♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
(Bob and Bard clapping)
- 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.
- Today, we're gonna show you three days
to a pain-free and healthy spine,
back to the basics that work.
Back to the basics that work.
- No pun intended.
Viewers, this is for people,
if you have a history of back pain, kinda on and off,
you have it depending on what you do.
Or maybe you have some back pain right now,
this is gonna help you focus and get the exercise program,
or a brief exercise program that's gonna work for you.
It's something that us as therapists have problems with,
and we figured out how to do it.
And we're gonna show you how to do it, but.
- Well, I was gonna say, Brad, (Brad laughs)
I thought you were gonna take it a little further here.
If you do have sciatica- - Okay, oh.
- We want you to go to bobandbrad.com.
If you have the specific diagnosis of sciatica-
- Pain going down the leg,
- Yeah, we have a full program on this
that's really quite comprehensive.
And you go to bobandbrad.com, go to the program section,
you go into it, you check it out,
we got 40-some videos on sciatica.
- Right.
- Watch the ones that pertain to you and.
- There's a PDF printout for each video
as a review, and has pictures of the exercises,
you don't have to come back and look at us.
So, the beauty of it is it's all free.
We don't ask for an email. - It's free.
Very free. - Yep, there you go.
- By the way, if you are new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos on how to stay healthy, fit, pain-free,
and we upload every day.
Also, go to bobandbrad.com, go to the giveaway section.
Always giving something away.
- Wow!
- This week, we are giving away a nice gift.
This is a RENPHO stationary bike, beauty.
- Yup, it is, it's adjustable, it's got,
you can hook it up to your cell phone,
and ride looking where you're riding.
It's all, what do you call that, Bluetooth thing-
- Sure.
- And all that fancy stuff.
- We're really electronically enabled here.
All right, you can also go to Bob and Brad on Facebook,
it'll be pinned at the top is page, the contest.
Go to Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok
if you want a 60-second version of our program.
And also, Bob, I mean, Brad.
- Oh yeah, the podcast. - I'm Bob.
- We do have podcasts going now.
We just got them up a month or two ago,
and they're going fantastic, enjoy as you will.
But we wanna get down to the three days, okay?
- Business.
- So, the reason is, with therapists, you know,
if we give you six exercises to do, you go home
and do them and you come back and you get better,
it may only be as a response to one or two of the exercises.
Or it's possible one exercise just makes it better
than the other one.
- Well, let's be honest Brad, you give them six exercises,
they go home, and they do maybe one or two.
- Well, not everybody.
- Not everybody, but the majority.
The majority, I find, if I give them one exercise or two,
and say, I'm only giving you two, you better do them.
- Yeah.
- So, I do a lot of lecturing.
- Or you crack the whip.
- Yup. - Whoof.
Anyways, we gotta be careful around Bob.
So I do wanna talk about day one,
we're just gonna do a trial of four different exercise.
- It's an experiment, basically.
- Yeah, and we're gonna show them to you.
So we're gonna go through day one right now.
You do them, and then select the ones that feel good
and do not irritate your back.
It actually feels good to do 'em,
then you're gonna write that one down,
and you're going to save that one, okay?
But day two, we're gonna do another set.
Not even do the day one, just day three,
another aspect of treatment.
And then we're gonna come up with a full program for you
that's actually gonna be quite short.
- Quite short. - And effective.
- Right.
It's gonna cover a lot of different bases there.
- So this-
- I will do-
- You wanna show, oh, okay, go ahead.
- Well, yeah.
- So day one, this is what you're gonna do.
In the morning, after you get up,
you've been up for a little while.
Lay back down and we're gonna do 10 repetitions of-
- Lie back down.
Yeah, Karen and I- - They actually will be-
- Very proud of you, Bob.
Do the hook rotation once, Bob.
- Okay.
- See now, so Bob has his knees together,
his feet are together.
You can do this on the bed.
The floor works a little better,
but it's okay on this one for the bed.
And if you do this, and it starts to feel good,
or it feels good right away, do 10 of them back and forth.
If it feels like a good warmup, go ahead.
Most people will probably-
- Most people can do this one,
you might not be able to go one direction.
- Yeah.
- Like one of the, this might hurt a little bit.
- Yup.
- Oh, it hurts, so I'm gonna avoid that direction,
just work to the right side. - Yep.
- And I do wanna, you might start off with little arcs-
- Right.
- And then eventually work to further,
and you can actually even stretch it a little bit like this.
- Sure, if it feels good.
- I'm keeping the shoulders flat.
- Right.
- I'm not rolling over here so, this is a great,
it looks like I'm just moving my hips and I am,
but I'm also rotating my back,
so I'm getting some movement there.
- Pelvis directly connected to the back.
Stay back down there, Bob.
- If you've been sitting or lying down all night,
your joints could be very stiff,
(Brad mmhmms) and that helps warm them up.
- Right, so that one probably will fit
into most people's protocol.
Do 10 of those, it takes you about 15 seconds.
Now, this other one, pull the knees to the chest.
- Do you want me to do one or two?
- Let's do two, Bob, let's do two.
- Okay, so you start with one, start with one,
and then grab the other leg.
You don't go both at same time.
- Sure.
- You go bring one up, and then bring the other up.
- And then you're, give a little stretch.
- A little stretch.
- If it feels good.
- Pressure on, pressure off, pressure on, pressure off.
- Yeah.
- You might have to grab underneath the knees like this.
- Yeah.
- If your arms aren't real long, so.
- And then, if that feels good,
that's gonna be an exercise for you,
doing it 10 times typically works good.
If it feels real good, you can do more
after you have more experience with it.
If it starts to bother your back, that one's no good.
Now let's go to the third option.
And this is on your stomach and.
- You might even start on your elbows.
- Sure.
- You know, see how that feels.
And if that's bad already-
- Yep.
- It's unlikely you're gonna be able to do the next step,
which is you're actually gonna take your hands,
put them underneath your shoulders-
- Yep.
- And you can do a micro press up,
where you actually don't lift up the pelvis.
- Right.
- The pelvis stays adhered to the surface.
- Yep, right here.
- And you're gonna work your way up like this.
In fact, if the pelvis starts coming up,
that means you're tight.
- Right.
- And you wanna start working that range
that you're allowed.
- Right in that low back.
- Eventually you hope you can get up to like that.
- Exactly.
- So, keep the pelvis down.
I do these every morning,
so, I did 20 this morning.
- It's possible that you may have some cystinosis
or spondylolisthesis.
Those people typically do not tolerate this well,
it's uncomfortable after you do a few of them, just stop.
And that might be your case.
- Yeah, as you get older,
the likelihood of stenosis goes up,
and you know, you may have that,
and maybe would not feel comfortable to do this.
- Right, so there, we got four different options.
Pick out the ones that feel good, and you respond well to.
If you don't, just put those off to the side.
So it might be just hook line rotation and press ups.
- Your missed one, Brad, extension standing.
- Oh yeah, that's right.
Well, this one's a pretty easy one.
- It's really similar to this.
- Right.
Standing up, put your hands here and just extend backwards
three to five times.
I've got spondylolisthesis,
I don't do this one because it's not comfortable.
So I just, and it doesn't create sharp pain,
but I can tell it just is not good.
- There are some people that can you even do,
the one in line.
- Yep.
- But it's bothers him to do the one in standing.
Sometimes later on they can do it.
- Right.
- After they've been doing it for a while.
- And this one's easy, you don't have to get on the floor.
- But that's why it's a nice option.
- Yup.
- I mean that's why we present it, but.
- Exactly.
- Generally, if the extension, the standing works,
extension in line is gonna work too.
- Right, yup, exactly.
So that's day one.
Now we gotta go to day two.
We're gonna go to a completely different set of exercises.
We've already figured out day one.
- That was day one, you might, you only, again,
you might only pick one of these exercises you do.
You might pick two. - Right.
- But I wouldn't even go three.
- Uh-uh, just pick out the best two best two.
- Yeah, best two.
- Yep, or one.
Next one is decompression or some form of traction.
These are what you can do at home.
You don't need really any particularly special equipment.
Should we show-
- Yeah, you wanna do that one?
- This works good, you can this right off.
Pretend this is your bed.
And we're gonna take, put your elbows on the bed,
your hands here, you can put them on your neck.
Here I go, oh, watch out for my mic.
And we're just gonna stretch,
or you can put your hands here,
and let your hips go this way,
and that offers some decompression on the spine.
If it feels good, you're gonna do it.
If it hurts, that's the red flag, just stop.
- Right, right.
- You don't have to spend a lot of time.
You can come back with it later on in a week or two,
and just test it.
But usually these just feel good right away,
or they don't, or they just hurt.
And then that's the big red flag.
- Again, yeah, contraindicated them, so.
- Yeah, and another way should I show them?
- Yeah, why don't you to show us since you're better height?
- Depending on the height of the chairs,
and how tall you are, this can work really well.
- Are we angled okay?
- [Cameraman] Yup.
- Okay.
- Okay, I'll go back a little bit.
There's hands here, and I'm just gonna push up,
and you cannot see it very well,
but my knees are gonna leave the ground.
This one can be a little challenging,
if you're not familiar with letting your stomach muscles
and your core relax.
'Cause that's where this traction comes in.
There's some people that will have problems with this,
if they don't have good arm strength,
and then it won't be for you.
And again, when you immediately let the traction go,
and relax your stomach muscles, you should feel that pain,
and the back feeling good right away.
And you're gonna hold it, you know, 15 seconds, 20 seconds,
or whatever you can.
And it should just feel good.
And then when you put weight back on it,
it should still feel good.
- Right, you're hoping to gain yourself
maybe an hour or two relief.
- Yup.
- Like they, you know, they mentioned,
you can even do it like you're going for a walk,
and if you find a good cement bench, that's-
- Yup.
- And you can actually go up to it, and yeah.
- I've done this, you know,
I'll just go up and to a good solid bench and-
- You're not picking your feet up, you're just going up
on your toes, and you're relaxing the back.
- You can tell you're taking pressure off that spine.
- Right, and you know, it'll allow you to walk all the way
around the lake instead of just partly.
- There, exactly. - So.
- And lastly, if you have a pull-up bar,
or you could use a branch, I suppose, if it don't break.
- Yeah.
- But like a pull-up bar, we use,
we happen to have the wall anchor with our hanging handles
that works really well.
And we're just gonna go,
and if you're hanging on a pull-up bar, you just relax.
And you know, if it's really high,
and you have to jump up to it,
it's not an option.
You need something where you can control slowly,
the weight going down, again, relax the the core muscles.
- It's gonna make it easier to relax then too,
'cause if you're lifting your feet up,
it's a little harder to relax.
- Yup, yup, slide down along the wall actually,
you know, these really are the cat's meow,
but a pull-up bar works really good too.
And then, you're just gonna hang there,
you know, 15 to 30 seconds.
This works really well for my back.
I've got a, actually, a different way to modify it,
but we won't get into that, that's for stenosis.
- Good for shoulders too.
- Oh yeah, absolutely.
And then, so, it may be that all of the decompression,
not, none of them feel good.
Then you just forget about it.
- Right.
- You don't do that option, only if it feels good,
put that on your list.
- Now, on day two, you're also doing the exercise
from day one?
- No.
- Okay, you're just trying to see,
we're trying figure it out.
- Right, we're gonna add that on day four, actually.
- Gotcha, gotcha. - And then we-
- Right now, we're experimenting to see what feels good.
- There you go. - What helps.
- Yep, so it's a system.
- Right, it's a system.
- Yep, now we're gonna go to day three.
You might have even started on Monday, we'll be on Wednes-
Now day three, this is almost gonna affect everyone.
Your posture, your posture with your back is critical,
and oftentimes with a seated position.
So, in your chair, whether it's your vehicle, your car,
whatever you're driving, or your kitchen chair,
or a particularly, a nice cushioned recliner,
or a soft chair like that.
- Right, well, you tend to slouch like this.
- Yep, you gotta get your butt back in the chair,
and then, if you have a lumbar support,
oftentimes lumbar supports is a key to a lot of people.
You gotta take a towel roll, roll it up,
put some tape around it.
You don't even have to tape it when you start.
Just roll it up, put it back,
about the belt line or maybe up, a little bit lower,
and then lean back into it.
Now, I can tell this is too much for me,
it's too big of a roll, it feels uncomfortable.
- And some of you may need a larger roll,
because you have, if you have a larger buttock-
- Yep. - And more curves.
- Yep, or if your chair's hollowed out 'cause it's wore out,
then you need a larger one.
This one, this is one, we, you know, you can buy online,
there's different shapes and sizes.
Or yeah, Bob's gonna, a throw pillow.
- Yeah, especially on a couch or a recliner.
- Yes.
- I use these all the time.
- Yeah, exactly.
- I just put that in there.
- I'll put this one in,
and I know this one feels much better for me.
Unfortunately, we can't prescribe you
to which one is gonna work, because the chair,
your body shape, you do need to kind of work with that.
- Yeah, before you purchase one,
I would definitely use a rolled towel or something like that
to kinda give you an idea.
- Get an idea of what you do need.
- Right.
- And then once you have that, you're gonna use that
on all your chairs that need it, okay?
So it's very particularly in your car,
or anywhere you're sitting for any length of time.
And the next one, a nice simple,
now, this one is probably good for pretty much anybody,
but- - Yeah, everybody to-
- Again, use the wall, arms back like this,
I call them wall angels.
This is just one of our mini posture exercises.
My shoulders are tight.
You wanna do this one, Bob?
- I can if you want.
- Yeah.
I went swimming this morning, I'm a little tight that way.
- I'm gonna twist up, but-
- Ah, see-
- I'm trying to keep my elbows against the wall
the entire time, and my head.
- Yeah.
- And many of you will not be able to do this.
I, yeah, I cannot go that far.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- So, but it's a great exercise to do so,
because you're strengthening a lot
of the different posture muscles while doing it.
- If you're uncomfortable in the shoulders
like I am with that one,
you may wanna do something differently than that,
which would be the posture squats.
- Sure.
- So, posture squats help you with your posture.
And when you got back pain, when you lift something up,
you want good body mechanics and this teaches you-
- This trains you.
- Exactly.
- [Bob] So, we want you to squat down
while maintaining the stick in place.
And if I'm doing it wrong,
I'm only getting one point of contact.
- So he's touching here, but there's an air gap
between his head and his butt.
- You know, everybody's thinking, I'm doing it right
'cause I'm using my legs, right, Brad?
- Right.
- [Bob] But no, you got to have this all lined up here.
- Right.
- [Bob] It's funny, my wife,
this visualization really helped her.
Like, she visualized that it was in place.
- And you have to have the booyah stick,
you can just take a broomstick,
or something about five feet long that's straight,
and use it.
And I've had patients do this for a home exercise
just so they can not only strengthen their legs,
but teach them proper body mechanics
to take stress off of their back.
- Yeah, then every time they go lift something,
they think of the stick, everything in place.
- Yep, yep, so day three, you're gonna, you know,
pick one of those out, at least one of them for posture.
If you want, you know, the lumbar support,
if that works, that's gonna be a given.
But you still should do the wall angels,
or the posture squats.
- Teach yourself.
- Yep, so when you're done with that, all three days,
each day you write down the ones that feel good,
and you're gonna try and pick it to a narrower.
So you might have one, two, three,
four exercises at the most, and then your lumbar support.
- And that's your program.
- Right, and you don't have to do it
every day to start with, but you'll find,
once you get used to it, it's gonna take you five minutes.
- Right.
- Yep, and just do it every day.
- The day one exercises, by the way,
they can be done several times a day.
They can be done.
- Sure.
- Four, five times a day.
- He's talking about the press ups, and you know,
this one you can do throughout the day,
with you know, taking seconds literally only to do.
So, I tried to make this a system,
so that you could understand it,
and get through it so that we could customize a program
like a therapist would for you.
And I really hope you have good luck with it.
- Yeah, good luck to you
- And be careful.
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