♪ 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!
- We say that with such authority.
- Well, Bob, I feel confident today.
- I'm starting to believe it.
Okay, today we're talking about
how to improve your balance in five minutes.
- That's right.
- People tend to lose their balance, Brad,
because of many things, but one is weakness- - Mhm.
- Two would be distraction.
This is where my mom has fallen, several times.
She's walking along one time,
she was at church and someone yelled to her
and she looked and down she went.
- Really? - Yeah.
- Well, they shouldn't be yelling
at church anyways, like that. (laughs)
- Yeah, I know! It was actually after church
- Oh, it's okay then.
- They tend to lose their balance forward. - Right.
- They tend to lose their balance backward, pretty common.
- Usually it's one way or the other for the individual.
- Right, right.
Or they may tend to lose their balance
whenever they try to do something sideways - Yep
- But you come into life quite a bit.
- Right, yep, absolutely.
- So we're going to go ahead and show you,
these are all 30 second ones that you can do.
And for a total of eight minutes,
it might take a little longer today
because we are explaining. - Right.
- And I'm going to show you some
advanced versions of those, too.
- Sure.
- Which would make it a little harder,
but they also work on your balance better.
- You don't have to do all of these.
Go through them, you find two or three of them
that really challenge you and you feel
are appropriate for you and then work on those. - Yeah.
And at the end of it we're going to show you
a couple of massage guns.
We actually, or a handheld massager,
we actually are doing a giveaway
of one of our massage guns,
and we'll give you the details on it.
At the end, you can forward
to the end of the video,
if you don't want to watch
us talk about this balance stuff
- (laughs) Yeah, go over to the giveaway.
- All right, so, number one,
I want you to get used to putting
some weight on one leg
and leaning forward
while you're doing this balance exercise.
Now you're going to have a bed in front of you
or couch or something so that
if you lose your balance,
you just fall into the bed.
- You're safe.
- So I'm going to start with my right leg forward.
- Okay.
- And my left leg back.
And so I'm, I'm gonna lean forward like this,
- But not touching the bed.
- I'm not touching the bed.
Unless you need to.
Tip your fingertips if you want.
(laughing)
- So, do you feel the weight through the right foot?
- And the back leg, too.
But, what you're doing is getting
some strengthening,
plus you're working on balance.
- Yep.
- At the same time.
- And you're really,
you know, you're working them
- Helps you to keep good posture, Bob.
- Yeah.
- Oh yeah, there we go.
- Exactly.
All right, we're going to do that for 30 seconds.
And then we're going to skip.
We're going to go right to the left leg.
That that is forward now.
And the right leg is back.
And now I'm doing some of these forwards.
- You know, if 30 seconds is too long, you know,
and you're getting fatigued
- Yeah, a lot slower
- Just take your time and relax.
- Eventually, in 30 seconds, it won't be hard for you
but start off. It might be too much sidestepping.
Again, we talked about how people
tend to lose their balance side stepping.
You're going to have the bed in front of you
and you can go to the side like this
and just keeping weight forward so
that it's putting the stress
on your toes and your feet.
But you're, you're going side to side.
- Right?
- Good, good posture.
So you're trying to pick up speed
as you get better at this.
- You know, I don't know you might,
I had people do this oftentimes
with a countertop in front of them,
a little taller, sometimes
it prevents too much.
- Yeah. I like to lean forward, Brad..
It really puts stress on your balance.
- Sure. I understand.
- I mean, if you have a counter top,
you're just going like this
and it's not very difficult.
- Sure.
- So, you know if,
if your balance is really bad and, you know,
you can't lean forward like that,
start with a couple, Bob.
- Okay.
- All right. Toe lifts.
Um..again, this is something where
you're probably going to want
to hold onto a countertop
or something like this.
Cause you basically,
why don't we show on you, Brad?
Cause you can, the camera can see you.
- Yeah. So I'm gonna hold onto the chair.
You could go in front of you, a solid chair,
not a wobbly one or a countertop up on the toes.
And then we're going rack back on the heels.
But this going back on the heels,
a lot of times people feel
like they're doing this
- Yes, yes.
- That's why you want to have
a solid surface to hold on to
- Yeah, and just, if you do feel that way,
you're just going to touch it a little bit.
Don't try and max out and get it way up high.
You should feel safe with this
and a little bit challenged
on your balance.
We're strengthening the ankles,
which is critical for your balance.
- Did I skip backwards squats?
- Yeah.
- I skipped them.
- Yeah. I think so.
- All right.
So you go up to your bed.
- And oh yes. This is a nice one.
- I'm going to have you lean back
kind of a little bit
and just work on trying to go back
without falling back. - Sure.
- So you can put your legs
out a little further and yeah,
you could have a chair in front of you too. - Sure.
- If you're really, really worried,
but you want to start working on going back
further and further without losing your balance.
- If you do lose your balance,
the bed or a chair behind you.
- Just there to catch you.
- Yep. This is one I know
is at a continuing ed course,
and there was a study done,
more than one study that said,
this is the number one exercise
for balance in the geriatric -
- Squats
- Yeah, just because -
- Just because it's going to strengthen
all the muscles of the lower extremity.
Plus, to me, you're working on
- Functional
- Function.
- A lot of people do fall
getting in or out of a chair.
So we want to be very efficient with that.
- Um..you want to do backwards walking and marching?
- You bet.
So again, something to balance yourself on is here
and you know, if you have some place,
I've had people
if they have something on both sides,
which isn't that common,
unless you've got a narrow hallway with handrails,
but so we're just going to work backwards walking.
Now, if you don't feel comfortable with this one,
do not do it.
- Right.
- You may want to have someone alongside you
to get started.
- Or you might want to have
that countertop like this one. - Yeah.
- Really grab onto something.
- Right. So you're stable, stable, stable.
I've had some people that have
a hand rail down their hallway.
Then they got really something stable.
- We really want you to be practicing this
under control so that when
you have to do it in real life,
it's not the first time you're doing it.
- Right. Exactly.
- So, how about marching, Brad? - Okay
- So this is forcing you to balance on one leg.
- Right. Now, marching, you know,
I've had people that go up
to the countertop or, or the bed.
I like to have them tall.
So sometimes a little taller. - Yeah
- but your knees will bump into things. - Right.
- So standing sideways can offer you
more range of motion.
And maybe this is all a (mumbling) starting out,
this is good enough.
And as you get stronger
and you feel that you can
bring your knees up higher,
then you can turn sideways
and work that balance.
- Okay, the last two things I want you to do
is a lot of people lose their balance
when they're trying to pick something up. - Yeah.
- So I, again, I want you to do it
in a controlled circumstance. - Sure.
- So you're going to be next to the bed here.
You can grab onto the bed if you want.
But normally if you do pick something off the floor,
it is good to have something near you
that you can hold on to. - Right.
- But you can try just having your hand here,
and you're going to reach all the way
down to the floor with the right hand
and do that for 30 seconds.
And then you're going to go
all the way down to the floor
with the left hand - Yeah.
- and reach down for 30 seconds.
- And again, if 30 seconds is too much,
you're tired after two or three,
give it a break and keep working on it
on a daily basis.
- Brad, do you mind grabbing me that weight?
That (mumbling)
- Oh, yeah. I got it right here. Handy dandy.
- So this is 30 pounds, right?
Yeah. 30 pounds.
Probably way too much for most people. - Right.
- But we start off with just 10 pounds or something.
A couple of cans, maybe.
- 10 Pounds of soup. - Yeah.
- There's a dumbbell with three pounds,
anything light.
- Right. You're right.
- It should feel not challenged or dangerous.
- So we can go through the entire list.
And maybe as some weight to it,
to some of these,
like the one where you put the right foot forward.
I literally like this one.
You can actually swing forward like this
and reach forward while you're
maintaining your weight with the weight in place.
- This would be really nice.
You could duplicate this with an empty bucket,
put in some, you know,
a can of soup or a little bit more
than you would have exactly what you're doing.
So you're saying this is the bed,
we're just...
- That's the bed in front of it.
Or it could be like a milk jug. - Sure.
- You could fill that with water
and just go back and forth.
Now, if you want to make this even harder,
then you look,
look back and forth like this
while you're doing this. - Sure.
- It doesn't seem like it is much, but it is.
- It makes a big difference.
- Now you can do the left foot also
and the left foot and you can also
turn back and forth like this. - Yep.
- Now you can also do sidestepping with this,
Actually..
- That is advanced
- Go like this and look back and forth like this.
- And this may be, if you're
bringing in some groceries in your, you know,
you're stepping into the cupboard
or into the bathroom,
you have to do some sidestepping.
- Anytime you're lifting something. - Sure.
- Are you lifting something often?
There's not big hallways
and you gotta go sideways or
you're trying to lift getting through it.
- Right. - Right.
So that's really advanced ones.
I, I don't know if I (mumble)
recommend any more than that. - Yeah.
- Everything else, you really can't really
add too much weight to it.
- Yeah, because these are challenging. - Yeah.
- If you can get through all those,
you're probably, you know.
- All right. Let's go to our giveaway.
- Oh yeah.
- So we're giving away the X6 massage, massage gun,
which is actually our most heavy duty massage gun.
It's got the most travel or amplitude.
It's got the most power
and it's probably the most expensive one.
But if you are elderly
and you don't want to win this one,
(laughing)
you could actually buy one of our handheld massagers.
- All right.
- This is a real bargain.
- Yeah, this is much cheaper than that one.
It's not near as powerful as that one.
- Does it have as much amplitude?
- Yep. For someone who's, you know,
60, 70 years or older,
this is probably what you're going to want.
Probably not that.
And I think it's like
a third of the cost of that.
- Right. - Right around.
- Exactly.
- And they work very well.
We've had excellent luck with them and good feedback.
- But if you want to win a one
for your grandson or granddaughter,
- There you go
- Go to bobandbrad.com, giveaway section,
sign up for it,
or go to bobandbrad on Facebook.
the Facebook, sign up on the page.
You'll be pinned to the top of the page.
- That's right.
Just click on it.
It'll tell you what to do
- Do it today.
I don't know what that is.
- Why, Bob? That deserves a WHY?
- Check us out.