(upbeat music)
- 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.
- Well, in our opinion, of course Bob.
- 10 hamstring stretch, strengthening
- Strengthening Bob
- strengthening
- Yep
- The best Right?
- Right.
- Only the best.
- Actually this is gonna go
from early strengthening all the way
up to a high level, advance strengthening
- Oh progression
- exactly
- stuff for a beginners
- Right. And this is gonna go from, like I said
someone who's just out of an injury
just starting who maybe sedentary wants to work
on their hamstrings to people
at the college or even professional level.
That's where I got a couple, the
the ones at the end, from that level of athlete.
And you'll see they're they're they're they're top level.
- Yeah. They're tough.
- They are.
- And by the way, Brad
I see you just a couple new people again.
- Yeah. Oh good, two more
- On the channel.
(laughter)
- We're adding two at a time
we provide videos on stay healthy, fit and pain free.
So we want you to hit our subscribe button
over here or on the bottom here, wherever you find it.
And we upload every day.
- Very good, excellent Bob.
Okay. The first one, I wanna go over very simple.
And if you've got a rolling chair with a nice smooth floor
and you wanna work, or if you're in a wheelchair
and wheelchair bound and you wanna work on your hamstrings
it's as simple as this, in the chair
Just make sure you're safe and you
can't tip outta the chair
You simply pull yourself across.
Now this takes a pair of shoes that has grippy.
So grips to the floor.
Otherwise you end up doing this and yeah
- And your feet gotta be able to reach the floor.
- Yep. And your feet have to reach.
And usually people dig their heel in.
Yep. Keep it right there.
I'll come back in.
(laughter)
Brad's gone now, he's back again.
Now I've used this many times with people
with an ACL injury when they're that phase
of their surgery and other things where weak hamstrings
and I'll put a distance out of 20 feet and I'll say
go around and I'll time them to begin with.
And it's amazing how
how difficult it is in early phases of rehab.
- Brad, I hate to pull this on you, but I wonder
if even a step before this, would we just
have someone lay down and maybe do some isometrics this way?
- Sure.
- You know, like this.
- You bet.
- I mean if you're really just starting off and
and really just looking to get the, I
I hamstrings starting to fire off.
- Sure.
- You could
- And the point about you have to have like
about a bend like this in the knee
in his heels right now are gonna push down in
and lift your butt up.
- Yeah and basically the closer it is
the easier it's gonna be on the hamstring.
- Yep.
- And if I go out further like this and go out now
now I'm starting to really feel it on the hamstrings.
- Sure.
- Just a really good, that's probably the, I mean
starting from ground zero here,
- Right, yep.
work on the isometric
like that, go to this one and then
- That would be the next step.
- Sure, and then have a seat in that chair
why don't you Bob
- Sure
- as therapists we're always looking for
how can we use TheraBand
because it's inexpensive
- TheraBand or theratubing
- Or theratubing, and it's effective
- stretch tubing.
- Yep. So this is stretch tubing.
It's got the nice handles very common nowadays
and in the seated position,
just simply put it around the ankle.
This pretty much takes two people.
Unless you can get some way to attach this.
- You can put it underneath you know a bed
or something like that
- and like around.
- Right, Exactly.
And then you pull
- You gotta watch out so you don't
pull the bed towards you.
- Right.
(laughter)
- But you know that you need to work
out and then simply go, there you go, Bob.
- Yeah.
- Good work.
- Get the full range.
- Yeah. And it is, it's important to go
out as far as you can and get in under the chair.
If you can.
Now hamstrings are probably one of the most injured muscles.
Wouldn't you say Bob?
- Oh, it is.
Yeah. Especially
for people that are, you know, are sprinters
- Right, Sprinters, athletic people
- long distance runners are injured sometimes.
- Sure. Working on Hills.
So this would be a good one.
You gotta watch it for cramps.
- Right.
If you, if you're working your hamstrings
and you get a cramp, you've gotta get it out.
Get the knees straight.
If you're a seated, you're gonna lean forward to stretch it.
If you're, you know
if you can stand and do a stretch like this
this is one of my favorite ways to stretch it.
If you're getting a cramp, stretch it out might
be a good thing to do to stretch it before you
you start to strengthen the exercise.
- Yeah. A lot of times it seems like Brad
it happens when you're doing this next one.
- You know, when you're supine.
- Yeah.
- Or prone I mean.
- Yeah.
- So this one takes two,
This one is pretty much needs two people
a person's laying down and it's the same concept.
Now with this, I might wrap around twice
but you don't need to, it just kinda locks it in.
Go ahead, Bob.
- And this is the one.
If you go too far
Brad is where you can cramp up a little bit
I think.
- Right. If you go past that 90 degree point
up in here
- right
- Man, hamstring cramps are not fun.
- No they're not
- So I would just go to the foot is, you know
maybe straight up at the most.
- Yeah.
- And if you've had cramps, you know what they feel
like when they're coming on, if you haven't
they're not fun and they're not painful.
And if you would get a cramp doing this
go ahead, Bob, pull up, like you're getting a cramp.
Your partner needs to grab here and here and stretch it out.
Cuz that'll make it go away.
Just like that.
Once you get it straight.
So just a word of warning with cramps, with hamstrings.
- Yeah. Like you said, not fun.
- Okay. Bob, you wanna grab our, our bar back there?
The bar bell?
- Sure.
Okay. Now, I know a lot of people in the gym and
it's taught to do hamstring strengthening using a barbell.
And you may have some plates on there
and to do this
and up like this and it is true.
The hamstring muscles are working and they're
working pretty hard to do this and it will strengthen them.
But Bob, what's a big problem with this?
- This you're putting way too much
stress on your back.
- Right.
- I mean, again, the risk reward here, your
your chance of injury is skyrocketed,
and you know, you got so many other ways you
can strengthen the hamstrings.
- So we're gonna show five other ways that are gonna
get at the hamstrings much better than this method.
- So, yeah and without the back.
- Please don't do this one.
Yep. So we that's, we just wanted to clear
that up with another cautionary tale.
- Yep, you bet.
- We're here to help you out.
Get you stronger leg bowl,
Not like a calve.
- Exactly.
(laughter)
- Okay.
- Where are we at next, Brad?
We're the hall aren't we?
- Yeah. Oh, of course, naturally.
Yeah. Leave the pillow there, Bob.
- All right.
- I may want to take a break.
Now this is kind of similar to the point.
Bob, you could start with this early phase of strengthening.
- Sure. And just do hamstring or isometric.
- And I'm just gonna push my heels right.
Straight down into the ball.
It's all hamstring does not put any stress on the back.
Very easy.
And the nice thing
about the ball is you can vary the resistance very easily.
Now the next step would do is to do a range of motion.
Straighten out the leg all the way like this,
pull it in get your range of motion.
Now, if I lift my butt
in the air just a little bit and I do the exact same thing
boy does that start to put the resistance on
and I can feel that
- These are the ones I do.
- You like them, Bob?
- Yep. I, I do these every day.
Good to make it harder yet for the left leg
put the right leg on top of the left.
And you can tell by my voice grunting
and straining that it's much more difficult.
And when you're starting to feel very strong, like a bull
you can do the one-legged one.
And that is really aggressive.
- I haven't done that one yet.
- Oh yeah.
- I do the single leg one with the one Leg over top.
- I won't do them either.
(laughter)
- I do the single one as well.
- You know, it's, it's really when you're
at home and you don't have a lot of equipment, you know
I have some weight lifting equipment, but not for legs.
You know, this really works out really well.
- Oh yeah.
- Right. It's a wonderful tool, squats with it.
- You can't beat that, the price,
and it does things that no other can.
- Convince.
- Right.
- And balance, we don't want to get
into that now let's get back to hamstrings.
Okay. Now the next thing, now this is pretty close
to the good morning lift.
But if you wanna do, if you like the good mornings
and you wanna save your back,
instead of using a big Barbell
you can simply use a dumbbell
and you need something to balance,
actually I'll use this to balance.
Instead of doing this
putting all that stress on the back, Bob, you do well
I like to call the golfers lift.
- Right.
- I think is, go like this.
And it takes all the stress off the back.
- Right, yeah.
- And so you're stressing
you're just doing one leg at a time
but the beauty of it is your working
balance at the same time.
- Sure, Yeah.
- So you're getting hamstring.
- It's a nice athletic move.
- Yep. And you're getting balance
and you're doing just like that.
Now, if, if you want a little extra weight,
you'll be amazed how much
just a few pounds will make a difference.
- It's pretty good for an old man, Brad.
- Yeah.
Boy. I'm starting, I'm gonna need
my hamstring stretched a little.
- In that 50 plus zone you're doing pretty well.
- Yeah, okay, so
- The next one's gonna
be a challenge
- Yep, and that one,
that one they call the, the Russian,
the Russian deadlift
- Russian deadlift, okay.
- Okay.
Now, then this next one is more
for people who are in an activity, cuz it works
with the quadriceps quite a bit,
but it works the hamstrings.
- It works both.
- Right.
- Yeah. If you're, if you're running,
you're running Hills,
you're sprinting, football, soccer, that type of thing.
Cuz this gets pretty aggressive
with your heart rate and it's simply the scissors jump.
So it's here and you want to get
down low and you're working your balance.
You don't have to do 'them really fast, especially starting
out and you just do 10 to 15 of 'them
and you'll know people that are doing, these are athletes.
You know, when your muscles are fatigued
when they're starting to, they need the breaks.
So start out with those gently
and my heart rate's already going up.
- Yeah, it is, I can
- It wouldn't take much for me either so.
- Now this next one is new to me, Bob
and this is for a high level athlete.
The thing I like about it is it's very eccentric.
- Right.
- Strengthening.
And I went to a whole course on this,
and the study was that if you strengthen your hamstrings
eccentrically your risk for injuries.
Goes down quite a bit.
- Right, and that's with every muscle
- Okay.
- Quadricep, everything.
- So this is it,
now you do this on the floor,
I'm doing it here
so Lonnie, doesn't have to get on the floor.
Plus you need a soft surface.
If it's carpeted or a pillow under your legs,
keep your body straight.
Now this does the core as well.
Now if I start leaning forward
- so I'm pushing down hard here,
I'm holding him.
- Right,
if he wasn't there, I'd flop to my face.
Yeah. Now, now go like this.
Now as I bring my body forward
- I can feel you shaking
- My hamstrings aren't strong enough to do this
and get that pillow out of the way.
So I'm gonna use the ball to offset
and I'm gonna go like this
and you need cushion cuz it hurts your knees otherwise.
And then I'm gonna come back up.
So that's the concentric.
- And so there's some people that could do it
without the ball. Right? Brad.
- Exactly, as a matter of fact,
last night, college athlete
from Milwaukee, he went like this,
I better see Milwaukee school
of engineering cuz he would be happy then.
He would go like this and he would go straight down
and I can't do this, but he kept his body straight
until his nose got six inches from the floor
before he finally dropped.
- oh God.
- You know, again
we got a college athlete.
He's you know, fit and he's doing these, but the ball again.
Great way to, to work this
and back up and boy, this one's tough.
You gotta be strong
like a bull for this one, Bob.
You're gonna get, you're gonna get some
eccentric soreness too.
- Yeah, if you can do a set of 10 of those.
- Yeah
- Yeah, you're climbing mountains.
- All right,
Thanks everybody for watching.
- Take care.