♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ on the internet ♪
(upbeat tone)
- Clap, clap, clap. (both clapping)
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- And I'm Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
What are you trying to do?
- I thought I'd mix it up a little bit.
I'm clicking my fingers.
Today we're gonna talk about...
I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Yeah. - Did I say that already?
- I think so.
- Now, you threw me way off.
- Well, let's keep going. - Today we're gonna talk about
two low back movement exercises you must stop now!
- Wow, Bob!
- I'm being emphatic.
- All right. - So by the way,
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- As well as podcasts are now out there
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and be educated on all your therapy needs.
- Speaking of which Brad,
the person today who came up with this,
a lot of these ideas, Dr. Stuart McGill,
- Right. - We did a podcast with him.
Very excellent.
- And it's very popular right now.
- Yeah, it is popular.
- Thousands and thousands of people
- Yeah, 400,000 views. - With wonderful comments,
which I do wanna mention.
We promote exercises all the time for back problems,
but there's some exercises that we really want you to avoid.
And we wanted to go...
You know, I wanted to get information from Stuart McGill,
the expert, - Sure.
- to really solidify that we're giving good advice.
- We should say that we disagree a little bit
on one of them, right?
- And I think that he would agree
under certain circumstances. - He would not.
I talked to him on the podcast.
- Yeah, well, I disagree.
Under certain circumstances.
- Yeah, because I think you are a good
example of this. - Exactly, right?
- So we'll talk about it.
- Yeah. So we'll throw those tidbits in.
So shall we continue on? - Sure.
(Brad sighs)
The book first is called the "Back Mechanic".
- I needed to take a breather break.
- Yeah, that's why thought, you needed to take it.
It's called the "Back Mechanic:
The secrets to a healthy spine
your doctor isn't telling you".
This is really a good book.
I bought this for my nephew - Yep.
- And actually his parents too,
because I want them to read it - Sure.
- and help him.
He had a severe...
He had a disc problem and a young kid.
And so I gave him the best advice
I thought I could give him was read the book
and follow the directions. - Right.
He wrote this one specifically for the lay person.
- Yes, it is.
- He's got one
for the therapists. - Right.
He's got textbooks for the therapists.
- I like this one better.
- I do too. (Brad laughing)
- No, the other one is good but it's very detailed.
You can tell he's- - Has a lot of studies.
- Yeah, he does a lot of...
He's very intelligent man.
So, let's continue on.
What are the two exercises
that you should avoid with your low back?
The first one we're gonna talk about is flexing your back
- Right. - or bending forward,
which we always promote body mechanics and posture
that we do not hang out in this rounded back situation
whether you're sitting, standing or bending over.
So what I do wanna say...
You wanna lay down, Bob?
And this is the one that we-
- I want you to show standing first.
- Okay, good.
So this stretch.
This stretch is so popular back in the 70s, 80s,
I think 90s, - Right.
- And some people still think, - Touch your toes.
- "Oh, stretch out your back."
And it is stretching those muscles.
That is true, but it's putting a lot of stress on the spine,
the discs, and other tissues in there
that there's a lot of better ways to stretch than this.
- You know, we should say this, Brad.
We make a suggestion based on the general population.
- Right.
- There may be people that could do this stretch
- Yep. - and it would be okay.
- Sure.
- But there's a way lot more people that shouldn't do it.
- A way lot. (Bob chuckles)
A lot more, exactly. - Really.
Good grammar there, right.
- So the other stretch that he...
It's the same concept. - Right.
- It's flexing the low back
is bringing both knees to your chest.
- And bringing the neck up like this.
- Yeah. I mean, so you're rounding the whole back out
and that's just...
- Now, Brad, with your spondylolisthesis.
- Spondylolisthesis. - Spondylolisthesis.
(chuckles) I said the same. - It's a tough one.
- Never bring the neck up. - Right.
- But you do like this stretch sometimes, right?
- I do not do it regularly but I will do it,
and the reason I do it because it clearly feels better.
- Sure.
- Makes my back feel good while I'm doing it and afterwards.
I'll do it if I've been standing
or I've been doing something overhead
and I need that relief.
But it's not a go-to exercise
for every day. - Right.
You also do it like on a chair.
Don't you like put your foot up on a chair
and kinda of lean forward.
- Yeah, I'll do that too.
- Which is good 'cause I think the back is supported there.
- Right. Yep, exactly.
The other one is-
- But for the general population,
we don't want you doing this. - Right.
So, what can we do? What's gonna do that?
We're gonna show the cat-camel.
- Sure. - And we're saying cat-camel,
and I don't care what some of the viewers are gonna call it.
(Bob laughing)
We've got it. Right.
This is what Stuart McGill call this
- Yeah. - So if he's good on it,
we're good on it.
- We just don't which one's the cat, which one's the camel.
- I never figure that out either.
So, but it's really simple. - Legs at least
maybe shoulder width apart
and hands about shoulder width apart.
And you're gonna arch up - Arch up.
- And I bring my head down while I do that.
- So we got that.
- And then I arch down and I bring my head up with that.
- Yeah, so you're really doing a nice full range of motion
throughout the spine and neck,
and this should be pain free.
It should feel like a good range of motion stretch.
- This really a pretty harmless stretch.
- Yeah.
- I mean you're pretty difficult to hurt your back
doing this one.
- Yeah, 'cause you don't have weight bearing through it.
- Right. Everything is supported but it's moving well.
- Now, some of you may say,
"Well, I cannot get down on my hands and knee like that
because I've got a knee issue."
Whatever shoulder issue, whatever it may be.
You can modify it by going to a cupboard.
It'll be a little higher than this for most houses,
- Sure. - but I can show you.
And you're gonna do the same thing, just like this.
Yep, and that does feel good.
Now, again with me with the stenosis component,
this actually feels better than this.
So I don't push this real hard.
I go to the direction that feels like...
It just feels really good. - And that's probably
a lot more safe than the knees all the way to chest.
- Right.
- But again, you know, I've had a lot of patients
that have success with it. - Right.
- So we're gonna disagree a little bit on that one.
- Oh yeah. And you know...
I don't know. You said he wouldn't compromise.
- No, he won't. - Yeah.
- I talked to him about it
- Oh, that's right, yeah. - On the podcast.
Next one, Brad.
- Okay, let's go to the next one.
I used to like this one because it does...
It's called the Superman,
where you lie on the-
- [Bob] And you bring the legs and the arms up.
- You're really working
some good extensor back muscles here,
which is a good part of core strengthening.
- But it's too much.
It's too much stress on the back they found and-
- So what actually...
'Cause he does give...
They'd done studies on how much compression to the vertebra
and the vertebra actually,
what's the term for it, Bob?
- Compress. I don't know.
- They break.
No, no. That's not the right term.
- That's the end plates can get broken.
- Yeah.
- That's with lifting, though.
Lifting heavy weights.
- Oh, I thought they were was - No, not with this.
- a potential for the end plate problem.
- But you are allowed to just do one,
like you can do the arms
and not the legs. - Just the arms.
Or you can do the legs and not the arm.
- One at the time. - Or you can do alternating.
- Okay, so the left arm and the right leg.
- Or the right arm and left leg.
- Yep.
But not both at the same time. - Right.
And you can also do it in a quadruped position.
- We call it the pointer dog.
- Right, right.
So I'm gonna go ahead and
I'm working that side
and I can work this side. - Right.
- I'm better on my right side.
- And you're gonna find if you try doing this
on a soft surface, it's much harder than on the floor.
- Trying to keep your stability.
- So on all of these we're talking about repetitions
of 10 is typically a good number.
- Now, you can, like, put a pillow underneath you.
You wanna grab that pillow, Brad.
- Oh, absolutely.
- It's gonna make it a little easier,
maybe even two pillows,
and then you can just lie on your stomach
and then you can work on doing the opposites.
- Right, right.
- [Bob] Just bringing it up to neutral.
- And sometimes I'll even have my patient or myself
roll up a towel so you can rest your forehead on,
and that makes it more comfortable.
It gets you more in a neutral position.
So two exercises you don't wanna do
is bending over like this,
double knees to chest and curling up.
But the cat-camel's the option.
I'm doing a review, Bob.
- Yep, very good.
- And the next one is the prone Superman
lying on your stomach, arms out,
and that was always kind of a fun one
back in the day. - Yeah. I see-
- Everyone liked it.
- I see it a lot.
I see it on other channels a lot.
So it's a good one to bring up, and I see...
Usually, I see a lot of people doing the hands to toes.
- Oh, yeah. Yeah.
And that is a yoga people are now,
they're screaming at us saying, "That is our-
- Well, they try to keep...
They do a lot of them are able to keep there back straight
the entire time.
- Right, so you hinge at the hip
and we're just saying that there's a lot of people
who don't have that body awareness.
- Yeah, and when you do that,
you still are putting pressure at L5, S1.
- Yeah, those lower lumbar discs.
- Yeah, in fact it could be worse.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause you got it all on L5, S1.
- Well, they're not gonna agree.
- They're gonna argue.
- They're gonna send comments to us,
but we can understand. - We love you.
- We love you and we respect you, but we just
respectfully disagree. - Disagree. Yeah.
(Brad laughing)
- Anyways, I don't know if we should continue
to babble on here, Bob.
No one's watching anyways.
(Brad laughing) - Peace.
Take care.
- We're just talking to the camera. (laughing)
(upbeat tone)