♪ Bob and Brad. ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet. ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Two of the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion of course, Bob.
- Alright, listen to us.
Stop touching your toes!
Do this instead.
- That's right Bob.
We're gonna go over the details
of why this could be a real problem
if you're using that as a benchmark in life.
- Yeah, it's commonly misunderstood.
But...
- Speaking of stretching, we've got a giveaway here.
- Oh yeah!
- We're gonna mix it up here a little bit.
We always give something away.
And this week we're giving away the easy stretch,
no, stretch easy, by OPTP.
Great for stretching for planter fasciitis
and also stretching the hamstring.
We got a couple other stretches you can do with it.
Go to bobandbrad.com.
- Oh yes!
- Go to the giveaway section,
you can sign up for a free one.
Also, you'll find it on Facebook Bob and Brad.
If you want a shorter version of us,
go to Twitter or Instagram.
We have a 60 second version of our program every day.
- There you go.
Well Bob,
touching your toes.
We were just talking about this
and if you're 50 years old or older,
and maybe even younger than that,
touching your toes was kinda like the benchmark.
- Right
- How fit are you?
How flexible are you?
Can you touch your toes?
It would be like the big test.
- Yeah, they used to even do it in the Army,
from my understanding, as a measurement of fitness.
- And it's just absolutely
farther from the truth than it could be.
First of all, when you bend over,
should we through three big reasons?
- Sure
- Number one, you're bending over to touch your toes
it puts an incredible amount of stress
on your lumbar spine, particularly on your disks.
- Right
- If you have a herniated disk,
or you're approaching that herniated disk,
you don't know it,
that particular stretch is more than likely
gonna accelerate it and make it worse.
- And even if you don't have one,
you are gonna
gradually move towards having one
if you keep doing it repeatedly.
- Right. It does stretch the hamstrings,
but there's a lot better ways to
stretch the hamstrings then touching your toes.
Also, posture.
Posture is so important and we know that
because it allows you to breathe better,
shoulders work better, neck works better,
but when you do this, it rounds your low back,
it rounds your thoracic back,
it just does everything that
you do not want to have happen to you.
- You know, if you just look at pure physics,
there's a lot of torque on the low back
when you're in that position.
And it's not in a good position to handle it
when it's bent, flexed like that.
- So have we convinced you yet
that maybe you shouldn't be touching your toes?
- You know what?
We know all the arguments against this Brad.
They say, "Well if the body was made to stretch like that,
to have that mobility,
why won't you have that mobility?"
And I have no problem with you
doing it maybe in a non-weighted position
you know, like if you were laying flat on your back
and stretching your back that way,
but there's just no reason.
We know from seeing thousands and thousands
of patients, that people who do
stretch that way often end up with problems.
- I can easily say I have never, ever had a patient
stretch that way to get, to elongate
their hamstrings, or to get their back better or whatever.
- We'd rather have you back actually get
kinda locked in place and get strong
so it can't even stretch that way.
So that it can be safe when it's performing the activities.
- Well I don't know if I would say can't bend that way.
I mean you need some flexibility.
- Right. Going in that direction,
are we gonna use this spine for anything Bob?
- Oh, I guess I was gonna show you
the other thing is if you're in this
bent position for a long period of time,
you're actually gonna stretch out
the ligaments too.
And those ligaments stay stretched out for a while
and then you have instability at the back too.
So, just I was just giving another example.
- Sure, yeah.
There you go.
So, now what should we do?
If you can't touch your toes,
what should we do?
'Cause people are gonna ask,
and that's a very reasonable and acceptable question.
So, options.
Instead of doing this for your back,
we're gonna actually do the opposite.
Hands here or here, and extend backwards.
Now if you have,
there's a small percentage of the population,
I would say maybe 15, 20 percent,
if you have Spondylolysis like I do
or Stenosis, which as you get older
that's more prevalent, this particular stretch
may be uncomfortable.
I don't do this stretch.
But Bob, go ahead, you can do it.
- I do it standing or I also do it laying down.
Lying down, got it right this time Brad.
- [Brad] There you go Bob.
- Putting my hands underneath my shoulders
and I work into this direction.
Now you may only be able to go up this high
before your pelvis starts coming off the bed
but eventually you wanna get it to this point.
- [Brad] Right.
- And you can see, I do a lot of these.
So I have plenty of mobility in my back
and it comes in handy when I'm trying
to maintain that arch in my back
as I bend down to the floor.
- And this stretch, whether you do it
laying down or you do it standing because this...
- Lying down!
- Oh, sorry! Sorry English majors.
That particular stretch does the same motion
to your lower back as standing.
There's different stresses on it
but you know what I mean.
- Right
and you're getting mobility in your back
without putting stress on your back.
- So going this way, it actually is gonna help
maintain and put less stress on the disks
disks, verses that.
- Yeah, when you bend forward,
where we really wanna see the motion
coming from is your hips.
- Sure.
- I mean, you want this part really
not very much motion at all,
but look, all the motion is coming from the hips.
- Right, right.
- So if you wanna touch the floor,
go ahead and go like this.
- Sure, and then it works the muscles
and maintains some good body mechanics.
Now hamstrings.
If you wanna get your hamstrings stretched out,
again, this does do it,
but much better is,
give you two options.
Bob, why don't you show the one laying down.
- Well I'm gonna show, why don't you go ahead
and show the other one and I'll use the strap?
- If you're pretty flexible,
or if you're pretty mobile and have pretty good balance,
I like doing it like this.
Putting you're foot up on a step
or a stool, or in this case, the table,
keep that back straight.
You're gonna flex from the hips
and right now, good posture, I can feel
a nice stretch in my hamstrings.
If you go like this and round yourself,
that's not what you wanna do.
That's incorrect.
Good posture and just lean forward.
Breathe and relax.
Let the muscles stretch.
Hold it for 15 to 30 seconds or
you can do pressure on, pressure off.
- Now you can do it without a strap,
you can just your leg up like this
and then bring it up that way.
You get a pretty good stretch here.
It's nice to have a strap like this
because this is effortless then.
In fact, I can use the loops right here
and really not have to put any stress at all
on my body here and I can just relax
and pull it up like this.
My back is nice and straight and safe
and I'm getting a nice hamstring stretch at the same time.
- Right.
I mean if you don't have one of those
and you wanna
you can take a towel and put it around here
or a sheet, whatever it is, a belt.
Some tools to help get that stretch.
And then you're laying flat,
you're back is in a relative neutral position,
it's a nice way to relax and stretch.
- Just as an indicator here, again,
I believe the Army used to use this as an
indictor of your fitness, they've since stopped that too.
They've realized that it's not.
It's actually harmful.
- Right.
There's a lot of information that's,
good information that's starting to be accepted.
- Right.
They're starting to understand when a lot of injuries
where they're finding out the source
could be things like that.
- And before we finish this video,
there's one more thing I'd like to say.
Bob, why don't you hop off of there.
- Sure.
- If you ever do this stretch, it's the same thing as
touching your toes when you're standing.
- Not as much force, but it's still
it's not a good one to do.
- So skip that one too.
I just wanted to throw that one in there.
- That was a good point Brad,
it was an excellent point.
Remember, Brad and I can fix just about anything
- Except for
- Broken heart.
- There you go Bob.
- But we're working on it.
- And we won't stop until we get there
and I don't mean maybe.
(laughs)
- Alright, thanks.