♪ Bob and Brad, the two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists on the internet ♪
- (claps) 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're gonna show you how to improve
leg flexibility without stretching.
Now, that's not to say you can't stretch.
- Maybe you could use this in combination,
but if you don't want to stretch-
- This'll be still very effective.
- Viable option. - Yeah.
Might be better than stretching even.
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- Look at this, Bob, it's our C2 Massager.
Yeah, it doesn't come with a pink hat,
I just put that on, so you can see it move, a little tape.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Kinisio tape. - It's all black.
- Yeah.
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Alright, so this is very simple, you know.
When you're working on stretching,
you're stretching the entire muscle, but you're actually,
the stretching occurs in the part of the muscle,
that probably doesn't need stretching,
'cause that's the one that's already stretched out already.
- I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
(both laughing)
- Alright, let's say we've got our quadricep muscle here.
- Sure.
- There's gonna be sometimes tender spots on it
or there's gonna be maybe some parts that are scarred down,
those you wanna focus on those segments,
instead of the entire muscle.
- So either scarred down from an old injury,
maybe knotted from whatever tension,
guarding issues or maybe going out, yeah.
So you wanna focus to the spot that needs it,
not the whole muscle. - Right.
Yeah, really only you wanna work on the tender spots,
'cause otherwise you're not doing anything.
- In other words, get to the point.
- Yeah.
- Get it?
There's a joke, it's killing me.
- Alright, let's start with the hamstring.
We're gonna only work on four muscles here
in the lower extremities,
the ones that are pretty important for flexibility.
Hamstrings are an important one.
- It's a big one. - Yeah.
So what I like to do is actually,
if you can get to a bench, that's a little higher,
where you can actually dangle your legs.
- Oh sure. - This works really nice.
You can actually just- - Let me get that.
- You're gonna put the softball, works good for this one.
- Sure.
- 'Cause it's quite a good size for it.
You could use the lacrosse ball too.
- Maybe if you faced that way, Bob,
you can see that softball
and get really good idea of the location.
- Sure, so I'm gonna find a tender spot of me,
which is right here. - Hm-mm.
- Now for some people, maybe it's way up by the sit bones.
- Those high areas are pretty common.
- That's very common to be problematic.
And you can hit that area
and you can even roll a little bit back and forth on it,
but you can also do flossing,
which means you're moving the leg at the same time,
while you're putting pressure on that area.
- So those muscle fibers are actually moving
across that ball and giving it a massage or flossing it.
- Yeah, I can feel it working really quite well.
Now as an option, you can also use the massage gun
and they've actually done some studies
on the use of the massage gun.
They did one in particular on the calf muscle, Brad
and they found out using the massage guns
with vibration and percussions,
that actually improved the range of motion
of that muscle quite significantly.
- Yeah, I can believe it.
The nice thing about these massage guns, they reciprocate
and they can be real aggressive, you can adjust them,
but you can also adjust the intensity by the angle.
If I go straight onto mine, it's too aggressive,
but I put it at a angle,
I can easily get the right intensity
and 'cause like Bob says, you get to that tender spot,
but if it really hurts,
you don't want to beat yourself up too much.
- Yeah, you wanna work a way around it.
They've got different attachments.
This one's a really aggressive one, it's a bullet one.
- Ooh, yeah.
- That's the one I use after a while.
- You're tough, Bob. - Yeah, I'm a tough guy.
- I've never got to that one yet.
This is the one I'm usually at,
the air one or the round one.
But this cushion one is nice,
because you can get close to bony areas and it doesn't hurt.
The other ones are a little more hard.
- You can certainly stick with a softball.
- Oh, yeah.
- There was a article they wrote
about a professional basketball player,
that used a softball
and he would just roll out his muscles using that.
- What was his name? - I don't know.
It wasn't a well-known one.
- Oh, he wasn't?
- No, no.
So you can also let's hit the hip adductors,
these are the muscles on the inside of your hips.
- The growing muscles, they're commonly called.
- Yeah, now you can do that in a number of way.
One, you can use the massage gun,
probably the easiest way, you can do tack and twist,
which is what Kelly Starrett of the "Supple Leopard."
- We should give him credit for the flossing.
- Yeah, the flossing is his. - We got that from him too.
- So you can actually, I like taking a ball like this,
where they actually have a little bit of points on it.
- Yeah and that one's soft,
but it really grips into the skin, which is a big advantage.
- Yeah, you push in and twist it.
- Yeah. - Ooh, I can feel that.
- And that Bob's going through his pants will work,
if you go directly on the skin,
I would say it's more aggressive, wouldn't you say, Bob?
- Yeah, but this works fine.
- Yeah, if you had a big, heavy pair of jeans
or some leather chaps, you'd have to get them off.
- (laughs) Yeah. - We're just saying.
- Yeah.
- You know, there's cowboys out there.
- Yeah, I suppose. - Anyways. (laughs)
- Alright, you can also just take it and you can lie on it.
- Oh yeah. - A little more difficult,
but you can actually lie on it like this
and put it between the legs and go like this.
- Sure. - And work it.
- Right, you gotta be careful there, Bob.
- Yeah, you gotta be careful. (both laughing)
So how about the quadriceps, Brad?
- Ah yes, the infamous quads.
- You have to lie on these quads to go ahead and work these.
I'm gonna go and lie down.
- You could do this on your bed or something soft,
but probably on a carpeted floor.
- No, you've gotta do it on the floor, yeah.
It's too soft here, but you know.
- [Brad] It looks like it's kind of doing it a little bit.
- Yeah, and you can actually do a little flossing
with this too, Brad. - So in other words,
he's bringing his heel up and down,
which flosses the muscle, the quadricep over the ball.
- And I can hit the, again, tender spots.
If it doesn't hurt, don't work on it.
I mean, why spend the time?
- [Brad] You know, unless it really feels good
and you're having fun, I don't know.
- Right, and then the calf muscles, like we alluded to,
that they did a study on it,
actually improved the range of motion of the calf
by using a massage gun.
- Right, so you could do your calf muscle like this
and let me, it takes three seconds,
there we are, I'm gonna put it on medium intensity,
work this and actually you can do flossing
very easily like this.
I really like to get down in this area.
- [Bob] I actually do that one, Brad.
I take the massage gun. - Oh, really?
- and I work the foot all around
as I'm working on it.
Like I'll be in this position right here
and I'll hit the calf like this
and work the foot at the same time.
But you can also use a softball
and you wanna look at flexing
the ankle dorsiflexes and plantar flexes at the same time,
having the ball in place.
- Did you want to get down here once?
I just wanted to point out, Bob, did you notice,
did you notice my socks?
- I'm afraid I did. - They match the shoes.
My wife didn't even buy them for me, I did it.
- [Bob] How is it that you're so proud of that?
- I don't know, just something,
I've always had deficits with that all my life.
- It's actually kind of a weird thing.
- I do want to show flossing with the hamstring,
- Sure. - in a seated position.
If you have a smooth floor, you can just throw a towel down.
I had a towel somewhere. - There's one here.
- Yeah, on carpet, it doesn't work that way.
You can use a Knee Glide, if you want, or use a-
- FitGlide. - A FitGlide.
We've had people in the old days before these were around,
they put a piece of plastic down and that kind of works.
But you're gonna work at here
and then get that movement at the same time,
again finding that pressure, sore spot,
which mine is a little tight there,
I'm gonna work it hard,
I'm gonna really push in with that gun and work that
and I'm gonna probably do it
for about 30 seconds to a minute.
By that time, I'm gonna be a little fatigued
and I'll need a little break.
- You'll find after you do these,
that you become more flexible.
- Sure. - I mean,
you're working that muscle in the problematic areas
and eventually they're gonna say, "Hey, I give.
I'm gonna let you stretch me." (both laughing)
- It's kind of the way it is,
it's a psychological thing in that muscle.
Can I show them this one last one?
- Sure. - Because you know,
this is something, you don't need to buy anything,
but you can't use a ball, you have to have a massage gun
and that's just you doing your flossing like this
and the thing about this is-
- And you can even support the knee with the other hand.
- Yeah, right there, yeah. - Like that, hold it up.
- Ooh, yeah, this way you can work up under that knee.
- Yep, you can do the entire range of hamstrings.
- Sure, if you want it to relax it,
you could put like that stool right there.
- Sure. - Or a chair,
pull up to your furniture and just relax it,
so they can really work it that way.
Are we gonna demonstrate, Bob?
- We're going to. - Whoo, yeah.
Yeah, so now I can completely relax that leg
and come at it from a different aspect or a different view.
- Sure.
- Oh, very nice.
Oh, Bob, we got more?
- We have the inexpensive option
and the inexpensive option,
they aren't on the expensive side.
- Yeah, these actually are really good guns,
we support them 100%, that's why we have our name on them
and the price is very competitive.
- Yeah, this weekend, what I do,
I had a bunch of friends over and family members
at our cabin. - Yeah.
- And we have guns laying on, these types of guns laying-
- Massage guns, yeah. - Yeah.
They're laying on the table
and just people are doing every part of their body,
while we're talking.
- Bob, we don't have to get into your family life-
- The Schrupp family. (both laughing)
- and what they do. - Little strange, okay.
Thanks everybody for watching.
(light melodic music)