♪ 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. - As we said quite often, Brad
we're also the most modest. - Yes.
(men chuckling)
Say no more, Bob, say no more.
- Today, Brad, we're going to talk
about the most important exercises
to help with a pinched nerve and neck pain.
That is that nagging pain that just doesn't go away.
- Mm-hmm. - It can go down your arm
and this is not fun. - Yeah, sometimes-
- Look, the ball's not even happy.
- Sometimes back in that shoulder blade area
that we refer to, so yeah, let's-
- Yeah let's talk about it. - But Bob,
there's a couple people out there who have not watched us.
- Hi folks.
Welcome to our channel, please take a second
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We provide videos on how to stay healthy, fit, pain free
and we upload every day. - Excellent.
- All right Brad, first off,
were going to make the assumption
that most neck pain or pinched nerves
could be like a herniated disk?
- Mm-hmm. - Or it could also be a case
where you actually have, I'm sorry, do you need something?
- [Camera Operator] No, we're just looking at this chair.
- Oh, okay. - Thinking of getting one
for my dad. - Okay.
- Sorry. - That's all right.
Most neck pain is caused by either a pinched nerve
such as a herniated disk. - Mm.
- Or also Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.
- Sure.
- But no matter what it is, Brad,
posture is the big issue. - Okay.
- You gotta correct your posture
because that is often causing or contributing
to the pinched nerve. - Yeah.
- So we're gonna do kind of a three-pronged approach here.
First off we're gonna show you exercises
to improve your posture.
And then I'm going to show you exercises
to decrease the pinched nerve pain, hopefully.
- Sure, mm-hmm. - And then we're gonna
show you positional changes you should make in your life.
- Right and they all fit into the same,
reach the same goal. - All right, first one.
Posture, that you really want to do,
because everybody does a lot of sitting
is you want to do some shoulder squeezes, Brad.
Because the more those shoulders are forward,
especially in Thoracic Outlet Syndrome?
- Right. - And also in a pinched nerve.
As far as herniated disk you want
to get those shoulders back. - Right.
- Every once in a while, every hour you can do these
if you want.
Gonna go ahead and squeeze your shoulder blades together.
And you do, you know, count to three, count to five.
One, two, three, four, five.
- And another thing is think about going back and down.
It's little thing but it is important.
So instead of going up towards your ears?
Because some people will do that.
It's back and down. - Yeah, excellent point Brad.
All right next one, we've showed this a million times, too.
You're at your desk and your forward like this,
you're looking down like this,
and you got that head forward.
- Right. - You have to correct that
with chin tucks.
And this is actually part of the treatment, too, generally,
quite often. - Sure, right.
- That we start people with doing chin tucks.
So you're backing up your chin
and you're not going down like this,
your not going up like this.
You're just going straight back like this.
- It's critical that you get up in a tall posture
before you do the chin tuck, though.
You don't want to be slouched and chin tuck.
It's gotta be up tall, arch the back
and then work that chin tuck. - Right.
Because this would actually probably make things worse
if you were down here. - Right, yeah.
- Were trying to work on posture here, so.
- Right, it's critical for life.
- All right, I'm going to show the wall angels, Brad.
I've just recently kind of started these
and I really like these. - Yeah it's amazing.
Even us, after doing this for 20/30 years,
we pick up a new one and it's like?
- Yeah, what I like about this,
Brad, it's kind of a test, too,
to where you're at. - Yeah.
- Cause if you can't get your head back?
- Right. - And you're like this?
And your shoulders aren't even back?
- Yep. - You're in bad position.
(Brad chuckling)
So your gotta start working your way back
and I know we did a video even where you would measure
didn't you? - Right.
- Like up measure how far away you were?
But you wanna get it back like this
and then you bring your arms up like this
and you just do some angels.
- Right.
- And you're strengthening while you're doing this.
- Yeah, it's a great posture exercise.
- And it's showing where you're at.
- Just keep in mind that your butt, your bottom, your sacrum
right back here has gotta be touching the wall.
- Yeah. - Your shoulders.
So it's this, from here to here,
you're flat up against the wall.
It's getting your from this, to this.
- Yep.
♪ You look like an angel. ♪
- Oh thank you, Bob. - All right let's start
with the exercise now to help
actually decrease the pinched nerve pain.
- All right. - Now quite often,
what we're trying to do is we're trying
to find that position that's going to help decrease the pain
going down the arm, so, quite often with a pinched nerve
you might get numbness, tingling all the way into the hand.
- Right. - Pain.
And so we're looking for a position
that by repeating it, it actually starts
to take the pain out of the hand,
numbness, tingling, out of the hand, out of the arm,
and bring it back up into here.
- Right.
- Where eventually it goes away.
- We call it centralization,
you bring the pain to one point.
- So one we did already was chin tucks.
You were doing those.
You want to start off with those,
that's a good way, you know, kind of a low level one
to start off with.
And then usually we're going to start
with extensions. - Sure.
- So, you want to go back, and this is one,
the universal one you're going to try
to see if it's gonna help decrease the pain down the arm.
- Right, and in a chair with a backrest can be helpful.
And you so the chin tuck first
and then kind of rest into the chair and go back.
And if you get back in here, a lot of times,
people are getting back in here and they'll get a sharp pain
and it'll hurt over in the shoulder blade
and if it really hurts like that,
they need to stop.
Don't push it, you need to approach it
a little bit more subtly. - Yeah.
Go as far as it'll allow you. - Right.
- So if you can go like in this little range
to start off with?
Maybe do that for a day. - Sure, yeah.
- And then go further. - Right.
- And if you get stuck?
We've had a lot of other videos on how to take this further
but if you get stuck,
the towel's always a great way to start.
- We have a couple different ways that we do it.
A lot of times I'll do it this way.
Well I do it Bob's way, too.
But, you know, a lot of times
just getting the towel rolled back,
with a little support, can make that much more comfortable,
increase your range and get that centralization,
that pinched nerve pain, out of the arm.
If you want to be more specific,
what do you call that again? - Selvage.
- The selvage, the edge of the towel.
- Yeah edge of the towel. - And get it right,
it's usually low on the neck.
It's not usually up here.
So I would typically go there.
There I can definitely feel it there.
- And you can even bring it up, yeah,
bring it up with the eyes. - Yeah.
This towel is too short to really do it.
I'd need a- - A larger towel.
- Although it's working not too bad, actually.
Okay.
- The other one that may work for you too,
if that one just doesn't seem like it's going anywhere
and you're not making any change in the pain,
the one that I like to do is a chin tuck
and then I actually side bend toward the side of the pain.
- Sure. - So when you do this,
don't bring your shoulder up like this.
- Okay. - So you're gonna chin tuck
and then go this way and it should feel, again,
this is something, you want it to feel good.
- Right. - So, you know what,
it doesn't hurt when I do this
and after I do it a while,
actually things start to feel a little bit better
in the arm. - Right right.
- So again, this was the magic one for me
and I think it's because when I do notes
and stuff like that, Brad?
I'm like this all day long. - Right.
- Always in one direction.
- Yeah, I'm always in one direction.
You'll find that a lot of people,
when they're on the phone or when they write?
Their neck is always in one direction
and when you do that year after year?
- Right. - It can cause problems
with a pinched nerve so we actually wanna go
the opposite direction. - Exactly.
- And again, these are, if your find the right direction,
you can do it 10 times every hour.
- Sure, right. - I mean that's how often
you can do it.
- And it should have consistent results.
Every time you do 10 of them, it feels better
as a result of it, you know you're on the right track.
- Let's show a couple positioning things here, Brad,
like this one works real well
as just a good old, overall stretch.
You mind doing this one Brad, you always
do this one so well? - I do like the foam roller.
- So this is just a great stretch.
One of the guys that works for us actually does this
for his Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.
He just lays on this and?
Look how this stretches everything out here.
It stretches out the shoulders
and it puts the neck in the right position.
And it's just such a nice easy way
to stretch everything without working at it.
- Now this cushion here is an option.
Some people will prefer this.
I actually prefer it out.
- Now these are both from OPTP.
They're a great provider of therapeutic devices
and exercise devices.
And this is called actually the Pro Roller Arch
and this is their, a little bit softer, foam roller
is under Brad. - Yeah.
This is a low or medium density, low density,
it's softer, you'll find it more comfortable for doing this
particular exercise. - I just like that stretch.
I thought we'd show it. - I love laying there.
- The other thing is, Brad, you know?
If you don't make changes in your lifestyle
as far as positioning for your neck?
You're going to go right back into the pain.
- Right. - So one thing,
when you're sitting, especially at a computer?
If it's laptop or whatever it is,
you gotta get that screen up.
- Here we go, just a general model here.
- Yeah.
- If I'm here and I'm typing away,
you can see I'm looking over the top of the screen,
which is gonna draw my head down towards the screen.
I'm not thinking about anything but work.
And this can happen.
So all I'm gonna do, and you don't have to go out
and buy an expensive computer tray or table,
but you can if you want,
or you just, you know, block it up and there we go.
Now I'm back up where I need to be.
My eyes are looking at the top half of the screen.
Makes a big difference.
Now I don't have that tendency to do this.
- All day long. - Exactly.
- And the thing is that you're also gonna want to,
again, do this with a laptop.
You're going to want to get a laptop raised up
and used a separate keyboard.
- Yeah, wireless keyboard.
They're really inexpensive now
and they really make life a lot easier.
- Same thing when you're watching TV, Brad.
I don't want you slumping into a,
can I use the chair? - Yeah, please do, Bob.
(Bob chuckling) (wheels rolling on floor)
- You know, why is it people get into their soft chair,
recliner, and they're like this?
- Yeah. - So it's quite often good
to take a pillow and put it in your back
and give yourself some positioning.
(clattering)
- Oops.
- Especially one of those little small throw pillows, Brad?
- Right, yeah. - It'll line you right up,
really nicely. - Yeah.
It all depends, you put it where you want.
But you're gonna feel it,
straighten out. - Straighten you out.
Same thing in the car, Brad, I don't want your,
you know, you don't want your seat reclined.
- Yeah. - Because if your recline it?
What your head's gonna do is this.
- Compensate. - Yeah.
So you want the seat straight up.
You want to, actually,
they used to recommend always 10 and 12,
that's where you want your hands?
But you really want them lower
on the steering wheel. - Right, right.
- Because that's gonna keep everything
in a better position and not put so much pain
or stress on the nerves of the neck.
- Right.
Can we show the ball, Bob? - Sure.
- This is one of those treatments that really nice.
Just get a nice, soft, cushy ball that the kids play with.
And you know you could do this at work, at home.
And you're just gonna lean into it, right in there.
And stretch back and you can do the,
like Bob likes his- - Hallelujah stretches.
- There ya go, Bob.
This ball is a little bit big for me.
I prefer a little bit smaller but this is working fine.
- This would definitely help with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.
It's actually gonna help with even a neck problem.
- Yeah. - It's works out real good.
And yeah, if you can't find a chair that fits you right
for doing your neck extensions,
you can put that ball back there.
- Sure. - And do that.
- Exactly. - Just real quick advice
on the pillows in the bed. - Oh yeah.
- When you're sleeping on your back?
You don't want to have too many pillows like this.
Cause you're gonna be forward like this,
like this all night long. - Yeah.
Look at this head forward posture.
- You want your neck as close to neutral as possible
so what you would do is actually down to one pillow.
Now look at my neck is lined up with my shoulders,
just like it should be.
When you're on your side, if you're a side sleeper,
you would use two pillows then.
- Right.
- Because you have a bigger gap here.
Otherwise you're going to be like this
or like this. - Right.
- You wanna be right in the middle
and look at this, Brad, I'm right in the middle.
- There you go.
Let me push you down just a little bit, Bob.
(Bob chuckling)
I think the thing is,
how many people have TVs in their bedrooms?
And they go just so they can see it.
- Yeah. - And they forget
about their body posture.
You know, it's those TVs- - Might wanna get one
of those wedges. - Yeah, yeah.
- All right, thanks everybody for watching.
- We're done now, Bob. (Bob chuckling)