- Bob and Brad
the two most famous physical therapists on the internet.
- Hi folks. I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Because we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- We today have a back pain relief secret
that we're going to share that you'll never forget.
- And it's true.
This is one of those things that stuck in my mind
that I learned at a back conference a number of years ago.
And I think ...
- I think a lot of people have learned this one.
- Therapists will say, oh yeah, that is a good analogy.
- And it'll give you a helpful hint
of how to proceed in life.
So as to avoid back pain
and also to stop your back pain
from perpetuating and getting worse.
- Perpetuating.
- Yeah. I threw in some big words here today.
- But before we go any farther, Bob,
let's take care of some things.
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But Brad, I got one more thing to say, final thing.
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which means we get a little fee for doing it.
- Sure.
- And we use that fee to help pay for
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Who's steeped in diamonds and gold and pearls.
So we've got to keep her she's high maintenance.
- Yeah. Hey, life goes on, Bob.
- Thank you for buying products.
If you do, we appreciate it.
- So, Bob, back pain, here we've got the spine.
We've got our backs, but as therapists
we think of the spine with back pain, how many times
have you had a patient come in with back pain and you say
so, is there any particular reason your back pain started?
And the majority of the time they say no.
It just kind of came on and very common.
Yep. So why is that happening?
We're going to explain that to you.
Not only you're going to explain it, but you're
going to actually feel it happen
in your body, a good analogy.
- This is a participation video.
- It is. Yes it is.
So here we go.
We're gonna start out with this first
because everyone's just anxious to find out why.
First thing you're going to do
is put your finger up like this.
- All right.
- Okay, Bob.
- Which finger?
- Pointer. Finger Bob. Pointer finger.
This is a family show.
- Oh yeah.
- Okay. So think about your finger.
You got two, three joints here.
- Okay. Gotcha.
- And the joints have muscles and soft tissue and whatnot.
And we're going to put some stress on those.
Just like your back may have some stress.
So take your finger.
- So we're stressing the ligaments?
- Right.
- Yeah. The ligaments hold bone to bone.
- Right? And the joints in there too.
We're going to what we call end range.
Pull your finger back.
Now. I want you to do this at home or wherever.
- All of you out there now.
- You got your cell phone and you're on the subway.
Do this, put it down and pull your finger back
and I'm gonna time you hold it.
Keep holding it, Bob.
- No, I'm gonna show on here what's going on.
I mean, we can't be giving them silence for 60 seconds.
- No, I can hold it though. I'm gonna do it.
- All right.
- Keep going 60 seconds.
So you know what the analogy between the finger
and the spine, do you mind if I do this or not?
- Yeah. Yeah.
- There is a longitudinal ligament that actually
runs all the way down the back.
And there's also ligaments that run
between the bones, smaller ones.
And if you put stress on the back, in the same way
you're putting stress on the finger.
You can actually strain those ligaments
and even get micro tears
and you can stretch them out and you can be causing
what we can ... basically cause your back pain.
- Right. But talk about the disc.
- Oh sure.
The other thing is by putting in this position
you can actually be pushing the disc back.
We've got to show that with the cup spread.
- Yeah. Okay.
- I mean, there's no better way to show it.
- We're still holding it. We've got 15 seconds left.
- while you're doing that, I'm gonna get the cups.
- Keep holding your finger back.
If you look at your finger it's going to be
tight skin on this side and you probably feel
a little pain on your finger because we've got
it pulled back and stretching the tissue and the joints.
And there we go.
That's 60 seconds. You can let go of your finger.
And I bet you, your finger does not feel good right
now because you've been stretching it out for 60 seconds.
- So this is how prepared we are.
We're doing this on the fly.
- Well, I had this figured out
but now we've got a better idea.
- Well, let's show first, Brad,
the position that your back is in when you're
stretching it just like your fingers stretched out.
If you sit down with poor posture.
- If you're sitting in a rounded out slumped posture,
which happens quite often,
you're putting that same stress on your back
that you were putting on your finger in a sense, right?
- Precisely, Bob.
- So where's the cups and stuff?
- So people think that this is harmless
to just sit there like this.
But especially if you do it
over a prolonged period of time, right.
It really starts to stretch things out.
And the other thing that can happen is it
can start affecting the discs in your back.
- We don't have the pad thing to put on there.
Do we have that around, Lonnie?
- We used to have it right up here.
- Lonnie's not helping us now
that we called her high maintenance.
- Here we go.
- There we go.
There we go.
We're ready.
So we've got two vertebrae here. You can pretend that
we pulled them out of the low back here.
And between each vertebrae you have a soft disc, right?
And on a healthy disc bending forward like that
in that seated position, slouched is not a problem.
But over time it starts to wear out.
And what happens then as it starts to wear out,
the back of the disc can actually get kind of give
way and you it up with, am I doing it yet?
- There you go.
That's a herniated disc
or a bulging disc can cause a lot
of pain and that can cause sciatica.
So the whole idea with the finger
is when you're slouched it's same with your finger,
your finger becomes very painful in 60 seconds.
Well, your back usually takes more than 60 seconds.
It may take weeks, months, or even a few years
of being slouched before that disc actually can bulge.
- Well, think about your day.
Once you get up and if you have a decent drive into work
you might be driving for a half hour,
that's a half hour slouched.
Then you go to a desk job and you sit in your chair
and it's not a decent chair and you sit slouched.
- Or if they're doing a labor job,
oftentimes they're bending over working,
- Prolonged, bending over.
Right. But back pain really has become an issue,
it's become a sitting issue rather than a lifting issue.
More often than not.
- Sure.
- Because we are a sitting society now.
- Right. So oftentimes sitting, you think
about cell phone, computer, soft furniture, laptops
car seat, all these things oftentimes are done.
Promote that poor posture.
- Promote this, right?
- Yeah.
- So we gotta show at least one solution, right, Brad.
- Right. Which is seated posture. As a matter of fact,
tomorrow Tom is going to be driving a truck
that has really poor seated posture.
And it's so poor.
He's gonna have to use this particular.
- Tom is a friend of yours.
- Right. Yep. That's not important who he is.
He's driving a vehicle that has really a rounded out seat.
I drove this truck for seven miles
and my back started to hurt.
Put this in there.
It fills up that big hollow spot and all of a sudden, voila
we have a comfortable ...
- That's the memory foam one that you like.
- Right. - I don't like that one to me.
And that's where this shows how personal this is.
- Right.
- When you are, especially in the car,
this is way too much for me.
I tend to use, I actually use this real thin one
we don't even sell this.
We bought a bunch of these, but to have ourselves.
- Yeah. We give them off. We give them to patients.
- We give them to patients and it's just enough for me.
I put it right on my sacrum and it locks me in place.
- I do want to bring up a point though
in this particular vehicle
I think you'd be happy with this.
- Oh, right.
- The seat is so hollowed out. It's an older vehicle.
And so the whole point is the seat
and the body type changes what size.
So here we got one, two, we've got
about seven different varieties of lumbar supports.
- Here's some actually air-filled ones.
- Yeah.
Brad likes this one except it lost its air sometimes.
- Well, I don't know if it's just a particular one I have.
- My wife likes it but I don't like it at all either.
I'm kind of starting to think I'm the picky one here
because I don't like it at all.
- Yeah. Everyone's an individual Bob.
You have to learn to like yourself.
That's a psychology thing.
- All right.
- We're going to start out on that later.
But now this one is on oftentimes
in an office chair I think would be ...
- I like this one in an office chair. That big one.
- There you go. Yeah. See, difference in personality.
- Now you can try a rolled towel.
And that's certainly what we often recommend
that you start with, because in that instance
you can kind of figure out what thickness you like.
- Right.
- And maybe you just end up keep using the rolled towel.
But it's hard to simulate this one
with a rolled towel because it's so big, right.
- Precisely, Bob, but this all comes back to this analogy.
We need to get the pressure off
of the back and get it relaxed and get it moving.
Just like when, when you're done
if you move your finger, it feels better.
- It feels better.
- So with back, you're probably gonna get up and walk.
There's a lot of movement
to the low back that you may not be aware of.
- Walking is often very good
for the low back after you've been sitting.
I'm actually gonna be seeing a neighbor this week.
And I know already because I know his work schedule
and how he works.
He flies a lot and he goes overseas trips.
- Sure.
- And he drives a lot every day and I know
without seeing him, I know what he's gonna have trouble
with and it's gonna be that he sits too much.
- Sure.
- And so we're gonna have to talk
about maybe getting a sit to stand desk.
- I've oftentimes when people go on a flight
or whatever a patient, I say
make sure you bring something on the plane.
- Oh, we bring one.
- For lumbar support.
- I bring one, every time.
I have two of these in my bag
and my wife and I slip them behind our back.
- It's just the way it is either that
or I ask for one of those blankets they give you,
I roll it up, aren't you going to cover up?
No, I'm putting it for my back.
- By the way, do you know on those blankets?
They don't clean them?
- Well, it doesn't ...
- They don't, they just slide them back in the plastic bag.
- Oh, Bob.
- No, this was on NBC and one girl goes,
I snuggle up against that thing.
It's like, that's not being cleaned.
So. Alright.
- See, you'll never forget this video,
but it's very accurate.
It's going to give you a lot of help
with your back and spine.
So once again, we can help fix a back.
- We can fix just about anything
except for that broken heart.
- There you go.