♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Do you know that we are the most
famous physical therapists
on the internet?
- In our own opinion, of course, Bob.
- A little bit delusional.
Today we're gonna talk about middle
and upper back pain.
Stop it fast.
- Bob, I'm serious about this.
This is one of these things
that I personally have experienced
a number of times over the last few years,
and all my life actually.
But in the last few years
it's come to the point where I know
options that will take care of it,
and get rid of it.
- Let's be honest Brad here,
this is not gonna work for everybody.
- No.
- All of these are not gonna work for everybody.
- It's not a guarantee.
- I'd be surprised if maybe one
of them doesn't work.
- Right, exactly.
And that's the experience I found.
I can tell you which ones work the best
for me personally.
So they're, I call them my go to.
Let's talk about the location of back pain.
So you wanna point it out on me?
So the mid back we're talking about-
- Well mid back, if we're gonna go anatomically,
it's gonna start right where the neck stops,
and we're gonna go down to T12,
which is about five vertebrae below the scapula,
or the shoulder blades.
So right about from there to there.
And if you wanna (indistinct) upper back,
maybe a little bit lower.
- Turn around, Bob.
- Did I confuse you?
- Turn around, Bob.
You're exactly right,
but when I made this title
I was thinking two different things.
- Oh, you were?
- Yep.
I'm talking about the lower middle back, if you will.
And then the upper,
'cause there's, I have different exercises
for the ones up here more,
and the ones down here.
So that was kind of my personal anatomical thing.
- It was Brad thinking.
- I was making up,
but I knew I'd show you it,
and it would just be perfectly understood.
I hope.
Anyways, the first one,
now this one, I used to use when I was younger.
Why don't you stand up, Bob, I'll show you.
I used to get this back pain,
and face that way, please.
Kind of below the shoulder blades,
but above the low back,
the section right in here.
- [Bob] That's where you get the pain.
- Yeah.
So anatomically what I'm talking about, T12-L1.
- Sure.
Gotcha.
- The therapists are people,
some people will know exactly what they're talking about.
Sit down on the floor,
maybe I'll just go on the floor.
And I call this the pretzel stretch,
but you have to be careful with this one,
you're not gonna do it too aggressively.
You're only,
and that goes with all of these.
Only do these if they clearly feel good,
they relieve the pain.
So this one, right foot over left knee.
The right knee is up,
the left elbow,
you can grab here or use your elbow here.
Straighten your back,
and gently-
- [Bob] Gently.
- Do a rotational stretch.
- [Bob] Emphasis on gently.
And you really wanna be in very good posture.
- Yeah, we're not slouched over,
we're up like this.
And if you don't feel,
if it hurts, you're done, you stop right there.
And then try the other direction,
so the left foot goes over right knee,
in here,
and gently go,
and if it feels like
oh, that feels real good
or you get a little cavitation or crack
and it feels good,
again, and by no stance,
by no means am I advocating an aggressive stretch.
Very gentle.
- And I would try,
personally, Brad, I would try
going to the painful side first.
There's a reason.
- Oh, you mean rotate that-
- Yeah, rotate-
- If it hurts on the right,
you're gonna rotate to the right first.
- Exactly.
Exactly.
- Again, that one used to work for me
all the time when I was younger,
and now it seems like it's because
my job now, I sit more than I used to.
- Sure.
That's not the issue that helps you,
I mean that's not the one that helps you as much?
- No, not anymore.
Now, in the seated position,
particularly if I find myself working at the computer,
and I'm not paying attention to my posture,
and then it's a little higher
up between the shoulder blades.
- I hear you, I'm there with you, Brad.
- Yeah.
And I think a lot of people can relate to this.
You use the six or eight inch ball, a soft one,
and you can do this one right while you're working.
Put it right between your shoulder blades,
and you can adjust the height.
And you need a firm back chair,
something that's not gonna tilt back easily.
And you simply arch back.
You can bring your hands up like this
and do the Bob Schrupp
hallelujah stretch.
Ooh, I just got a crack right there.
That felt good.
- But what's nice about that ball
is you can move it up and down into different spots.
And this was created by one of our crew members.
And really a good suggestion.
We use it with hundreds of patients.
- Oh yeah.
And it's very-
- I had a school teacher,
she came here and she was a friend,
not my school teacher,
she was a school teacher.
- Oh, a patient.
Yeah, yeah.
- And she came in,
I showed her this exercise alone,
and that took away all her pain.
- Life was good, she was independent?
- Life was good.
- She learned how to manage her problems.
- She quit hitting the kids and everything.
(Brad laughing)
- We're gonna get in trouble for that one.
- I didn't mention her name.
(Brad laughing)
- All right, now this is one I've gone to a lot.
- Yes.
I do this one every morning.
- So use a six-inch roller.
This is a three foot long one,
but for this exercise you only need the short one.
- Yeah, mine's short.
- I have one down in my basement.
And I have gotten up in the middle of the night
with my back bothering me
in that similar area.
- Sure.
- Get out of bed,
go downstairs,
put the roller on the floor,
and I'll start with it here,
and,
now this takes a little practice, don't you think, Bob?
- [Bob] Yeah.
- Not a lot, but a little.
- [Bob] For most people too,
I would not roll down into the low back.
This is really one for the mid back,
the thoracic area.
It feels really good there,
where it does not feel good in the low back.
- And you'll see the,
my butt right here,
if I lift up just a little bit,
it's so much pressure.
The higher I get, a little more pressure.
If I bring my hands back like this,
oh I just got a crack right there, Bob.
- [Bob] Yeah.
- And don't,
and it should feel good.
And I've had good success with this
on a number of occasions.
I gotta stop,
because I'll do this forever.
- It's great for posture correction.
It's a great stretch.
There are very few people
that I don't think would benefit from this.
- I do wanna mention if you do
get a six-inch roller,
and I do recommend a six-inch one,
they make smaller ones and bigger,
but get the ones that are soft.
- Yeah, you're gonna probably want one
that's a little bit softer,
especially to start.
Later on maybe you could buy once
that's stiffer.
- This would be the medium density.
There's the black ones
that are probably the hardest ones,
and that's just the characteristic
of how they make it with the carbon.
And then there's a softer one,
which we have over here,
but I like this one myself.
But I think you can't go wrong with that to start with.
- Gotcha.
- Bob-
- Hanging. - Hanging.
- All right. - Shall we hang?
- Sure.
- Now the only way you're gonna hang
is if you have a pull up bar
or something solid that you can-
- [Bob] Rafter.
- Yep.
We've had people do a number of things.
We have the hanging handles,
and the big advantage of something
is if you can grab
and use the wall for posture correction,
and it also acts as a good control
so when you start here,
we just don't jump on here and hang,
and what this does is it decompresses
or puts traction on that part of the back,
that mid-thoracic back area.
And just relax.
Now I've got about 50% weight on now.
I've got to rest through my feet.
And that feels okay.
And I'm not gonna put more weight on
unless it feels good to.
We're not waiting for that magical big crack
and the pain goes from a 10 to a zero.
This is one of those things
that typically you may get some cracking
or cavitations.
Sometimes you don't have that,
and you still don't get the relief.
- Now I think Dr. McGill,
for decompression,
doesn't he recommend like 60 seconds or less?
- Yeah, I think as a maximum of 60.
That was with that park bench
one we were talking about,
which is a little bit different than this.
- [Bob] It is.
And how long do you hang, Brad?
- I usually hang 15 to 30 seconds at the max.
- [Bob] That's it?
- Yeah.
I do it for my shoulders
because this is really good for your-
- [Bob] Shoulders too.
- Yeah, supraspinatus for that impingement issue.
- [Bob] It's a great one to use throughout the day.
- Yeah.
- That's why it's nice to have the hanging handles
in your office or your bedroom.
- You've got a good habit of that right,
when you're working at the desk?
- Yep.
I get up.
Well, one, it gets me off my butt,
and two, it gets me,
it makes me more alert.
- Right.
It wakes you up.
- Yeah, it does.
- I'll do it in the morning,
just after I get out of bed,
if I'm up for 20 minutes or so,
I'll go hang,
and it just completely gets you going.
It's a wonderful deal.
The last one,
and not the least,
is you can either use a Backpod,
which you're not gonna,
you're not gonna go out and buy one of these
if you've never used one.
- Yeah, start with the tennis ball.
- Yeah.
- See how that feels.
- Yep.
- And if you tolerate that,
and feel like you wanna do something
a little more permanent,
then get a Backpod.
These are a little more expensive.
- Right.
- But, Brad, if you wanna come on over.
- Oh sure.
- Yeah.
So here's what we're talking about
is upper back here now.
So we're talking about,
I always say six spots.
Here, here, here, here, here, here.
You're gonna lay on all six spots.
Lie on all six spots.
And with the Backpod,
I hit these spots too.
My wife loves this Backpod.
She literally has one wherever she goes.
- Sure.
And they are good if you have costochondritis,
which I have,
chest pain that's not from your heart,
it's done wonders for me with that.
- Right, right.
Now the thing is most of you
are not gonna be able to tolerate this to start off with.
That's why you start with the tennis ball,
you might even start with a towel
over the top of it.
And you lie on it.
Now this is not a good thing to test,
because it's a soft surface,
but on the hard floor it would be,
you'd feel it a lot more.
And you can do things like bring your arm over like this
while the ball's in place there.
And you like to roll too, don't you, Brad?
- [Brad] Well I do it with the Backpod.
So the Backpod does not roll.
- Sure.
- But I've done it with the tennis ball,
and yep, you can get some motion.
I just wanna emphasize,
when Bob pointed the six locations out,
you do not put the ball or the pod
on your center spine.
It has to be on the muscle mass on the right
and the left of the spine.
- Although it's interesting,
Steve does say you can put it on the spine.
- He does?
- Yes, he does in his book.
I was surprised.
I don't ever do it.
- Maybe I'll give it a try,
but for beginners I would not.
- But he says you may start off
with a towel over the Backpod.
- Sure.
- He sent along with it a whole entire booklet.
- We're talking about Steve August,
he's a therapist that actually invented this.
- From New Zealand.
- He's a bright man.
- Yeah, he is.
Helped a lot of people with costochondritis.
- Yeah, he's a main man for that.
- But anyways, start with a tennis ball,
if it gets to be pretty easy,
and you want something a little more permanent,
then you can check that out.
- Absolutely.
Bob, that takes care of everything
from A to Z.
- Those are good tips, Brad.
- Yeah, they are.
They're easy to do.
Follow our instructions,
and you're gonna find some relief.
- I think it's very likely
maybe you only are gonna find one
or two that really works for you.
- Yeah.
- Stick with those one or two
because I'd rather have you do something
once in a while at least a little bit
as opposed to oh, I gotta do all five of these.
- Right.
And that'll become very clear once you try.
- I think we're giving away a massage gun, Brad.
(Brad laughing)
- We're giving something away.
- Go to bobandbrad.com,
go tot he give away section,
and check it out,
see what we're giving away.
- Right.
- I think it's the T6 massage gun.
This is our most powerful massage gun.
It's a Bob and Brad product,
so it's very-
- Yeah, it's good quality.
- And it comes with five hats.
Ooh, they're falling all over the place.
And it has five speeds too.
- Very powerful.
Yeah, be careful, Bob.
- (laughing) I don't wanna hurt you.
All right, thanks for watching.
(upbeat music)