain.
And, and what we're gonna do is show you kind
of a neat trick, doing it with the towel.
And, and I tend to use this with people who, when I try
to teach 'em motion of the neck it actually starts to hurt.
And this towel helps relieve that pain.
- Exactly. Yep. Works great.
- So what we first like you to do is, is
to be in a chair similar to this. Okay.
This is a straight back chair without arms
and some-
- That's a little cushion and not too high.
- Yeah. And not too high 'cause we like
to have it hit you, you know,
about in your mid to upper back so that when
when you're leaning over like this, you actually
get a little counter pressure on your mid back too. Right?
- If, if it's up in here, it's probably gonna be too high.
I like, you know, sometimes your com- office chair
or computer workstation chairs is padded.
And they usually often times in their right spot.
I like that they're, they're comfortable, so.
- And we'll show you why that is the case
in just a minute here.
But let's just start off with rotations.
So again, there, there's basically two sets
of motions I want you to do.
And one is gonna be the rotations, you know,
turning the neck
and you're always gonna wanna be in good posture.
You don't want to be down like this.
This actually can make it worse.
So you want to get, sit up straight
and you're gonna turn your head this way
and turn this head away this way.
And if you can do it without pain, you don't need the towel.
But if you, if you're having pain,
you're gonna want to use the towel.
- Right-
- So you can just jump in here, anytime Brad-
- Sure-
- comments, but you know, just a normal, what is this?
This is kind of a, in between a bath towel
and a hand towel somewhere in between.
- Right.-
- And we like the little ridge on there. I do anyway.
- Right-
- So you put it over like Batman here
and you're gonna put it
so that it actually just rides beneath the ears here.
- Yeah. There's a couple different ways.
This is the first way.
One thing that you'll find that, that the towel,
it catches on your shoulders and that restricts the motion.
So just get it like that.
- Flop it up.
Yeah. So it's with this one, with the rotations
generally I put it under the ears
and I grab with the hands here.
We make little bunny ears, we call it.
And that way the people know that they have
to keep their eyes on the bunny ears.
And the, and the bunny ears are kinda lined up.
- I don't use the bunny ears.
- I do. I love the bunny ears, ears.
It's so, anyway, we're gonna rotate
to the right and I'm gonna, while we're rotating
I'm pulling with my arms again.
And it's given a little bit of relief
on the neck when I do this.
So I turn to the right
and I'm not turning my whole body here.
I'm just trying to turn my neck.
And again, that gives, you know,
you might before have only gone this far,
now with the, the pulling of the towel, you get some relief.
You might be able to go a little bit further.
So you can work in both directions.
I would say, what would you say, Brad?
A good-
- Three to five times.
- If it really is feeling good
and you're getting more range of motion,
you can go up to 10, but I wouldn't go over 10.
- Now-
- Good posture. Go ahead, Brad.
- As you can see, it's hard to do with by yourself
and keep your shoulders perfectly still.
But it's, it's still, it helps.
As long as it decreases the pain,
and you get a little more motion.
If this increases pain and it's more uncomfortable, stop.
- Stop.-
- Don't, don't get that idea, no pain, no gain.
That is not that philosophy or-
- Right. We're looking for less pain.
The other thing is, let's say you have pain
on the right side and down the arm.
I would then have people grab
with just the left arm like this, and then go like this.
And sometimes that works better too.
And again, keeping an eye on the bunny ears.
And if you have pain on the left side, be the same thing.
I'd grabbed with the right arm and turn.
Now we want to get a little fancy.
This actually works much better,
but it's difficult to understand.
You cross your arms over.
See what I'm doing.
So if I'm gonna turn to the left.
this one on the left side is actually down and
and this one's holding it here.
And now I'm just pulling with this one, right?
This is a fantastic way, actually.
- Yeah. It really offers support around the back and neck.
This hand is just the anchor.
You know, there's not really much going on there.
Just holds it.
- Yeah. This one don't go like this cross over
and choke yourself.
- Or you could go like this, which I really say, you know
and down here, and then you a problem.
- You gotta gotta keep up the bunny ears up by the eyes.
Yeah. And I'm going along with it.
So I can also switch around and go the other way.
Again, this is difficult to do.
I switch hands.
- If you're rotating to the right,
the right hand should be the one coming over.
- That's a good way to remember it.
- Do it, do it the wrong way.
The way people will try, you know, switch hands and
and you'll see it.
- It just doesn't work as comfortable.
- Yeah. It's not-
- This, this really pulls her over.
All right.
That's the rotations.
Now we're gonna also work on going back.
A lot of people don't ever work on this one.
Some people mistakenly think it's the wrong thing to do.
So same thing with this one.
Put it behind.
- (indistinct) video.
- No, we're okay, Brad.
Brad's worried about the time.
- Six minutes.
- Brad's always watching the time. Okay.
So now we're gonna go back, bunny ears,
and we're working like this, and now I'm actually leaning
against the chair and really working to go back.
- Now on this one, I'm just going from one of the
the gurus in therapy-
- Mulligan
- Mulligan, yes. This I learned from,-
Go ahead. Do that again, but Mulligan says,
this should be right in front of your eyes.
- Right. Following eyes.
Again, following the bunny ears.
- The bunny ears
And the other thing is you can actually move the towel down
on this one edge, you know, try it first, high, higher up,
then move it down a little bit
to get a little bit different section,
and then even move it down further
to get a different section.
- Again with each one of those, no pain, right?
I mean, you're, you're trying to decrease pain.
If you're increasing pain,
it's probably not the right thing to do, so back off.
- When you do it, you say, oh boy,
that feels a lot better with a towel.
- But you're gonna find your neck is gonna be moving better.
You're gonna have less pain.
- Do that one more time, Bob.
And I just want to explain the importance of the,
the height of the chair.
See how Bob's shoulders, they, they need to come back.
So, and if this is up here, it limits the thoracic extension
- Your shoulder blades need to go over the top
of the edge of the chair.
- Exactly. And, and that, that is important.
- I don't want you just going like this.
I want you leaning over the chair.
- That's, that's actually good
for your, your mid back anyway.
- Yep. It is.
Any other points, Brad?
- One more option, Bob.
I would like to point out for people.
And I have this with people, typically,
if they have shoulder problems,
people that are maybe, you know, 60 or above
and they've been working hard
and they got shoulder issues, arthritis, whatever.
And this is just very difficult
or painful in their shoulders.
They don't have that range.
You can do this down here
and simply work here.
And I'll usually start with a chin tuck in slightly
and then have 'em roll back and take their time with it.
And oftentimes, you know, if the towel roll, isn't there,
they'll stop in here and it's uncomfortable and painful.
And that's when you stop.
Boy, you put this there
and add some support.
You're not pulling real hard.
And they say, oh boy, that does feel better.
I can give back much farther.
Yeah. So another option for people
with shoulders that are uncomfortable going up like that.
- Another cool tip.
- Yeah. Excellent.