♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- 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.
- Today we are gonna show you how to decompress
the spine for back pain,
it's kind of a form of traction, without equipment.
- Right.
- And you can do it in 60 seconds.
So we are gonna show you three different options.
Do you mind if I start with this one, Brad?
- Sure.
- So this would be like if you went up to
the back of a park bench
that was maybe cemented into the ground
or very solid. - Right.
- You're in the park, you're walking around the trail maybe,
and you can just go up to it,
put your palms forward like this,
or palms back, I'm sorry, palms back.
And you're just gonna...
You don't have to completely pick your feet up,
you just bend your knees and let your back sag.
- Right, so you really have to learn core control with this.
If it's painful and you're doing this,
and it's painful and you're contracting because of the pain,
you may not be,
it's not the right thing. - It's not doing any help.
- Yeah, you've gone too far.
- Yeah, well what's nice about this,
it's pretty easy to do for like 20 seconds.
You can do another 20 seconds,
relax, and then do a third 20 seconds.
But this might give you enough relief for you to walk,
maybe, you know, a half mile or a mile,
and maybe you'll find another bench
and you can make your way around the park.
The whole key to treating back pain, sciatica,
is we always like the movement,
remember walking is really good.
So if you can intersperse some traction in there,
that's going to be very helpful.
- And again, I can't emphasize it enough,
when you do the traction,
it should feel relief. - Yes.
- Particularly if you're having some pain
going down the leg and you do that
and that leg pain goes away.
Boy, do it more often. - Then you're golden.
So, which one do you want to do next, Brad?
Do you want to do the countertop?
- Yeah.
- Okay, since I'm here.
So this is one you can do at home,
it's great if you have a countertop that runs this way
and then runs this way,
so you have an L shape basically.
- We don't have one so we made a mock one here,
but that corner, I've done this with a lot of patients,
they'll go up in their house
and they'll do exactly what Bob's gonna show us.
- Right, so you can do this one of two ways.
One you can go back up to the corner,
and lean like this.
Again I've got the palms facing away from me.
I guess you could do this either way, like this or this way.
- Whatever you're more comfortable with.
- Yeah, whichever you're more comfortable with.
Bring your legs out like this,
and now just let your back relax.
This is a great way to do this.
This is really comfortable.
- If you didn't feel comfortable putting
your legs out in front of you,
you could just bend your knees.
- You can leave them back. - Until you get used to it.
- I don't want you to do this
and then all of a sudden your hand slips
or your leg or arm gives way.
You can also turn and face this way,
same thing, however is most comfortable for you,
and again bend the knees.
- One thing that I do mention to my patients,
is if you lock your elbows out,
if you're tall enough, it's a lot easier on your arms.
- Yeah, if your arms are bending like this
you are going to get fatigued.
You want to lock the arms.
- Feel comfortable with it,
because if you don't relax
and let that traction occur you won't get the benefits,
so again, it should feel good,
good relief, 20 seconds.
- Well, Brad why don't you show a safe way.
Especially if you can get down on your knees.
This is a good one to start for some people
who maybe don't feel comfortable
standing and leaning against something like that.
- Or if you don't have the inside corner.
Sometimes this works better.
Now with this what I'm gonna do,
well I'll just show you first,
but when you get down on your knees...
- You can put a pillow down there by the way.
- Sure, yep, good idea.
Protect your knees, be nice to yourself.
On carpet it's not a problem.
But I'm gonna get down like this.
- See how he's keeping good posture.
- I'm not going to bend over.
- Yep, he's keeping good posture on the way down.
- Here we go.
- Some of you are forced to do that already,
some of you know that,
the way the back feels.
- And now I'm just going to push up.
You can't see it, but there's no pressure on my knees,
you can see them wiggling the pillow.
And I'm just going to relax,
again I'm going to see if I can lock my elbows out,
and it's easier on my arms,
and I'm just going to hang out here,
and it's going to feel nice
and good and good traction.
This works out really well for me because it's just
about exactly the right heighth.
I'm five foot ten,
and these are standard chairs,
I believe 17 inches.
- I've done it myself though too,
it still works for me, so... - And then when you get up,
make sure you know, you can use the arm rests,
you've got those to get up,
with that good posture.
- Nice and good posture.
So those are three options for you.
We're going to show you three pieces of equipment
that you can use to do traction on your back.
They do a better job,
but they do cost you money.
So check out the next videos.
Thanks for watching.
(bright music)