♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists on the internet ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And we are the most famous physical therapists
on the Internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Are you trying to upstage me?
Today were gonna talk about seven minute sciatica exercises
for leg pain relief and long-term success.
Are you saying each exercise is going to take seven minutes?
- No, no, Bob.
- Altogether? - Altogether.
And actually once you do it a few times, it's less.
- All right, by the way if you're new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos on how to stay healthy, fit,
pain-free, and we upload every day.
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This is what we're giving away.
We're giving away the little vibrating massage ball.
Yeah, FITINDEX Vibrating Massage Ball.
I haven't had problems with that.
- That's a nice one.
- Yeah, it's got three settings,
well, it's four settings actually.
The fourth setting is actually intermittent.
- Yeah, intervals, sure. - But this baby
works like a little vibrating foam roller--
- Let it bounce around a little bit.
- Oh yeah, down here, this is where you can see it.
- [Brad] Whoa! - Look at that baby.
Hop to it!
All right, Brad, they're
here for other things. - All right, let's go on.
Sciatic leg pain.
The pain that starts typically in the back,
runs down the leg, oftentimes in the back of the leg,
sometimes in the front, and all the way to the foot
or even through the toes.
That's what we're looking at here.
Vast majority of the time,
it's caused from a low-back disc problem.
- Like a herniated disc, bulging disc--
- Right, exactly.
So that's what I'm gonna show you,
a system that's gonna start you out.
Seven steps, when you get to the seventh step,
things are doing quite well.
So let's get going.
- All right.
- Here we are.
I'm ready, Bob.
No, I don't need that yet.
- [Bob] (laughs) Oh, okay.
- I'm just getting a little nervous, a little stage fright.
All right, so the first thing you're gonna do is,
I'm sorry, is we're going to,
you can do this on the floor is preferable,
a carpeted floor, or if you have a firm bed,
I'm gonna do it here, that will be fine.
We're gonna be on our back.
I'm sorry, I'm so confused.
On our back, hook line position.
- [Bob] All right, gotcha.
- Single knee, now both knees are up.
We're gonna take the single, one knee
bring it up into a stretch.
And you're gonna continue this as long
as nothing is worsened or increased.
- [Bob] Yeah, if it makes it worse,
you're not doing this particular stretch.
- Particularly anything down the leg.
If it feels worse, below the knee in the foot
definitely, right away, you'll stop.
This more than likely will not do it,
that's why I'm having you do it.
And you can go up and then bring the knee
across the chest slightly
so we get the piriformis muscle stretched.
And we're just gonna--
- [Bob] So is the idea here, Brad,
that if it's the piriformis, it's gonna help,
and it's not the piriformis, it's not gonna help?
- Right.
We're just eliminating one more potential source
for that sciatica.
- [Bob] All right, so this is kind of a test stretch.
And if this stretch makes it worse,
you're not gonna do it.
If it makes it better, you're gonna go ahead
and proceed and continue to do it.
- Exactly, do it just like I'm doing.
Five to 10 repetitions on a side, okay.
Now this next exercise,
it's kinda optional, but I like to throw it in there
because it can help relax the back muscles
around where the disc is.
And we're just gonna do some crunches like this.
Just to work the abdominal muscles,
because when these muscles contract,
the opposite muscles relax. - [Bob] Relax, right.
- You don't even have to think about it.
And we're only gonna do 10 of those, okay?
And it puts very little to no stress on the back.
- [Bob] I've seen people do that too, Brad,
where they actually just do a little bit
of marching with their legs.
- Oh, sure.
- [Bob] Yeah, and it's the same thing,
it's kicking in the abdominal muscles.
- Yep.
- [Bob] And makes the back muscles relax,
like I've seen it with back spasms, that this actually,
you don't even have to lift up the head,
you just move the legs up and down.
- Bob we're gonna go over our seven minutes.
- [Bob] All right, okay, sorry.
- But it was a good point. - [Bob] I felt
like I had to jump in.
This is a good option.
Now when you roll over, particularly if your back
and your leg is sore, you're gonna do this
very slowly like you're a log and roll over.
Take your time--
- [Bob] Everything rolls together at the same time.
- Yep.
And then you need to have a pillow available.
And we're gonna take this pillow,
and you're gonna bring it underneath your stomach
in the hip area, you can put it this way, or this way.
- [Bob] Length-wise. - Yep.
I'm gonna do it this way.
And that's something that depends on the individual.
And we're just gonna lay here like this.
If that feels comfortable,
you're gonna-- - [Bob] You're gonna
lie there, Brad.
- Oh!
- [Bob] I'm learning my English.
- I appreciate it, Bob.
I really appreciate it,
English has always been a problem for me.
(Bob laughs)
And so we're gonna lay, lie here like this.
If this feels good and the leg is feeling good,
and the pain's literally going away from the foot
and the calf and the knee area,
then we're going to go up to here.
- [Bob] So what we're looking for,
I'm gonna do it on this side, Brad, okay?
Just a matter of convenience.
- That's fine, yep.
- So let's say this stripe represents his pain.
- Yes.
- What you wanna see is that pain actually starts
to move up away from the calf and foot first.
- Right.
- So now he just feels it in this area here.
- Right, so if that's the case,
leave it there, Bob, cause it's feeling better!
- [Bob] Okay.
- And then I'm gonna start doing some mini press-ups
like this, letting my waist and pelvis
stay glued to the pillow.
Do that 10 times, as long
as things feel the same or get better.
- Yeah, this stripe might even go up further now.
- Yep, then it's time to get rid of the pillow.
And then I'm gonna lay flat again,
give it about 30 seconds and see how it goes.
- [Bob] This is a nice progression, what he's doing here.
- Yep, now we're on step number four, I believe.
Or is it five?
It doesn't matter how we do this, it's the same.
- [Bob] You're on step number five right now.
- Yep, so as long as this goes good, we can just
- [Bob] Throw it on elbows.
- Throw it on elbows, kinda hang out there.
Now there's a little, if you can wiggle around a little bit,
sometimes that can help relieve the pain.
- [Bob] I had a patient that loved doing that, Brad.
He would get up on his elbows and he would wiggle back
and forth and it seemed like it started
improving the pain down the leg.
- Now, if all of a sudden if you notice
you wiggle to the right and that clearly
makes the leg feel better, and you wiggle
to the other direction it feels worse,
just go to the one direction,
and that can be a big step in the right direction as well.
So listen to your body.
Any little thing that makes the pain go
up the leg like this is better
and then I'm gonna start doing mini press-ups.
- [Bob] See, now the difference is,
the pillow's gone so there's a little more stress
on the back, 'cause he was doing mini press-ups
before with the pillow in place.
- And that would be a positive stress,
stress that was good for you.
- [Bob] That's a lot of Ps.
Mini press up with a pillow will be positive.
- (laughs) And I'm not gonna finish off the rest,
Bob's gonna get on here to finish off,
because I have spondylolisthesis,
which means I cannot do full press-ups
without creating back problems.
- So he's been doing the mini press-ups.
He got to that point.
Hands underneath the shoulder,
he's doing the mini press-ups.
It's still feeling very good,
the pain's still traveling up the leg,
working its way up. - [Brad] Yep.
- It's no longer felt down here,
it's no longer felt down in my calf,
so now I'm gonna see if I can go further and further.
Now the idea here is that you do not lift the pelvis up.
(Brad grunts)
If you're lifting up the pelvis, your back is too tight,
and you need to continue to work on the mini press-ups.
- [Brad] Right.
- But if the back is starting to allow you,
you wanna go ahead and get to the point
where you get way up like this.
- [Brad] Sure.
- And we even have some advanced things
you can do beyond this.
Just watch, we're gonna have a full sciatica
program on bobandbrad, on our website,
and it's under the program section.
And it's got 40-some videos on sciatica, Brad.
- [Brad] Right, and they're all free, there's no charge.
And then you get PDF printouts of the exercises
so you don't have to come back and look at our ugly mugs,
you can just look at the paper.
- Yeah, we're uploading them right now as we speak,
so it's gonna take a while,
but eventually if you go to our channel,
you'll find them there.
- Right, so you can go through
that whole procedure, the seven steps.
When you're done, things should be feeling better.
The leg pain is better, and you can repeat this
a number of times per day.
To be honest with you, once you start feeling better,
you don't have to do the first couple steps.
Although you can, they're not gonna hurt you,
actually it's gonna be good for you,
but it's not absolutely critical.
So use your best judgment.
The whole goal is to get to
that last press-up that Bob was doing.
- Yeah, the more motion you get, generally,
that's where the magic happens.
Remember how you'd say that?
- Right.
- And so eventually you can maybe just go right into that.
You go right to the, if you wanna move, Brad.
- Oh, yeah.
- Go right to the floor,
and you can start doing these press ups.
You can try to do full ones if your body's ready for it.
I mean, I do these preventatively
I do some mini ones, and then I do some full stretches.
- [Brad] Sure.
- Every day, I do them a couple times a day
because it keeps my back out of trouble.
- So, again, you're not gonna jump into that one
unless by that time your leg pain is pretty much gone
and you're getting into that maintenance phase.
- Right.
- So yeah, it's a wonderful program.
Work with it as we instructed
and you'll do well. - Give us your comments below.
And remember, Brad and I can fix just about anything.
- Except for--
- A broken heart.
- But we're working on that Bob.
- We get a lot on backs, but we haven't done much on hearts.
- Yeah, but we're gonna continue to work on this, Bob.
This is one of those things,
when we retire we can continue to work on it, too.
- I blame him, by the way.
That it's not being done.
- Bye! - Okay, thanks for watching.