♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- All right, 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, Bob.
- Today we're gonna cover the top three things
better than cracking your neck.
So, you know, there is actually a little bit
of likelihood, very small by the way,
but if you crack you neck a lot,
there's actually, I think it was like
one out of 10,000 people,
but actually, it caused a stroke in them.
I know that's a
very minute part, but - Right.
- this can't be disputed because I saw
a lot of studies on it.
- Okay.
- It showed that they found out
that after someone had had their neck manipulated
that it was actually the cause of artery damage
and caused a stroke, so.
- I did have a resident skilled nursing facility
that was - Oh really?
- there for that specific reason.
But, again, it's very small.
- Very small percentage,
but we believe that if your goal is to improve
the mobility of your neck and your posture
and decrease pain,
these things we're gonna show you today
are better than cracking your neck.
- Okay.
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So, when you look at the typical neck here, Brad.
So this is a spine,
and it's actually facing me
just the same way Brad is facing me.
The first top seven bones make up your neck.
Now, these bones are held together not only by muscle
but by ligaments. - Right.
- And those ligaments, so we got two bones here.
Those ligaments are really tough fibrous materials.
- [Brad] Right.
- And just by cracking your neck,
you're not gonna affect those ligaments much.
- [Brad] Sure.
- If you wanna affect those ligaments,
you gotta put a stretch on them, or mobilization.
And that's what we're gonna show you today,
how the different ways to stretch them.
- And it may be muscles and the tendons
as well. - Can also be very tight.
- Right. - Yeah, very good point.
- All these vertebrae,
they have facet joints between each one.
- Little joints right here. - Yep.
And that's what actually does the crack when you do a crack,
those little facet joints cavitate,
technically speaking,
but we're gonna show you something you can do at home.
- And those joints are covered by ligaments, or capsule.
- Capsule, ligament,
a lot of soft tissues.
Some pretty aggressive soft tissue.
- So, the first thing we do,
if you're wondering why I'm wearing this,
is 'cause quite often it really helps to heat up the area.
Now if you take a normal heating pad,
I didn't grab this,
oh yeah, here it is.
- It's handy dandy
right there. - Right there.
A regular heating pad,
I think it's really important to point this out,
will only penetrate skin-deep basically.
- Right, two millimeters. - It's only
maybe a few millimeters.
That's represented by this side of the yard stick.
- The blue section there.
- Now, if you use infrared heat,
which the thing I'm wearing right now is,
it actually penetrates,
Brad, you remember the number?
- [Brad] 2.36 inches.
- 2.36 inches, look at the difference here.
What's nice about this,
is if you apply it to a spine,
look how much it can actually get
into the joints themself and it can heat them up
so they're gonna be really ready for stretching.
And it's also really great for pain relief.
- Yep.
- So we use the Thermotex infrared system.
What's nice about it,
it comes actually with straps like this.
You can actually wear it throughout the day.
I actually get it up in my upper neck here,
upper back and lower neck.
- [Brad] Sure.
- And it comes with a nice long cord
and you just plug it in.
Or if you have to go out and do something,
if you're working at your desk then you can just unplug it.
- Yeah.
- But we have a link below.
They are pricey, but I'll tell you,
I couldn't live without mine.
This is the Platinum model,
it comes with straps and you know,
Brad and I, you during the winter,
you actually have one in the chair that you
- Right yeah. - turn on every night.
- For my back issue it really helps maintenance with that.
But, it's just like an electric heat pad
but it's infrared and it uses much less electricity
than the other ones.
And they're just,
and these are built extremely well.
That's one reason why they do cost
a little more. - Yeah, I've been using them
for years now, so.
They have one that they've been using for 16 years.
- Yeah, 24/7. - So anyway,
let's go to the exercise here.
So this fist thing I'd like to do for the,
I'm gonna take this off actually, Brad,
for the upper back,
is actually all you're gonna need is a ball,
a tennis ball and a towel.
So Brad, you wanna grab one of those?
- A tennis ball
- And a towel. - and a towel.
So it doesn't need to be a big towel, small towel.
- Before you sit down or lay down Brad,
I'm gonna show them,
we're gonna put it on you.
So, what you're gonna do is you're gonna lay on the ball,
and the towel is to soften it a little bit.
Otherwise it's probably too much for most people.
But you wanna work in this area right in here.
You say, well Bob, that's not the neck.
If this is tight, your neck is gonna overwork
and it's gonna cause you pain and even headaches.
And I've seen this on so many people.
If that part is tight,
the neck is doing all the work.
There's no movement coming from that upper back.
- [Brad] Sure, yeah.
- And it's putting more stress on the neck.
And if you're having knots in this area too,
this is gonna work out really well for this.
So all you're gonna hit is six spots.
You're gonna hit a spot up towards the upper back
here on this side,
on the left side, right side,
then down a little bit lower,
right side, left side.
And then down a little bit further
you get right between the shoulder blades,
left side, right side.
So all he's gonna do is lay on it.
Put the towel down like this.
Brad, do you wanna show
how you're gonna do that then? - Sure, you bet.
Put that there. - Now, if you're
brand new to this,
and you've got kind of bad posture,
you may have to start off with a pillow
underneath your head.
Brad, if your head won't even go down, arc naturally,
you might have to start with a pillow under you head.
And you may be surprised to how much that ball
bites into that area. - Yeah.
- I don't wanna have too much pain.
It just should be kind of a good pain,
or just like a, - Hurts so good kind.
- [Bob] hurts so good, yeah.
- So right now, I'm moving a little bit
'cause I can tell I'm on a tight spot there.
And if you just roll a little bit it helps work that out.
So I'm up at the higher spot Bob mentioned.
Now with me, I'll have more success.
- [Bob] Yeah, you don't need,
yeah, you're fine.
- Without the towel.
- [Bob] And you can actually put your arms overhead.
Like that. - Oh yeah.
- [Bob] That'll stretch it even more.
- So I get to here and if I bring my elbow down,
it's getting a little too aggressive,
so I'm gonna do it up here.
And actually here, I'm okay right there.
I got it right on that trigger point right now
at the second position you talked about.
I'm working just the left side
and under the third.
And then of course,
you're gonna repeat on the right side as well.
- [Bob] Yeah, and I do this myself in the mornings
when I'm stretching my hamstrings.
And I do it for just 20 seconds, 30 seconds,
it doesn't take much.
But it really made a difference in my spine
and it really made a difference in having,
preventing neck pain.
So, I just had a patient I was having doing this, Brad,
and she's really kind of fixated.
She was able to tolerate it,
but we had to use the pillows
and she was a little shocked how much,
she didn't think it would be
to feel it. - When you say fixated,
you mean physically in her back.
- No no, she,
yeah, she's, it's actually tight.
- Right. - Yeah.
That's what I mean by fixated. - I didn't know if it meant
psychologically, - Yeah, mentally.
- fixated on her posture. - Not at all.
- But, it could be, you know.
- All right, so once you get that area loosened up,
and you can do all of these the same day or,
but another one to do that's great,
a lot of people don't think of.
Because a lot of our day is spent
with your neck forward gently.
- Yep.
- Looking forward, looking down at a phone,
looking at laptop,
looking at a book,
looking at a newspaper.
So, what you actually wanna work on
is taking your neck in the opposite direction.
And one of the best ways to do that
is actually to start with a towel.
Because for some people,
this actually is gonna hurt to go back.
And if you wanna give yourself a little support,
just take the towel,
you can do a rolled towel like this,
and you can pull down.
And you can go back and you can start working back.
And you can actually lean up against the chair here.
- Yeah, you should be relaxed.
- And you're gonna take it way, way back.
- It should be pain-free,
if you're getting pain or any dizziness
or light-headedness, you stop.
That's a symptom that you should not do this,
unless you are the professional.
- Yeah, you may wanna start off
just doing what we maybe say is small arcs.
- Sure. - So you maybe wanna
just go this far,
and maybe that's all you're gonna do in the first day.
And the next day you wanna try to go a little bit further.
Eventually you wanna go as far as it lets you go.
- Right. - I mean, you wanna get
your head way, way down there.
And the little stretches
make a big difference. - And the towel roll
really helps support it.
- And eventually, you could try to work away from the towel.
- Right.
- You can get the towel away
and you're just gonna work on doing it without the towel.
Now, you can also take a towel.
I guess, let me try that one, Brad.
But, you can also,
if you wanna use a towel a little bit differently,
you can use what we call, again, selfage?
- Salvage. - Salvage.
- I think,
we get a lot of comments,
I didn't know that many people were aware
of the edge of a towel.
- The edge of a towel, it's amazing, isn't it?
But you can take the towel and the salvage,
and you go right underneath your ears like this.
I'm watching for my mic here, that's all.
- Yeah, right here.
- And what's nice about this,
is you can actually hit different levels of the neck.
- [Brad] Yeah, a little more specific.
- A little more specific
and then when I bring my neck back,
my fingers, my thumbs stay with my eyes.
I don't go like this.
They move along with me
and they're applying a little bit of pressure
while I'm doing it the whole time.
- Again, it should feel like a comfortable stretch.
Should not create pain or anything unusual
in the arms or the neck.
If it does, it's not for you
or you're not ready for it.
- And what's nice about this, Brad,
you can go right into the rotations then,
- Sure. - with this towel.
So now, you're gonna work on trying to improve your turns,
which for a lot of people, is a problem
as you get older. - Here,
allow me to help.
- Thank you. - There you go.
- So, if you're having that person that looks,
is having trouble backing up a vehicle
and you don't have one with the cameras yet
on your car, which I don't,
you're gonna go ahead and work on your rotations.
And this really, the towel really aids this too.
- [Brad] Right.
- So you're gonna go ahead,
it's a little complicated here.
I'm gonna turn to the left,
so I bring the right one up.
I switch hands.
- [Brad] Yeah, this is a little tricky,
but once you get it.
- I pull this one down,
and I pull this one in.
- [Brad] We're gonna get your mic out of the way.
- Oh, let's go the other way.
(chuckling)
We're gonna go switch hands,
and I'm pulling down with this one
and this one I'm pulling kind of across my face
up into the eyes.
- [Brad] So if you look at the neck,
we're just turning.
- Yeah.
- [Brad] All those vertebrae in the neck are getting
a nice gentle stretch.
- And those joints are slanted this way
and that's why the towel is slanted this way.
- Yeah, it puts it all on the same plane.
Gives a little more advantage for stretching.
- [Bob] Don't go like this, don't choke yourself.
- Yeah.
- You're gonna bring it across here
but it just gives a little bit of extra pressure
and it helps you work on that rotation
that may be a little tight.
- [Brad] It is amazing how many people,
let's say when they get past 60 years old,
are lacking in rotation.
- Oh yeah. - I think it's just
part of the aging process and not doing it as much.
- And quite often the rotation they maintain
is the one it took to look back in their car,
because it, - Right.
- for me it used to be reach back
and try to discipline my kids.
- Oh, of course, Bob. - Yeah.
- I'm sure you didn't have to do that.
- No, I didn't and we had a van
so they could get way behind me
and not have to worry about me
trying to deal with them, so.
Anyway, these are much better for you
than cracking your neck
or trying to make a sound with your neck.
And if you stretch it,
it may take away that desire
to feel like you have to crack your neck.
- Right, some people can do it at will.
- I know they can.
- They say (crunching noises).
- Right. (chuckling)
So, all right, I hope that's helpful.
Thanks for watching.
(short electronic beat)