♪ Bob and Brad, ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists on the internet. ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Yeah, you paused there,
I thought you didn't know who you were.
Together, we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Shoulder pain gone in 30 seconds, it's quite a-
- Shoulder blade pain.
- Oh, shoulder blade pain, that's quite a assumption.
- Yeah, quite the assumption.
- So what are we gonna do?
- Well Bob, let's talk about the location
and where the pain is really coming from
before you start to treat it.
Now, this is something that you and I have worked on
with ourselves and with hundreds of thousands of patients.
We're going to show you some of our top rated little cures
and tricks of the trade to help you out.
- The pearls of wisdom.
- Pearls of wisdom, and Sam, we are going to use you.
Wow.
All right, here we go.
Here we got the shoulder blades.
So there's pain you may feel in the blades
or sometimes it goes between.
And sometimes it may kind of kind of reef,
show up into the neck or the lower neck.
So keep that in mind,
because one thing that you really want to do as a therapist,
I always clear the neck to make sure it's not referral pain
from the low neck,
which is very common that it can spread down.
- Very common.
I would say a lot, a percentage of you
are going to find out it is from the neck.
- Yeah and then the treatment is a different path, right?
So Sam, we are done with you and just get out of our way.
That's right, there we go.
Sorry about that.
- So what do we do if it is neck pain?
Well, first, how did we discover whether it is neck pain?
- So the quickest way to do it,
and this is what I found probably clears the majority is,
you know, have the person or yourself
sit in a nice firm chair, not in a soft recliner,
but a nice firm kitchen chair, good posture, shoulders back,
and then do a little chin tuck like this.
And sometimes just that little motion will change the pain
in the shoulder blade.
- Yeah, if that changes the pain, it is from your neck.
There's a reason that it's changing.
- Right, and this may or may not, but then I'll say
can you do this gently
and then see if you can look up towards the ceiling.
And if this happens, it's like, oh, that hurts there,
it's from the neck.
- If it makes it worse or makes it better,
it is from the neck.
It shouldn't change if it's not, the neck is not involved.
- And if you do this and you could go back like this
and there's no change,
but you still have some pain back there,
then you need to get after it with plan B.
So, Bob, what say you?
- I thought maybe we'd show one exercise to try
if it is neck pain.
- Yeah, right.
So, and Bob and I both concur that, you know,
probably the most common and easiest way to treat it
is if you're doing this and it's hard to go back
and it hurts, take a towel and roll it up and-
- This is what we have most of our patients start with.
- Yeah, put that low on the neck, sitting in that firm chair
that, you know,
hopefully the chair is about this high,
comes across about your shoulder blades
and then lean back and use this for support
and gently start to stretch.
- He's pulling down a little bit,
probably down towards his feet.
- And if you can get back further with that support,
it feels better and each time,
you're going to do it 10 times-
- Trying to go further and further
with the range of motion.
- And if you find out that, oh, I can go farther,
each time it's a little better,
don't do more than 10 to start with and then try it without.
And if it's better, that's the exercise.
- You can do this throughout the day.
You can do it six to eight times.
- Right, I wouldn't do more than 10 at a time.
Don't try 20 or 30 and get it all at once.
You know, you need a little time in between,
but that's a great way to approach that-
- How to know whether or not it's really working
is if the pain in your shoulder blade
actually feels a little bit better.
Might the pain in the neck may get a little worse,
but the shoulder pain doesn't spread out as much.
- Right.
- That's a really good sign.
- And they call that centralization.
You don't need to remember that obviously, but anyways,
it makes it sound like we know what we're talking about.
- Yeah, that's right. (laughs)
All right, let's say it's not neck, Brad,
what do we do then?
- Well, then we're going to look at the posture thing
because it's most certainly it is not that,
it's from slouching, whether it's in your car,
looking at your phone, at the computer, whatever it may be.
And I like to use the wall because the wall,
if you're by yourself,
the wall will inform you if you have good posture,
so you can butt up against the wall, shoulders.
And if I'm like this, big gaps right here,
aren't, do you have it on me?
You really?
It looks like it's over on Bob,
I thought you were trying to, you know, get Bob to-
- Upstage you.
- Yeah, so bring the shoulders back
and your head hopefully can go back, tuck the chin in,
there we go.
And now I know I got good posture
and then I'm going to do the Ws.
So go like this, that's the W, which is for?
- Wisconsin.
- Yeah!
Or win, you're gonna win this little battle.
- You could also do angels, right?
You wanna show that?
- Up like this?
- And go all the way up, exactly.
- And breathe and relax and get that posture better.
And you know, you're just going to do that
maybe five to 10 repetitions,
and then you're going to feel that posture
is going to help that.
Now, if that doesn't work and you still feel some,
you may have to get in and do a little muscle massage
on the muscles itself.
- Soft tissue work
and you're going to work on the muscles and the fascia.
- Exactly.
- So a good way to start with is the foam roller.
If you have a foam roller.
- If you have one, if you don't that's okay.
We're going to show you a couple options
that we don't need this-
- Will you be able to see him on the floor?
- You're okay?
This is my favorite.
I have a foam roller, I use it almost every day.
I have gotten up in the middle of the night
where I had back pain
'cause I know it was from when I sit at my computer wrong
and I'll do this.
And almost always, a matter of fact,
I just had my back cracked right just before.
And it's just, it's just the sweetest easiest way
to work your back.
- Like, if you even get a hint of pain,
that's when you want to hit it.
- Get after it.
- 'Cause once it gets really fired up,
it does, this doesn't help me.
I mean, once it's going,
once the flames or fire are flamed,
I don't know what I'm saying.
- I don't, I find it helpful even when my flame is fired.
Yeah.
(Bob laughing)
But yeah, it varies from person to person.
The other thing that we're going to go into-
- A tennis ball works good
because, you know, what's nice about a tennis ball,
it gets really specific to an area
and you can hit the spot that really needs it.
- But it's important.
Stand up, Bob, and face away from the camera
so people get a break.
There ya go.
(Bob laughing)
So we're not gonna put the tennis ball
right on the shoulder blade itself.
We're gonna actually go-
- [Bob] More on the spine.
- Right, it's right in between there.
Work those muscles like that.
So you can do this on the wall
and I've had people-
- [Bob] Even with a sock.
- Yeah, throw the sock at me, Bob.
So the thing is, if you just have a tennis ball like this,
sometimes it's kind of hard and it drops.
So then I actually have two tennis balls in here,
but I'll put that tennis ball there
and I'm gonna, I'm on it and I'm gonna roll it and go.
And if you wanna get both sides at once, two tennis balls.
But I really think if that's working good,
get down on the floor and get to work.
And make it work and I'm gonna put those two tennis balls-
- I'm gonna say, I could-
- Each side of the spine, oh, and there.
I'm in there deep, oh yes.
- Now, because I'm on a soft surface,
I'm actually using a softball.
- Oh, yeah you just go out in the garage
and find tennis balls, softballs, whatever you can get.
Take it from the neighbor kids, they'll understand.
- And if you're a real man, you can take a softball, Brad.
- I've tried the softball and it's too much for me.
- Right, do you wanna show this ball on a chair?
- Yeah, this is a nice one, I think regardless of, you know,
if you got shoulder blade pain
it's gonna be a good maintenance
or it may take the shoulder blade pain away.
- A high-backed chair.
- Yeah, so here we got a softball.
It's not like a soccer ball or a basketball.
It's gotta have cush and we cushy wushy (groans)
and stretch back and-
- It's a nice one to do throughout the day.
- Exactly.
- I mean, easy to do in your chair at the office.
- Yeah, and one thing that's really nice about this
is you can adjust the level,
which can make a big difference.
Mine is usually down a little bit I find.
I don't know if it's because of my office chair,
'cause, you know, we preach posture all the time,
but I gotta admit, I'm guilty.
I'll be working at my desk, I forget about what I'm doing,
I'm focused on it, yeah, well maybe you.
I don't know if I'm human or not.
Sometimes I wonder.
But anyways, yeah, that works well.
It's a nice little trick.
- So the final thing is you could try a massage gun.
A little bit difficult to hit the area.
We got the handheld massager.
This is an inexpensive massager, but it's not real powerful.
- Right.
- But it works pretty decent.
- But the nigh,
with this shape, you can get back by yourself.
This one will probably get, definitely get deeper
and more aggressive.
- I mean, if you have good arm motion, you can get there.
- Yeah.
- But you could, you'd be a lot better
if somebody else would do it for ya.
(Brad growling)
- No yeah, up a little higher.
Right there, yeah, it's a-
- I don't know (mumbles).
(Bob and Brad laughing)
That's like my wife.
She wants me to scratch her back
and she starts taking my hand and like manipulating,
putting it to the area where she wants it.
- Well, of course.
- Well god, come on.
I mean, I'm scratching your back.
- Don't you communicate, you've been married for 35 years.
How many years you been married?
- We grunt, that's what we do.
(Brad laughing)
36, don't ask me.
- 36 years?
- 36, 37, something like that.
- Holy mokers.
Wow, how does your wife put up with that?
- I don't know.
- Well, good luck.
We're off on another tangent.
Good luck with that neck and shoulder blade problem.
- Thanks for watching.