♪ 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.
- And if you notice, we have pretty good posture today.
- Perfect posture.
- Three critical stretches we're gonna show you
for great posture, and it'll just take five minutes a day.
You can actually do it a couple times a day.
- Sure.
- Actually I would recommend that if you need a lot of work.
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.
Also, you want to join us on our,
go to our website, bobandbrad.com.
Go to the giveaways section 'cause we're always
giving something away, and we're gonna keep it a surprise.
Go there and find out.
- Right, it'll tell you.
- It'll tell you.
Sometimes it's mattresses and big things, so.
- Oh yeah.
It's not just like a bag of M&Ms.
- That's right.
- Although, peanut M&Ms would probably go over good.
- I would go for that.
You can also go to Bob and Brad on Facebook.
It's pinned to the top of the page what we're giving away.
You want a shorter version of Bob and Brad,
where we don't ramble?
Go to Twitter or Instagram.
We keep it short.
- There you go.
- About a minute long.
All right, Brad, when I'm looking at people's posture,
one of the biggest faults I see, generally,
is, if you wanna turn this way, Brad,
is right in this area right here.
You got that head forward, rounded out up in here,
and it just sets the tone for the rest of the body.
I'd say that's the number one fault I see,
and some people, if they've only been doing it
for a short while, they can correct it
just by straightening up.
- Thinking about it.
- And keep using, yeah and thinking about it.
A lot of people, it's gotten to the point,
it's gotten so tight, even younger people.
- Sure.
- I had a niece who was this way, she was already starting,
almost fixated in that area.
Now for that, you need some help.
You need to stretch those ligaments aggressively
and the only way to do that that I've found
is actually I'm gonna take a tennis ball and some towels,
and what we're gonna do, I'm gonna have you
stand up here again, Brad.
- Sure.
- And face this way.
So, the reason you're gonna use the towel,
the tennis ball by itself is too aggressive,
and you might even find
that with the towels it's too aggressive.
You may have to use a pillow,
but we're gonna hit six spots here.
Here, here, a little lower, lower, and even lower, lower.
Just by laying on this ball, you're stretching out
the ligaments at that level and you're gonna hit both sides.
I do this every morning when I'm doing my hamstring stretch.
I just lay on my back and I stretch
all the way through there and it really opens me up.
- Sure.
- And I have really good posture when I'm running.
- Feels good.
- And it feels good, yeah.
So I'm gonna go ahead and show ya.
So we got the towels here,
and again I'm gonna lay down on the floor.
You can't do this on a bed.
You gotta do this on a hard surface.
- [Brad] So carpet's okay?
- Carpet is okay, yes.
So I'm gonna put the towels down,
and if I get my act together here,
(laughing)
and put the ball right underneath here
and lean on it like this.
Now I even bring my arms back like this and stretch.
- [Brad] Yep.
- So I'm in that upper level right now.
- [Brad] So you're on the left side.
- On the left side upper spine.
- [Brad] Right.
So just about three inches to the left of the spine.
- And you only gotta go like,
you could go probably 15 seconds on each spot.
- [Brad] Right.
- If you go 30 seconds,
just relax and do your meditative type thinking,
and think about your day, yeah.
- [Brad] Yeah.
- And I work my way down.
Now the thing is, I've been doing this,
I'm fairly flexible.
Again, for a lot of people, this would
almost be too much.
Is there a pillow up there, Brad?
- [Brad] Well, we got this pillow.
- Yeah.
- [Brad] It's kinda thicker, this pillow.
- Oh, yeah.
For some people, they might have to put a pillow
underneath their head.
- [Brad] Oh, I see.
- It takes a little pressure off.
- [Brad] Yep.
- And some people maybe might even have to put
a pillow over the ball.
- [Brad] Mmm hmm.
- 'Cause I've know some people,
we recommend this before, and they complain
that it was too aggressive.
- [Brad] Right.
- If you're really pretty fixated,
you're gonna have to start off slow.
- [Brad] You could possibly maybe use something
other than a tennis ball that has
more squish to it possibly.
- Right, right,
or maybe cut the tennis ball in half.
I don't know.
We're open for all ideas here.
- Sure.
- Remember, Brad?
- But so you're gonna do that in those six locations.
That's gonna take ya, you know, three minutes or so.
- Yeah, three minutes.
Now you got two minutes left.
So the next one is one you can do throughout the day
to be honest with ya.
I call it the butterfly stretch.
Real easy to do when you're seated.
- Mmm hmm.
- And this is gonna stretch everything,
the neck, upper back, and even the shoulders
a little bit.
- Sure.
- And even the chest.
- Yep.
- So you're gonna bring your arms up.
You're gonna have 'em behind your head like this,
and you're gonna bring it up,
and then you open up like a butterfly,
and at the same time, you're bringing your neck back.
- Chin tucked in.
- That chin tuck like this at the same time.
So it's a great one to do when you're in your chair,
just as a reminder, bring it up, back,
squeeze the shoulder blades together,
bringing the neck back, all at the same time.
- If you have problems being able to reach back
like this 'cause your shoulders are tight,
you certainly can use a towel roll and go like this
to start out with until you get stretched out there,
there, chin tuck in.
- Or you could even go like this, I think.
- Sure.
- You know, just touch your ears.
- Yeah.
- And chin tucked back.
I mean, it's a great reminder.
- Mmm hmm.
- And in addition, like I said,
you're starting to get.
- Oh, yeah.
- The chest.
- Ah, you can feel everything stretch out.
- And you're getting that chin tuck,
which is also important.
- You can breathe better after you do that stretch.
- Right.
- You can just feel things loosen up.
- So now we worked on the kinda more,
the upper back here.
Now I wanna get one more, kinda in the mid back.
- [Brad] Yeah.
- Where you often see that kinda a hinge there
on a lot of people.
There's a lot of different ways you can do this one.
(knee cracking)
One way to do it, you hear my knee crack, Brad?
- [Brad] Well, you're getting old, Bob.
- Yeah.
- [Brad] Things aren't getting any better.
You just.
- I could use that chair, too.
- [Brad] Oh, sure.
- Or this one.
I guess I'll start with this one.
- [Brad] Yep.
- So you're gonna put your elbows on the chair like this,
and you're gonna reach down like this,
and you're just gonna really stretch that mid back there.
- [Brad] Right here, you're working that.
- Yeah, this is a great stretch for that mid back.
- [Brad] It's nice if you have a stool with wheels
or you can use an office chair,
something that rolls so that you can.
- Yeah kinda oscillate into it.
- You can do this on the side of your bed
as again, nice something soft there.
It'll work there, you don't have that rolling benefit
and you'll see that, it works, not as well.
- [Bob] You can even do it on the wall.
- Oh, yeah.
- [Bob] Brad, wanna show that?
But it's not as aggressive, it's not as.
Yeah, you gotta kinda lean forward.
It's not as, and maybe that's the way you need to start
for some of you who can't be as aggressive.
- [Brad] Ooh, that's a good one to do, Bob.
I didn't do this one yet today.
- So you really concentrate on that mid-back, so.
- You were pointing to my back.
I thought you were saying, quit it, you're done.
(chuckling)
- So those are some hints.
Those are some great stretches.
I think they can help your posture.
Give it time, though, because it took you a long time
to develop poor posture, sometimes years,
so it can take a long time to stretch out
and get back into good-looking posture.
- Not years, though.
- Not years.
- But it may take a few weeks.
- That's right, and ask people around you,
do I look like I'm standing up straighter?
- Yeah, when you're walking down the street,
just tap some stranger on the back,
(laughing)
say, How's my posture look?
- How's it look?
- It'll be a form of conversation.
- Then after the slap, then you can move on, all right.
Remember, we can fix just about anything.
- Except for.
- Posture.
No, except for a broken heart.
- Broken heart, Bob.
- But we're working on it.
- Mmhmm.