♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- We are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today we're gonna present to you seven great stretches
for a stiff or tight back.
This is the type of thing, Brad,
a couple weeks ago I tweaked my back.
- Yes.
- And it's a great thing when that happens,
because I become smarter at how to treat it.
Because I do things and try it, and I go,
"Oh that feels really good.
"My patients should try this", so--
- You get to taste your own medicine.
- That's right, it's a bitter pill sometimes.
(laughter)
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- Why, Bob, why?
- All right, so you can also see it
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We got short versions of our videos.
- Right, then you don't have to listen to us babble on.
- That's right.
- So! - Right, number one, Brad,
that I really found helpful, I really liked this one.
I went up to my staircase--
- I was wondering why we got a staircase here--
- Yeah, and I grabbed both sides of the railings.
Now, I was a lot higher, I was up like this.
- Yeah, this is obviously a sample staircase that we--
- Right, and you're gonna kind of show
on that stool how it could be higher.
- But you show it first.
- But I would lean forward like this
so I was stretching the hip flexors.
I was also stretching the back a little bit.
And then when I got into this position, that was number one.
I just stretched a little bit this way,
and a little bit this way.
- How long did you hold that for?
- 30 seconds, it wasn't much, you know?
And then I started just working this way,
I started doing side bends. - Right.
- Again, that quadratus lumborum.
- So that's a big muscle in your low back.
On each side you have it, so when you go
to the side-- - And I could definitely
tell that it affected the one side of that,
I mean I think it was the muscle
that I was having a little bit of trouble with
because it felt so good to stretch it on that side.
You know, hurt so good, that type of thing?
And then I went to the other side.
Now depending on your rails, you might even,
I have stairs that go up this way then there's the upstairs.
So I can grab onto the rail like this.
- It really-- - Oh, like a power stretch.
- Yeah, it was really fantastic, it really worked out good.
- So that's the key though, when he's doing the stretch,
it felt like a good stretch, it didn't create pain.
If it does create pain,
you need to do one of the other ones that we're gonna show.
- This actually is a great stretch for spinal stenosis,
and probably even a little bit of spondy, maybe.
Well, you do like this one for spondy.
But for spinal stenosis, this is a great series
to go through is to stretch it this way,
do this and then number three is actually
do rotations while you're in this position.
Keeping good posture but doing a rotation
with the right leg forward
and doing rotations with the left leg forward.
- And you're not gonna rotate real hard, you're not gonna--
- No. - Pull hard.
These are gentle stretches.
- Do you wanna show again, Brad, or show
how that-- - Yep.
- See, that's about how high I was.
- Yeah, and this is what I do, it's for my low back
and I do believe this is working my SI joint a little bit.
It can get some rotation on that.
And again, the only reason you're going to do this,
like when I do this even right now, this feels really good.
So this is a stretch I do commonly.
When I do have pain in that right hip and low back,
I'll do this and it immediately makes it feel better.
And I'll do some of this pressure-on, pressure-off.
Sometimes I'll just hold it and I just listen to my body.
No more than 30 seconds although you could if you wanted to.
- And I think what he's doing in part there too,
is probably opening the foramen a little bit.
- Sure, right.
- The holes where the nerves come out.
- So that's related to stenosis.
- Right.
All right, number four.
We got to hit the mid back too, Brad.
So those were all kind of low back
so for the mid back, you're gonna go ahead
and we love the ball and the chair, don't we Brad?
- Oh yeah, one of the reasons is it works really well
and the other reason is, you know, everyone can afford one.
- Right.
So you just get a ball from the big ball store (laughs)
A big bulk store, what do you call it?
- Or from the neighborhood park.
- Yep, there you go, yeah (laughs)
- Kids forgot it there. - That's right.
So what's nice about this
is you can put it on different levels, so--
- So let's talk about levels of the spine, lumbar, thoracic.
- So you go ahead and like this and with good posture,
and you're gonna just lean back like this and, you know,
I call it the hallelujah stretch quite often.
You could do hallelujah or you could put your hands behind
your neck and just give a good stretch like this.
This is a great stretch to do throughout the day,
you can do it every hour if you want
especially if you have to sit a lot at the desk.
But now I just moved it down a little bit lower,
hit a different spot
and I don't usually like the low back for this one.
I tend to like to stick with the mid back
or upper mid back with this so especially,
as long as you don't run out of chair here.
- And you're only gonna spend a couple minutes doing this,
it's not like you're-- - Yeah this is not a
long-term stretch. - It's not a ten
or fifteen minute stretch, yeah.
- All right, number five,
I'm gonna go ahead and show this one.
Brad, prone extensions.
- You're gonna do it?
- Yep, I'm gonna do it.
- Good, now, like we're doing here,
you're not gonna do this on a hard floor,
although you could it's a little uncomfortable.
It's nice to do it on carpeted floor
or if you happen to have a handy dandy mat.
- Or if, you could do these in bed--
- You could, yeah. - To some extent.
So these are prone extensions, have shown these many times.
Usually start off,
you may even just start relaxed a little bit like this,
and maybe even up on your elbows
but eventually you're gonna work to the point
where you put your hands underneath your shoulders,
you're keeping your pelvis down
and you're working on extending your back.
- Look at this, he's really got good lumbar extension.
His range and motion right in here,
that curve is really good particularly for his age,
because he is old--
- What, you're gonna fuckin'
(laughs and mumbles) - He's almost 60,
you know that?
- Yeah I am, I'm pushing the, yeah the...
I'm on the banana peel,
in the grave. - I'm just kidding,
no, he's young.
- So you're gonna see with a lot of people,
if they don't have the mobility,
the pelvis wants to come up like this.
So you wanna work in the range that it's gonna allow you.
If you can only go up this high
and then it starts to come up, just work this high,
but eventually you wanna get to this point.
- You may start up on your forearms,
particularly if you're older and you haven't done this ever,
you know, Bob's so flexible
but I've seen people that cannot even start--
- Right, they're like this, and that's very typical
'cause that's not an area that you normally stretch
in that direction so...
All right, number six, this is one
that anybody can do pretty much.
This is one again you can do in bed, you're gonna lay down.
You're gonna bring your knees together like this
and you got 'em bent and you're gonna do
the windshield wipers is what Brad calls 'em.
- Well, it's just because people can,
everyone knows a windshield wiper goes back and forth
and it's way my mind works, I'm a--
- Yeah that's a nutty mind.
- Yeah, it's an issue.
- But eventually, what you can do
is actually give it a bit of a stretch.
- Yeah, and look at the hip.
His hip comes over so that's what's stretching the back.
- And I'm keeping the shoulders down--
- Right there. - And now we're stretching
the back, you can also hook that leg underneath
the leg like this and bring it over like this.
Real gentle on this one,
I mean, this is one that
you will wanna be very careful if you have a disc problem.
You may try this but only try it
to the direction of where the pain is at
so if your pain is going down this leg you could try this,
but very, very gentle.
I'll show the opposite way. - And only proceed
if it makes the leg feel better, you know you're good.
If it makes it worse then skip it.
- So again here, I'm stretching
the opposite direction here so--
- See he's got this shoulder flat, he's relaxed,
and actually with all of these stretches you want
to relax and breathe, gotta relax breathing.
He's got really good hip rotation.
Your spine is, I'm so jealous, Bob.
If I had a spine as limber as yours I would be feeling good.
- Yeah, we all got our strengths and weaknesses, Brad.
So the final one, we're gonna show
a couple different ways to do this,
but this is actually how I do this, Brad.
I lay down in the morning
and I put it up on the rail like this,
and I put this one down and I'll move closer to the rail
and I'll just stretch the hamstring this way.
It's very relaxing, it's almost meditative.
I can think about the day and--
- Notice his knee is straight.
That's when you isolate the hamstring.
If you do this and your knee is flexed or bent,
it won't be as effective.
- You wanna show it on the chair, Brad--
- Oh sure, yep. - How you do it?
But Brad still keeps good posture while he's doing this.
- Did you call me bread again?
- I didn't call you bread again, no, I said Brad!
- Well okay then, I was just curious--
- He's got a thing about that--
- Well, they always called me bread
when I was a kid, it's not nice.
- Who called you bread?
I wanna know who called you bread.
- I'm not gonna tell.
(Bob laughs)
Okay, hamstrings.
I need a stool about this tall.
And you need a knee straight and the back is straight.
And actually, 'cause here I can bend over and people,
you know, think they're stretching the hamstrings like this
but you're really not, if I go like--
- Yeah, if you do it like that you're toast.
(both laughing)
- Coming back. - Coming back, yeah.
- Just straighten the knee there,
straighten the back and then,
like, I'm already feeling a good, isolated stretch there.
Now some people that can, you know,
if you're really tight in the hamstrings you may go to
a step at this height and it's gonna give you
a good hamstring stretch, but again,
the knee straight and the back is straight.
And relax and yeah. - Yep, he's not rounding out
his back, yep exactly,
he's keeping everything nice and straight.
- And in a stairway it's really nice,
you got a handrail to hold onto.
A normal staircase in most houses, you know,
you'll have higher steps
so that you-- - I think they're
a fantastic way to stretch.
- Oh yeah, yep. - I know we did
a video on that--
- Matter of fact, if I ever had a house or built a house,
I would build staircase with stretching in mind.
- Yep, I know. - Yep.
- They really do come in handy.
But you know, we're getting to that age now
where we're gonna have a house
that doesn't have any stairs--
- I don't wanna think about that
for another 20 years, Bob.
- All right. - All right.
- Remember Brad and I are not just pretty.
- We're pretty ugly (laughs)
- No, we're pretty handy! - Oh that's right.
- We're pretty helpful, so--
- That's right,
I forgot (laughs) - Gotta make sure you
subscribe to that channel.
Thanks for watching.
(upbeat notes)