♪ Bob and Brad ♪ (simple rhythmic synth music)
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
(deep exhaling) (hands clapping)
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, Physical Therapist.
- Brad Heineck, Physical Therapist.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- I our opinion, of course, Bob.
- And we always have your best interest in mind, by the way.
So this title is,
"This One Simple Exercise Can Greatly Improve Your Balance."
And by the way, you can do this indoors or outdoors,
but we're gonna show you some different ways.
We're gonna show you for a beginner
and for someone who's maybe a little more advanced.
- Right. - By the way,
if you're new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos how to stay healthy, fit, and pain free,
and we upload every day.
Also if you get a chance, go to bobandbrad.com,
'cause we're always givin' somethin' away.
We're currently giving away a wall anchor,
yeah, today yet, right?
Yeah, it'll be all over tomorrow.
- Well there's actually three wall anchors in the kit.
- Yeah, four.
- Four, that's right, (laughs) bonus.
- Yeah, and that's you put it on your wall,
and then you can do workouts with it.
You'll have to check it out.
You can go to bobandbrad.com or BobandBrad on Facebook.
The contest'll be pinned to the top of the page.
Go to Twitter or Instagram or Tik Tok
if you want 60 seconds of Bob and Brad a day.
So our days, the typical person,
is spent
walking straight forward in a straight line,
correct?? - Hopefully. (chuckles)
- Well, you know what I mean. - Right.
- Now, your days are not walking side to side, generally.
Maybe when you're in your closet or your bathroom.
- Well it's six feet apart now.
- Right, right.
So anyway, you're strengthening all the muscles
that move you forward, all right?
You're not strengthening the muscles
that move you side to side,
which involve your hips and a lot your ankles.
- Which those muscles, I know I'm jumpin' in here,
but they are critical for your stability and your balance.
And I remember, I was doin' a lot of running,
a few years back. - Mm-hm.
- A lot of running, and I took a class
where they did all this sideways motion,
and I couldn't believe how sore I got.
- Yep. - I thought I was in shape,
but these new muscles were dormant.
- All right many times Brad, like you said,
a lot of runners out there,
they think they're legs are strong.
- Right.
- And they are at certain muscles,
but in a lot of the muscles are not at all.
They're weaker than average even.
- Right.
- So I was finding out, Brad,
you know, I've hit 60 now.
I'm the big six zero.
- Yep, that's amazing, Bob.
- So my balance is not as good as it used to be.
My wife even started sayin',
"Well, what's wrong with you?" (chuckles)
- Have you been tippin' over?
- No not tipping over. - Oh good, whew. (laughs)
- And it's been getting better, but I run.
- Ever since you quit drinkin'? (laughs)
- (laughs) I stopped drinkin',
things got better. (Brad laughing)
So I started doing these, and I'll show.
I started doin' the advanced version of this,
but let's start off with the beginner version.
- Sure, sure.
- So we're trying to strengthen the muscles
that take you side to side like this,
and ankle muscles and hip muscles.
So let's start off with,
let's say your balance is really pretty not that decent,
so you're gonna wanna get behind a chair
or on a countertop,
something that's gonna give you support
that you can rely on. - Right.
- So all you're gonna start off by doing is
you're gonna do some hip abduction,
so you're gonna go out to side like this.
This is almost too low for me.
You're gonna go out to the side,
and you're gonna bring the toes.
The toes stay straight forward.
- So I'll show you from-- - Yeah, there you go.
- [Brad] Now you're not gonna use a chair like this.
You wanna have a solid,
somethin' solid to hold on to. - Right.
Now this chair, or I mean,
this muscle group is just the hip itself.
We're not working the ankles here right now,
so we're gonna have to do
a separate exercise for the ankles.
- Usually 10 repetitions on both legs
at about this
cadence that we're doing right now.
You don't wanna flip it out fast.
Like Bob said, you don't point your toe out like this.
You turn it in this way.
- Yeah, so now let's do something for the ankle,
'cause we hadn't done anything for the ankle.
- Ankle strength is important.
- If you are fairly decent,
you can do these without a countertop,
but if you have some problems,
you may have to workout and hold on to a countertop
and work your way along there.
- If you happen to have a cane or use a walker, you know,
you might be able to do it with that.
- Yeah, you're definitely gonna hang on, or that too.
Yeah. - Sure.
- But basically I'm just doin' zig zags.
Now you do these with shoes on too, right?
- [Brad] It works good with shoes on,
'cause that offers a little more resistance.
Now you actually have to try this,
and you will feel the little muscles in your ankles
working quite dramatically,
and it's great for balance.
Now, if you have a hard time doing this,
you know you can, like Bob said, put your hands
on the countertop. - Yeah, hands on top, right.
- [Brad] Or just grab a cane or a stick or something.
- [Bob] Yeah, this helps too,
because now I can hold onto this.
- [Brad] And it really helps.
This is one of those things
you could do with a little music.
- Yeah. - I call it the ziggy ziggy,
the ziggy, ziggy, ziggy, ziggy,
ziggy, ziggy. (Bob chuckles)
Now, if you're advanced, you can do the ziggy ziggy,
- Oh could have done without that.
- with one foot. - Yeah, there you go.
- And that makes the muscles work harder,
and makes your balance more challenged, again.
- Safety first though.
Again, you wanna make sure you're gonna be stabilized.
You're gonna use a countertop.
- I would never have my mother
do the one with one foot. - No.
- She would be at the countertop,
and I would be standing right by her.
- Yeah, but actually have a belt on her,
yeah. - Yeah.
- Same with my mom, she would not be able to work with that.
All right, let's say
that is goin' okay,
you know the ziggy zaggies,
and you wanna do a little bit more.
Now you're gonna go along the countertop,
and you can actually start workin' along
tryin' to go fairly fast,
you know, pickin' up the speed a little bit.
- Right. - So now again,
I'm working hip and the ankle's working.
You see how my ankle's workin'?
- Yeah. (laughs) - What is?
- [Brad] You look like you're 60 years old. (laughs)
- [Bob] I know!
Well just give me little bit, okay.
- [Brad] Liz is lookin', she's said,
"I see it too," but she's not gonna say anything.
- All right, so then I'm running now,
then I can do like this.
- There, that's more like it. - Now this looks
a little bit less like 60.
So when I go out for a run,
I actually picked blind spots in my neighborhood
where hopefully people can't see,
but they're probably lookin' out their windows
and goin', "What is that shrub doin' now?"
- Yeah. (laughs)
- And there's a street where I go,
where there's usually not people, but then all of a sudden,
I'll look up and there's somebody watching me. (laughs)
- Don't worry about it, but show 'em the exercise.
- But yeah, I'll run this way, and I'll go this.
I'll turn around and, you know, go like this.
- Well obviously here we don't have much room.
- Right. - So how far do you do,
like 50 feet?
- Yeah, depending on how long I go
before someone's gonna see me. (laughs)
- Self-conscious, Bob.
- Well I mean, it's a little weird,
but it's working.
It's helping my balance. - Good.
- And do you wanna show karaoke?
- Oh yeah, the karaoke.
I remember this from 8th grade football,
where you cross over and then you cross behind.
- Yep. - Yep.
Now this is pretty advanced.
- [Bob] Yep, this is advanced,
and especially when you're gonna go on a higher speed.
- [Brad] Yep, you could use a stick to do that, you know.
And this, you can go a little faster,
and that's when it gets kind of fun.
You know, you can do the ole hip.
Get some music goin', for sure,
in your head. - Well in your head.
Yeah, I was gonna say.
Now you know, Brad and I were talkin' about,
you know, one of the best things to do to work on balance
is to work on, like, doin' a polka
or doin' a waltz or dancing,
you know, because not only doin' a lot of side to side,
even backwards. - Right.
- You're also have someone to hold onto you.
- So it's like a cane.
It's like a portable, moving- - Human cane.
- Cane that actually responds,
and there's some of this goin' on.
You get that inter,
it's all good.
- Interaction or? - Yeah.
Yeah, you really respond,
and you get the mind. - Feedback?
- And the reaction time
and reflexes. - Sure, reflexes.
- Yeah, it stimulates the body top to bottom, Bob.
- So I was tellin' Brad I knew a guy,
he was well into his 70s,
and you'd watch him walk down the hallway,
and he was walkin' like a young guy,
and he just bounded along,
and he would dance four times a week.
I don't even know where he does it,
'cause it's hard to find places
you can dance now. - Right.
- But he was dancing four nights a week.
He was doin' a lot of polka and stuff like that.
For those of you who don't know the polka,
this is a Midwestern dance, I suppose mostly.
- Yeah, Wisconsin, Minnesota.
- Yeah. - yeah.
- So I mean, he looked like a young guy,
because he was doin' a lot of dancing.
- He probably went to the Concordia.
- I don't know where that is. (chuckles)
- It's in LaCrosse, isn't it? - Yeah.
- They still dance in there? - They still dance there.
Yeah. - Probably not now,
with COVID-19. - Well no,
'cause the six feet apart is not gonna work. (laughs)
- Yeah. (laughs)
- Big long sticks, you could maybe do this.
- That's funny, because
when my kids went to a Catholic school.
- Yeah. - And so like,
and if the kids were dancin'-
- They polka. - Yeah,
but if the kids were dancing too close,
she'd say somethin' like, (Brad laughing)
"The spirit of the Lord
"has to be able to get in between you." (laughs)
- There you go.
I imagine you were happy about that with your two daughters.
- Yeah that's right. - That's a good standard.
- That's right, just get that little ruler, and.
(sharply taps) - Yeah.
- Hit 'em on the knuckles, (Brad chuckling)
if they get too close though.
All right, thanks everybody, and stay safe.
No falls on our watch, okay?
- That's right, enjoy.
(rhythmic synth tones)