- All right, Bob, we're talking about knee bending,
knee flexion after knee replacement.
And we have found, and we both agree, we concur, correct?
- Absolutely right.
- That we've got a method
that gives you the best success
to get that knee to bend.
- And it really works.
- So hold on, we'll be right back.
Stick around.
♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists on the internet ♪
- This works because-
- The patient is in the control.
- Right, and we're talking about
the patient is using their arms actually
to get the knee to bend.
And when you're in control,
you know the pain is under your control, and you relax more,
things work better.
What are you laughing at?
- Well, you stumbled a little bit.
(Bob laughs)
Okay, Brad, take it away.
- Let's do a little explaining here,
so after a knee replacement,
or you want your knee to bend,
in a chair sitting is almost,
everybody, all, every therapist will do this,
and say it's time to scrub the floor.
So they either put a towel on the floor,
if you have a rug like here-
- A wash cloth.
- Yep, and if it's on carpet, that doesn't work.
You put it like this, a piece of plastic that's smooth,
and then you start going back and forth like this.
Now if the therapist comes,
and they push on us to get it to bend,
chances are you're not-
- They don't like it.
- Yeah. The patient inherently, instinctively-
- Tightens up.
- Tightens up, and things don't work so well.
But if the patient can even use the other leg to push,
they're in control.
It relaxes more.
You get better bend.
- Yep. Well, show another option, Brad.
- All right, so this doesn't always work,
if you wanna use your arms for power, you take a strap-
- Not your legs.
- And you put the strap around each leg,
just as we've shown and you put an eye or a loop in it,
put that down, put your foot in there.
The only reason you put the loop in there is so it,
it wraps around, it'll go like this, around the ankle.
And it just does a nice job of holding on.
- [Bob] Right.
- And now there's like, a pulley system on each leg.
I pull with my arms, get to the point where it
starts to hurt, relax, push, push.
- [Bob] Breathe, Brad. Breathe!
- Yep, and then come back, breathe and relax,
and just let the leg go.
It's gonna hurt a little bit,
but you gotta break up that scar tissue, right Bob?
- That's right.
- It's a race against time.
You're not gonna get it all in one day,
but if you don't do it and you leave it for a week,
you're gonna have problems.
- Now why don't we show the knee guide?
- Right, so all this works fine,
except for this sliding on the carpet.
There's a lot of resistance there,
it doesn't work the best.
So if you would like to make things easier-
- The lightweight knee guide.
- Yes it is lightweight, 3.1 pounds.
And put that down, and you'll see,
foot fits in there nicely, much smoother.
- [Bob] Or if you want to stand.
- [Brad] Yep.
- [Bob] You can put it up.
- [Brad] This is probably one of the biggest advantages
of this tool, is that it goes up on an angle,
and that makes a big difference.
- [Bob] More comfortable.
- [Brad] Yep. More comfortable.
The ankle.
It just is a better angle on the ankle,
and the knee works good.
And we slide down.
- And you could do it with the strap on.
- Yep. So I'm gonna put it down for now,
and do exactly the same thing.
Strap through here, get it in there.
(Brad humming)
- [Bob] Brad's singing.
- [Brad] Yeah. Okay, here we go.
There we pull, stretch, and relax.
So when you get to the point where it, whoa, that's in!
Well then you simply slide that in a little bit more.
- [Bob] Right.
- [Brad] La de da, right there.
I've got it stuck!
So sometimes if you just do this,
and you're at that point where you can't get any farther,
this can get you past.
But again, you really need to relax.
Let your knee bend, work with that pain, breathe.
- So we'll show you one more thing.
- Okay.
All right, there's another trick
to help get the knee to bend when it's being difficult.
It's called the contract-relax technique.
If you're a physical therapist,
you know exactly what I'm talking about.
If not, we'll show you.
And what we're gonna do is you're gonna slide the knee back,
until you get to the point where it doesn't want to go,
it's starting to stretch,
a little painful, not too much.
And then you're gonna push your foot out away from you.
But you're going to hold it with this hand,
so it cannot move.
So it's an isometric.
- Right.
- And we're gonna push out and hold,
that's the contract part.
- He's pushing right now, right?
- Yep, I'm pushing right now,
right now my quadriceps are working as hard as they can.
- Yep.
- For about five to ten seconds.
And what happens is, after you do that,
the muscle gets tired and then it relaxes.
- Really relaxes.
- Yep. So that's the relax part of the, the word.
And then you go past,
and because this muscle's relaxed,
it allows a little more-
- You'll go a little farther then, right.
- And you'll, you may only gain,
you know, if you gain five more degrees doing this,
that's big.
- Right.
- Because you do it again the next day,
and you gain another five.
- Right.
- That's ten!
- Ten, absolutely.
- And so on and so forth.
And you know, you could combine that
with the incline and actually get a few more degrees
just because of the fact we're going downhill,
and it adds a little more assistance.
Bob, I'm telling ya-
- Good, you're gonna be, bend knee, knee bent.
- All right, once you get that knee bending,
and you're getting close to that a hundred,
hundred and twenty degrees.
and things are going fairly good,
you're walking with it better,
then we need to start strengthening the hamstrings
a little bit more.
That is a really, another advantage of this
is you put the incline going towards you,
put your foot on there and pull up.
And that is primarily hamstring strengthening.
- Yeah, you'll feel it.
- Yep, you do that for 60 seconds and you're gonna feel it.
You might not go that long at first,
'cause you'll get a cramp.
So you're gonna do that as tolerated buildup.
- You could put weights on it.
- Yeah. Yeah.
Put a ankle weight around there,
and that also increases the resistance.
So, yeah.
- There we go, Brad.
- You really can't go wrong with it.
- Your knee looked good.
Good. Yeah.
- Look at that baby.
Look at that sexy knee.
I gotta see what my wife says about that.
(Bob laughs)
- Really.
(upbeat music)