♪ 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 therapist
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Caught me off guard there a little bit.
Today we're gonna talk about three tips
for knee cartilage problems, how to fix without surgery.
Plus, we're doing a giveaway, Brad.
- That's right Bob.
- So if you are new to our channel,
please take a second do subscribe to us.
We provide videos how to stay healthy, fit, pain free
and we upload every day.
- Every day. - Also go to bobandbrad.com,
go to the giveaway section..
- Bobandbrad. - And this week
we're giving away a fit glide.
We're gonna show all this throughout the video
you're gonna like this.
- Fit glide.
- Yeah, we invented this by the way
and it's the cousin to the knee guide.
- That's right.
- So you can also find the contest on Facebook.
Go it'll be pinned to the top of the page,
go to Twitter, Instagram or Tiktok,
if you want a 62nd version of our program program.
- Program.
- So first let's get down to business here, Brad,
according to guidelines, and these are, this was a,
I think this was all to Australia.
- Okay.
- Bunch of surgeons they got together and surgery,
overall I see this is kind of worldwide now,
surgery is not recommended on cartilage problems,
even tears, unless you have locking of the knee
- Or otherwise it locks up
its typically painful. - It locks up, right.
- And you can kind of work it and it loosens up,
you know, oftentimes a meniscus issue,
but your definitely the cartilage.
- Well, you've always heard before and years ago,
someone would tear their meniscus tear their cartilage
and they go," Well, I gotta have surgery.
" I mean, you know, I tore I."
Right what they're finding out that
those who had the surgery, and as those that don't,
the outcome ends up being the same.
- Sure. - In a few months later
anyway. - Right.
- So
- If it doesn't lock.
- If it doesn't lock - Right.
- If it's locked, that means
that the cartilage probably folded up on itself,
and it's gonna just get worse.
And they need to go in and have it done.
- It is really not a major surgery,
it's, they do them fairly.
- Right, but it's surgery
nonetheless. - Right.
- And if you're not gonna get much benefit from it,
why do it? - Right
- So, don't listen to us on this get a second opinion.
If someone's saying, you know, you tore your cartilage
and they're telling you, well you should have surgery,
and it's not locking.
I'd always get that second opinion.
- Right.
- All right, we're gonna give you three tips though to
if you have a knee cartilage problem, the first thing is,
if able you wanna get it to calm down.
Knee pain, knee cartilage, it tends to flare up,
and it tends to calm down,
it you know, a lot of times people go,
"Oh God, it's bad and it's gonna get worse."
Not necessarily, it can calm down.
So you can take an anti inflammatory,
you wanna check with your doctor on that.
- Sure.
- You can also decrease weight on it for a while.
- Right, in other words, you know,
you may wanna use a cane.
Now a lot of people, " Oh I don't wanna use a cane."
- Right. - But it's not on
a long term thing, it's just until it calms down again,
the pressure of your body can, you know, irritate it
and continue to irritate it.
So if my left knee is the problem knee,
you're gonna use the cane actually in the opposite hand,
it's gonna take pressure off.
And so when that left foot goes for the cane goes with it.
And now I'm putting pressure of my body weight
through my body is going through the cane,
much less is going through that knee,
and you'll find it, I've had patients and say,
"Try the cane once and see how it goes."
And I'll show them how to use it,
and you know, it'll take a few steps and they'll say,
"Oh, wow, that does help."
- I've found a lot of patients say
"Brad that I think that alone helped calm it down."
- Sure. - You know what I mean,
it just and you know, if you can get past
well, a lot of people will say,
"Well, I'm not gonna use a cane, I'm gonna look old."
So instead what they do, they limp along like this.
- Yeah - And believe me
you look old already
when you're when that's happening.
So you can use like, you know,
if you're younger person you can use a walking stick.
That's what my wife did.
She had a flare
up of her cartilage. - Yeah
I thought she used a crutch?
- She used a crutch too but she we also like
when we went on vacation
- Yeah. - She used a walking stick.
- Sure. - And that
she could fold way up.
- Yeah, convenient for travel. - Yeah and
but she you're right,
she used a crutch or crutches,
or even if you're, you know, if you are more elderly,
you can use a walker, I mean.
- And her knee actually improved to the point
she's back to running. - She's back the running.
- Yeah. - So it shows you
these are not irreversible.
- Right. - So
so, the other thing is,
you wanna avoid stairs and hills right now.
- Yep, you know, - Not to say forever.
- And if you do to go upstairs you go one step at a time--
- Does protect the one knee.
- Right, and you'll know which leg do goes up first
'cause it feels better.
- Don't stand with your knees locked.
Watch this.
I'm locking my knees.
My pants are dirty.
I'm gonna lock my knees
or don't stand putting all your weight on one side.
A lot of people holding the baby will do that.
They'll put on their hip,
- Or you know. - Right this way, yeah.
- Yeah, some people will do that
just out of habit maybe from - Right.
- Having a baby years ago
and it just became a habit and they have no idea,
but then they realize, you know, after we show you say,
Oh, maybe I do that.
- It's funny those habits, you know, after a while,
they become like chains of burden, because, you know,
they start off just as a minor thing,
but when you repeat it over time, hour after hour,
day after day.
- And then you throw in the aging process.
- Yes. - Unfortunately,
it can exacerbate things.
- Another one simple one,
but this can make a big difference.
I had my sister do this one.
Don't she sits a lot,
she's working at the computer.
Don't sit with your knees bent more than 90 degrees.
You're really jamming that knee together.
- Yep. - The entire time.
So we have her sit like this,
or even like this at times - Sure.
I've had usually younger people
that have that thing
- Right. - Of sitting like this.
That knee is really putting a lot of stresses
- Yeah. - Not in the end range
but it's rotated and twisted.
- Yeah, that's a good way,
if you wanna hurt your knee, there you go.
- Sit like that all the time.
- All right. - Get into it.
- The next thing is you wanna get some movement
without resistance.
And we're just trying to get that synovial fluid
moving a little bit, little more blood flow to it.
So you can find a high bench like this.
- Yep. - Or a high table,
and you're just gonna swing your legs back like this.
- Yep.
- Just keep getting some movement.
There's no resistance.
There's a little bit traction.
- I actually had well you remember Barb,
She watch you do this with knee patients
and she'd put a little ankle weight
around one of their ankles.
- Oh she would.
- Just for a little distraction
and that would help pull the knee apart
and it just be relaxing like a pendulum.
- Am I remembering you talked about a patient
that did on the end of his truck?
- Yes, yeah. - Yeah after knee replacement.
- Yeah after knee yeah, he had a pickup truck,
he had folded back and he said that works really well
and he would sit down on the end of his pick up
to get range of motion of the knee
and he was very happy with the results.
- Now we're gonna show you a little more
of a commercial way to do this.
- Right. - And this is our giveaway,
it's called the fit glide.
This is gonna be very helpful after knee replacement,
because what's nice about this,
not only you're gonna work the knee that you had replaced,
you're gonna work the other knee.
And most people, when they have one bad knee,
they often have two bad knees.
And this is a way to stay fit after the surgery even but...
- I highly recommend doing it prior to the surgery.
- Yes, yes. - As prehab
to get things maximally moving.
And it simply goes like this,
you sit and very little resistance.
And you work this
and you do this for you know, two to five minutes.
I guess a two 'cause initially
you'll feel it after a couple of minutes,
but it's not aggressive.
There's not much weight going through the knees.
It's ideal for it, and that's why we made it this way.
One of the advantages is you can put it up
so you have it inclined - And to me that's a lot more
comfortable on the ankles
when you have put it up.
- Yep, that can be
and right now we're working a little more quadricep.
It can change the ankle range, like Bob said,
so it can be more comfortable.
We also can, usually, you know, I'll do this
when they're getting a little bit stronger
'cause this works the hamstrings,
- Hamstrings right.
- And it's much harder than it looks even for.
- Now, I'm gonna warn you the one negative about this,
it's not silent completely Brad,
you can hear a swish,
swish, swish, - Yeah
but it's not bad.
- No, it's not bad but I'm just saying that
there's some of those devices
and they're very expensive and heavy.
- Right.
- But they're silent. - Yeah.
- But show how light this thing is Brad.
- Yeah, I mean, you can one finger and it's built very well.
You can drop this thing.
It's the I mean, that is not even gonna affect it
- I'm glad it didn't break.
Alright, I wanna show Brad how you can use this in bed
by the way too.
So you wanna bring it up and put some towels on there.
Would you please?
- Yeah this is a really unique feature of this.
- Easy to clean too,
you're gonna put the towels on their Brad?
- Oh, sure.
Well, you don't have to put towels on it.
- No you don't. - It's more comfortable.
- Especially since I don't have shoes on.
- Sure.
- So we got it all the way down.
- No, Bob's a tall drink
while we got too short of a plant here.
- How's that? - Yep.
- So look at this.
You can work this baby, I can run.
Yeah, and it's just so this is you know,
if you got a patient that you have to go see in their room.
- Yeah. - And they need to work out,
you need to start getting some strengthening.
- Yeah, so we're obviously - Here we go
- Referring to the therapist.
- Yeah right.
- Or, you know, any aid, health aide,
a home health aide maybe. - Yeah.
- A perfect
situation for example. - All right,
just put in the quarter mile, Brad.
- All right.
- So the final thing we're gonna show you is
you can actually if your knee is locking,
and it's not completely straightening,
or it's not completely bending.
- Oh yes.
- What we have found is that by stretching it
to the full range of motion,
it actually often decreases your pain levels.
- Yeah. - And it also
gives the knee joint full motion to move.
So it spreads out the forces I think
so it's not as hard on the cartilage.
- Yeah
- So you can do it with the knee glide,
you can do some stretches, straightening.
- So what we're gonna do, instead of just push on it,
we're gonna actually do repetitions or
- Pressure on, pressure off pressure on pressure off.
- Yep.
- And this is something
that you don't wanna do just once a day
you wanna do it throughout the day.
- Right.
- And and we find out that
and if you don't have a fit glide?
Do I call it knee glide or fit glide?
If you don't have a fit glide
you can actually you can take a stool
and just sit on a regular chair.
- Yep. - And I'm gonna do
pressure on, pressure off.
I'm not pushing on the knee itself
I'm pushing right above the knee, pressure on, pressure off.
- It works nice if you have a stool with wheels on it
- Yeah. - 'Cause it just rolls it
- Works nice. - It's more fluid that way.
- Now, little variations of this
you can sometimes turn it out like this
and pressure on, pressure off.
This is the one that worked for my wife.
Turn it out - Sure, yep.
or you can turn it in.