♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists on the internet. ♪
- Howdy folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- We are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today, we're talking about three best
hamstring strength exercises for active people.
- That's right, Bob.
- But before we do that, Brad,
why do we have this mattress here?
- Well, it's actually a demo mattress,
but we're going to actually give away a whole mattress
in a full mattress.
- Full mattress. Any size you want.
- Right? It's a sleep ovation mattress.
It's got 700 individual mattresses.
It's got air channels.
It's comfortable.
It's the most comfortable mattress I've ever slept on.
I will attest to that.
And so will many of my family members.
So it also lasts longer because there's no sheer force on
the foam.
- Right.
That's another benefit of having 700 tiny mattresses.
But anyways, Bob let's talk hamstrings, hamstrings,
hamstrings, hamstrings,
hamstrings are probably one of the most injured muscle with
active people. Wouldn't you agree?
- I would agree.
- I don't think we have to go look for statistics on that to
have anybody disagree with that.
Uh, and.
- The weekend athletes.
- Yes. Exactly. And, professional ones.
- Right.
- But there are exercises that have been researched that to
strengthen the hamstring.
So it prevents it from getting injured so easily or for
rehab once you've injured your hamstring and you want to
kind of Bulletproof it, is the way to do it.
- It can kind of be a nagging injury.
It gets stuck around for a long time. You can reinjure it?
- Yep, exactly.
- You do that, right?
- Yes, as a matter of fact, my right hamstrings,
not it's it's strained a little bit.
I was playing football with my grandchildren: three-year-old
and a five-year-old and I shouldn't have been because I ran
in the morning and it didn't tear it.
It's just a little sore.
- A short microtear, probably.
- Very, yeah. It's going to be no problem. But so,
and I have been doing these as a matter of fact.
- Oh, you have.
- Yeah. So they're fun. They're nice exercises.
And they're simple to do. That's the nice thing.
You don't, you don't have to have a machine for.
There's a couple of options that make it easier.
And we'll show you that in just a second,
but we need to get rid of the chairs because we need a
little space, not a lot of space, a little space.
You've got that injury to say in my case,
it's my right hamstring.
This is how you're going to want to do this.
You may need something for balance.
I'm going to use a Booyah stick. I could hold onto this,
but it's a little wobbly, but anything solid.
- That's what my wife did.
She held on to the couch.
- The couch?
And simply there's that what we used to call.
I always call it the golfers lift, where you bend over.
- And you hold onto your putter.
- Yeah. Your putter.
So you can pick up the ball and the back leg,
if you see swings out and what's happening here is this
hamstring is really working in both eccentrically
and concentrically to stabilize your body.
- And, we have found, we have found.
It's been found that eccentric strengthening does help
with rehab.
- Right. And I like this,
especially because you're in a weight-bearing position,
it's similar to whether you're running or
whatever your activity is versus doing this with a machine
or where you're just isolating that hamstring muscle.
- Now, if you are all about a certain age,
this may not be possible.
I mean, it may be very difficult to do.
- But I'm assuming if you're active person,
you're probably going to be able to do this with some source
of balance.
- That's right.
You had an active person in the title.
- There you go!
So yeah, it could be an active 70 year old.
- Right.
- So we're going to do 10 of these.
And when that gets too easy,
then you're going to add some weight and you can simply
take, you know,
- A one pound or a two pound there,
- A one or a two pound, whatever it takes.
If you don't have one of these, you know,
you could use a soup can or something around the house that
you can grab easily.
And it's amazing.
Like this is three pounds is quite a bit more.
- A bit more stress is what you're saying.
- Yep. So we're going to work that muscle.
And I would actually do both legs
because if you've injured, one,
the other one may not be far behind.
We want to make sure that you get that.
So if I'm going to do my left leg,
I put the stick or balance with the other hand, boom,
and go like that. It's just a little easier.
You can do it either way. Now what I have found,
and I like even better than this is,
if you take some resistance.
- Got it.
- Now you have to anchor the band to something
at ground level or close to it.
I'm going to use a wall anchor.
Cause we have them. You could go to a foot post of a bed.
Anything that's something solid at home.
- Well, they come with door anchors too.
- Yeah.
If you come with door anchor that comes with these bands,
you're certainly welcome to do that.
And now I'm going to do this again my right here.
It's the exact same motion. My right leg is injured.
My left leg is going to go out and I'm going to use the
resistance of the band.
And I'm going to go up like this.
And this works my balance more so than what I had before.
And if I want to increase resistance,
I simply go out a little bit and that makes it more
difficult.
- Oh! Be careful, Bob!
- I'm watchin' it. I'm watchin' it.
Yeah. You got to watch all behind you.
Now I just did this and I have one like this.
And so I'm just going to add resistance there,
when you get stronger yet.
And now that even more than doubles what I had,
and now I'm really starting to feel those hamstrings work.
Whoa!
Ah, so that is more, a little more for advanced people.
- Right.
- And you may want to do that.
- You shouldn't want to start that way. Right.
- If you're doing something like tennis or some of those
activities or playing ball,
you're probably going to want to get aggressive like that.
So you can really strengthen the hamstrings.
Now the last one, this is a separate exercise.
It's similar but different.
Okay.
Let's say that this is the hamstring that's injured.
The one in front.
- The one in front.
- You need to have a something slippery for your back foot.
Now I just took the top of a little toe drain,
put my foot on there. So it slips on the carpet.
- Furniture movers work really good.
- Yep. If you've got a furniture mover,
or if you're on a smooth floor,
you just put down a towel,
your socks are good enough.
Anything so it slips a little bit.
Something to balance wherever you
have your hands.
And then I'm going to go down without letting my knee.
This is not knees over toes thing.
So we don't want the knees to go past the toe.
If it does,
it's not a big deal.
And this is working the hamstrings from a different level,
different approach.
And you're going to get quad strengthening.
So you're actually strengthening that whole leg,
but it is working the hamstrings.
And we're going to do 10 of those as well.
- So, reach, research does support this.
- Right. Exactly right.
- You told us some of the best exercises you can
do for hamstring strengthening.
- Yeah. I think the other one with the weight,
with the golfers lift concept for me,
feels like it's really working it the hardest.
- It's the one that does it.
- I think so.
But yeah, that's just me.
So one way or another good luck with those hammies.
You know,
we really want to keep them strong.
- And remember Brad and I
can fix about anything.
- Except for
- A broken heart.
- That's right.
And these exercises have absolutely nothing to do with
fixing your heart. But if you're active,
- And fix your hamstring, right?
- Yeah. You know, whatever.
- An H word, anyway.
- H? Oh yeah. H, heart. Yep.
- Hamstring? All right.
- I knew we could relate it one way or another.
- Thanks for watching.