♪ 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.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- The one stretch that could stop your neck,
upper back, and shoulder pain.
Quite a miracle here, Brad.
- Say no more, Bob.
Bob, you know, we've been doing this,
we've got over 50 years in the clinic
working with thousands of patients.
And this- - I thought you were gonna say
we've been videotaping for over 50 years.
- Well-
(both laugh)
- Seems like it huh? - [Brad] Yeah.
- It seems like that to them, I bet. Yeah.
- Yeah.
We're putting 'em through another torture series of video.
But anyways, and I'm sure you agree with this,
this stretch is probably, has gave us more success-
- Right?
- with shoulder, neck, and upper back pain
than anything else.
- That's right.
If you're gonna pick one stretch, this is it.
- Right.
- It might, it may not work
but it's the one that's gonna most likely work.
- [Brad] Right. - So.
- And it has other benefits as well. But-
- Yeah, if you did join us
for one of these torture sessions, you know, shame on you
(both laugh)
but you might as well subscribe to us now
because we provide videos
on how to stay healthy, fit, pain free.
And we upload every day.
Also go even further yet and go over to Facebook
and like us because Brad and I, as children,
were not liked. (Brad sighs)
It was a torture session as children.
- Let's go on with the video.
- And so now we're trying to get better. Alright.
Alright what do we got here?
- We gotta get Sam out, our new skeleton.
- Yeah. Sam, the new skeleton-
- Yep. - from 3B Anatomical.
- Okay. - So.
- So here we go.
We're looking at people that have a pain pattern,
right behind Gumby.
Not that you have a Gumby on your shoulder,
- Right.
- but you can imagine that for a little remembering cue.
- So, if Gumby was on my shoulder,
- He's hard to get outta there Bob.
- He is hard. - Yeah.
- If he's on, we're looking at everything behind.
- Right. So kind of low neck, the shoulder.
A lot of times in the shoulder blade, or just down in the-
- In between the-
- [Brad] Right. - shoulder blades,
- A lot of times, - [Bob] thoracic area.
I have patients that I've had this too
where they say, "you know, it feels like tingling."
- Yeah.
- Right, right at the low-
- They get weird sensations right there.
- Right. Right. And this,
this is a good exercise of that,
'cause that's kind of a precursor
to worse things coming up.
- Right.
- If you continue with your poor habits and-
- Or even a tight feeling. - [Brad] and posture.
- Yeah.
- If you get a tight feeling there,
that's usually, like you said, a precursor to pain.
Pain's coming.
- So the whole the whole thing is
we got referred pain from the low neck.
- Yep.
- Okay.
One area that if you have pain here in the shoulder
that's related to reaching overhead
this exercise probably is not gonna work.
If you have pain
in the front of the shoulder, then it's probably not.
We're talking about back here
which is quite a bit, quite a, quite a bit of-
- I mean you can have neck pain that goes down the arm-
- Oh yeah.
- but, generally that's not gonna make it, you know,
the arm pain's not gonna get worse when you lift the arm
and put some resistance-
- Right. against it. So.
- [Brad] Okay. - Again, so yeah,
we're kinda limit...
Today, we'll talk about pain
that's coming from the neck,
shoulder blade, and in between the shoulder blades.
- Right.
- Okay.
- One little screen test that I use with my patients
is I say, "sit down and can you look back like this?"
And if they do this, they sit down
and they go, "oh, it kind of hurts,"
as soon as they start going back, it's like
I'm almost a hundred percent certain, you know
this pain over here is probably from there.
- And I, same with me.
I often see the correlation
that they might have decent motion other ways.
But as soon as they try to go back-
- [Brad] Yeah. - it's limited.
- Right?
- And that, there's your sign.
There's a good sign that there's possibly a neck problem,
and that it may be causing
the pain going down further.
- [Brad] Precisely. - So,
- so we wanna regain that motion.
I mean, that's, that's one of the, generally,
the Cardinal Principles of being a therapist.
- Right.
- It's lacking motion.
You regain the motion,
and a lot of times the pain will go down-
- Sure.
- and coincide with it.
- Okay, so.
This stretch, we're gonna show some variations.
There's one stretch, but it is variations.
But all of them, you're gonna start to stretch.
You can start with some chin tucks.
- Yep. - Yep.
- And the chin tucks,
besides warming it up a little bit,
is just getting you into the right position.
- Right.
- The starting position. - [Brad] Yeah.
- So I don't really consider an exercise yet.
This is just warming up
and then we'll go into the real exercise-
- [Brad] Right. - which is extension.
- Okay. Bob, why don't you-
- Do this one?
- Yep, show your version.
And I'll show the one I often, well we've-
- You do yours first because yours is easier.
- Okay. Just take a towel roll.
I got a towel roll, I taped it,
and go around low on the neck.
Not up here, but down low on the neck.
You're gonna-
- Good posture.
- Yep.
- Good. Yep, good body posture while you're doing it.
- And you need doing a chair that doesn't go too high.
This one goes right about my shoulder blade level.
You can go a little higher than that.
Where's yours go to Bob? Oh, you don't have a back.
(both laugh)
So, but if you got a tall chair that comes up here-
- Are you saying I don't have a spine, Brad? (Brad laughs)
Bob, Bob-
- [Bob] Okay. - I didn't say anything.
- Alright, keep going, keep going.
- So you need a chair that is mid back
at the highest, you know?
This one, I really like this kind
that rotates like this,
it's just is more comfortable.
- We don't like the chair for sitting in it.
We like it for exercising in it.
(Brad laughs) - Yeah.
Okay. So here we go.
We're gonna do the chin tuck.
And normally, if this hurts a little bit,
put some support and you can get back farther,
if it's feeling better.
And then you just start working
your neck extensions, gently.
And typically, what's gonna happen is,
you're gonna be going back further with less pain
and the pain in the mid back or the shoulder will move.
Can you show, Bob?
- [Bob] Yeah, what we're- - I can't reach here.
- Yeah. What we're trying to look for here,
what Brad's trying to say is,
this pain should start to feel better,
the further pain that's further out.
It might get even a little worse up here.
- Mm-hmm.
- That's a good sign.
A bad sign is if it kind of goes away in the neck and
and gets worse in this area.
The further the pain travels out, the worse it's getting.
So we're trying to start getting it to clear, you know,
go down in that area.
- Right.
- And so, and this is, I've found many times, Bob.
People start doing this and "oh, it still hurts."
But it feels better with this.
But with some repetition,
and not getting too aggressive,
kind of work with it gently
and give it some repetitions.
You know, five to 10.
I'm not talking- - Yeah. The idea here is-
- 20 or 30 but-
- is that you don't try to do,
you know, 50 of 'em.
What you do is like do 10-
- Yep.
- and then an hour later do another 10
and do this throughout the day.
- Yep.
- That's where you're gonna get good results.
- Right. - If you just try to say,
"okay I did my exercise once a day."
No, that's not gonna do it at all.
- Sure.
- You gotta do it five to maybe eight times a day.
And then you're gonna start getting some results.
The other thing I was gonna point out Brad,
when you're doing that exercise
what I see quite often on people,
when they go back,
they often tilt one way or the other.
- Yep.
- And the only way to, you know,
if you do it looking in a mirror
you can see if you're doing that
because, generally, some people
are kind of drifting away from the painful side.
- Sure.
- So you want to keep your head straight,
if you can, and start working it straight back.
- Yep, in that mid-line.
- 'Cause they don't know they're doing it.
- [Brad] Right. Right. - Most people don't know.
- And as you progress with this
what I'll have people do is start to go back like this.
And you know, this is, when you get to this point
you're feeling pretty good, overall.
You are you making good progress.
- Bob did you wanna-
- And then eventually you want
to get away from the towel itself but-
- Right.
- another way to do it is to, if you want kind of
try to get work on specific levels of the neck-
- Yep.
- you can use just the selvage-
- Salvage, selfish, yeah.
- the little ridge on the end of the towel.
- Edge of a towel, yeah.
- So we're gonna go up like this.
You gotta kind of bring it up like this,
otherwise it gets caught on your shoulders,
and now I'm, you know, I even,
a lot of times, tell people to make bunny ears.
So they watch the bunny ears.
So I'm right below my ears right now.
As far as the, the selvage. - Yeah.
- But I can go a little bit lower.
- Yeah.
- And I can go even lower yet.
I can go like this, so I can get different levels.
I keep the bunny ears up by my eyes
and now I'm gonna go back.
And my arms and my eyes follow the bunny ears
the bunny ears follow me.
So we're moving 'em right along
at the same time.
- Here, here try the chair, Bob.
I want you to try that.
- Brad, that's very kind of you,
I will have to see if this works here.
I don't, I never really use this type of chair but-
- Oh boy, I tell ya. I didn't either.
It was an accident.
One day I was in there and I used it and it's like...
- Yeah, he's right, you know that?
- You get that-
- Yeah. - it goes with the back.
- It tilts.
- Yep. And it actually, it's working a little bit
on that mid back too, I think-
- [Brad] Yeah. - is what it's doing.
- Yeah. You get the full stretch.
- So yeah, this, this is another alternative.
I mean, if you can go back without the towel, go ahead.
- Right?
- Yeah, I mean, if you're able to stretch it
and not really, it doesn't make things worse,
actually makes things feel a little bit better,
don't use the towel.
- I've done it without the towel and I've used my hands
and just go back here and, and do that.
And then you can kind of massage those muscles.
Have you done that, Bob?
- I have not, no.
But that's a good idea.
- Yeah. Try it.
- Yeah. Do you wanna show that strap?
- Yep.
- Yeah, I would grab right here and-
- Because you can get
specific- - [Bob] Yeah.
- [Brad] that way. - Yeah, you can get specific
on the levels.
- If you got a stretch out strap, these work really well
because they're narrow and they, you know, particularly
if you have arthritis or you have a hard time grabbing
onto the towel, these have loops every six inches or so.
- But because they're so narrow, too,
you can really get, again,
get on specific levels of the back.
- Right.
- So.
- When Bob's talking level,
we're talking the vertebrae, you know, C7, C6.
And then we go back here and if we do the-
- Again, we might keep it up by the eyes.
- Yep.
- And that's often a great place to put it.
You can also just put it down like this.
- Yep. Right here and hold it.
Again, you do what makes it feel better.
This should make things feel better, not worse.
It's not a no pain, no gain stretch.
It's, as you do it, things clearly get better.
Shoulder and the back feel better,
and it works up to the pain,
like Bob mentioned, the centralizing aspect of the stretch.
- So yeah, we're keeping things real simple here.
It's not hard to do.
And you know, give it a try.
If it doesn't help, we have some more
advanced stretches you could try.
- Sure.
- But this is gonna help a lot of people.
- Yep.
- I mean, this is gonna help, you know-
- So once again, Bob, just another tool in the kit
but we're still working on that big tool to fix the-
(Bob laughs)
- You are big tool. (Brad laughs)
By the way, we can fix just about anything
except for-
- the broken heart.
- But we're working on it.