♪ Bob and Brad, ♪
♪ The two most famous Physical Therapists, ♪
♪ on the internet. ♪
- Hi folks on Bob Shrupp, Physical Therapist.
- Brad Heineck, Physical Therapist.
- You wanted to introduce him too?
- Oh, here we have Sam.
- The skeleton.
- Don't forget Gumby, but,
you know, he's there.
- And together we are the most famous
Physical Therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course Bob.
- And, Sam concurs.
- Well absolutely.
- So today, we're gonna show you
how to use a massage gun on shin splints.
- Oooh.
- Now shin splints is kind of a garbage can term,
meaning that they're throwing a lot of terms in there.
A lot of different disorders in there.
- Sure.
- But generally what it refers to is
shin splints is there's anterior shin splints,
involving the anterior tibialis
or tibialis anterior.
- Front part of your shin.
- Yup.
- That right here.
- So you can see I've got some red marker there.
- Yeah.
- Little bit higher up on the bone
than posterior, which is on the inside.
And that tends to be a little bit lower
down in here.
- And that's deeper inside.
- Yup, and so this is the anterior tibialis muscle.
This is the posterior tibialis.
Anterior means front, posterior means back.
And, in severe cases, if you have the pain here,
it could also be two other muscles.
And I don't even need to say 'em.
- Right, 'cause the treatment is...
- All the same.
- Is the same, correct.
- Now, with this one you may feel pain
when you rise on your toes.
- Yup.
- Just like that, yup.
Or when you evert your feet.
Turning your feet out, yup.
Now, both of these types of shin splints
are exercise-induced.
In other words, they tend to feel better with rest.
But as soon as you start walking or running,
generally it's running, but it could be walking.
- Sure.
- You feel some burning or cramping.
It's also, the telltale sign is that
you actually have people,
you'll go in there and palpate.
You'll feel in there, you'll find tender spots.
- Yup.
- So like, again, if it's posterior,
you're gonna find it right here, tenderness.
Here's the bone, you're right off the bone.
- Yeah.
You know, it's right where the muscle connects
to the shin actually.
And you get some micro tears in there
which creates inflammation, pain.
And you know, it could happen like,
in the beginning of track season was real common.
You know, they haven't been doing anything,
sedentary, and then you hit it too hard.
- You hit it too hard, right, exactly.
That's one of the common things.
And you mentioned that, you know, like Brian,
we're going to show on here.
Here's the anterior, you see the red there.
That's where that anterior tibialis is attached.
And it also starts to pull on the bone.
- [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] And it can pull on the outer surface
of the bone, the periosteum.
And you actually get periostitis.
So the bone can get inflamed.
- [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] And worst case scenario, Brad,
if it keeps goin' on and on,
you can actually get stress fractures.
- [Brad] Yeah, you don't want to do that.
- [Bob] Right.
So same thing on the posterior tibialis,
actually attaches to the bones here,
and also to the inner osseous membrane there.
- [Brad] Sure.
- [Bob] So, and then they come down
and attach into the foot.
- [Brad] Right, so they're controlling the motion
of your foot as well as when we run,
so they're very active with weight-bearing.
- So what you're gonna want to do is,
one of the first things though,
I want to warn you Brad,
warn them Brad.
Warn you too.
- I need warning.
- You know, if you palpate
and it's about two inches long, three inches long,
that means it probably is a muscle.
- You mean the tenderness?
- Yeah, but let's say it's point tenderness.
- In one spot?
- Yeah one little spot.
- Yup.
- Like a dime.
- Then I'm concerned there might
already be a stress fracture.
- Yeah, that's a little bit different.
- Yeah, it's a little different.
And I've seen this on people.
We've found a cross country runner, a girl,
and I said, I'm sorry,
I think you might have a stress fracture.
And she did.
So I was right for once.
(Brad laughing)
So if you're gonna do massage,
I would recommend actually
doing it before and after exercise, Brad.
- Sure.
- You wanna prepare that muscle, make it supple,
so it's ready for the run
or the walk.
And then when you get back, do it again.
- Sure.
So you find a tender spot.
And once again, we're gonna go,
we're gonna massage around the area first,
and then work our way into the tender spot.
Now you can do a stripping massage, which is basically
going the lengths of the muscle muscle fibers.
- Vertically up and down.
- Yup, especially on the anterior tibia
'cause not a lot of room there, Brad.
- Sure.
- And you can also, if find a spot
you can do cross fiber,
which Brad will show
with one of these attachments.
Now, if, if they think it is very specific
and it may be that stress fracture,
are they still gonna do some massage gun?
- No, no.
- Okay then...
- You gotta get it checked out.
- Yeah.
I believe we have a video on stress fracture.
- I believe we do too.
- So you could Google that and that'll get the detail.
- Yeah, what to look for,
and stuff like that.
Now I've been doing my calf muscles,
so I'm using a really aggressive one here.
That's like the bullet one,
but Brad he's kind of a baby about this.
- Well, you know, I'm a sensitive guy Bob.
(Bob laughing)
So you can, you know, the round one,
if you're just starting out,
particularly if you're doing the anterior tip
'cause you got a bone right there.
- Yeah, right.
- I would start with this, or the air filled one.
- There we go.
- Oh, too bad, can't use that one.
Hit the floor.
- You got the larger massage gun,
a little bit larger.
- Yup.
This is the mini, which is really quite powerful.
We really having problems here, aren't we Brad?
- There we go.
- So, now I like to go,
with that head,
you probably could go right over to the skin,
but I actually like to go over the pants.
- And you could do whatever works best for you.
Are we going to do the anterior?
- Yeah, sure, let's see the anterior.
And I really feel this on me.
- Oh, I believe it.
Now, I don't have any shin splints,
but this feels really good.
- Oooh.
- It just feels like I'm doin' nice job.
Now, if I go directly on the bone...
- Right.
- It's okay with this airfield.
That's the big advantage of it.
But you're not gonna get as aggressive.
- You're not getting that deep, right.
- Yeah.
The anterior muscle is not as,
you don't have to get as deep
as the inside the medial,
where you're gonna get the posterior
so you have to use your own judgment.
- Right.
- I'm gonna change...
- And that's why, experiment with different heads
and figure out which one works for you.
- Yeah.
- But again, when you hit the certain spot
you may try going back and forth.
If it's a tender spot, do a little cross fiber.
- So all of our guns come with five different heads.
And so you'll get all of these.
So, you know, Bob was talking,
did you talk about some cross fiber?
- No, I just mentioned it,
why don't you show how that would work?
- So I've got the round head on.
You're not gonna do cross fiber with the airhead.
That just doesn't work.
- No.
But instead of goin' straight into it
you're gonna go sideways.
The fibers go up and down.
I'm gonna go across the fibers.
- And that works quite well.
- It does.
And you can get, you know, close to the bone.
I can actually go over it
when you're not, percussing straight into it.
You can really vary your intensity
by the angle as well.
So again, like Bob said, work around the tender spot
and as it feels better, you can go over.
You know, the first day you may not be able
to get into that tender spot,
'cause it's just too tender.
- What you wanna do is go
for about 30 seconds over the tender spot.
And if it just keeps getting worse,
it's too soon.
- Yup.
- If it starts to feel numb
or at least plateaus,
I think you can continue then.
- If the first time, you know,
give it a break, come back to it later.
And you know, if it feels better as a result
of doing it within an hour or two,
it's a good sign.
- Do you wanna show that one too Brad?
- Oh yeah.
- That one works well.
A little about, if you wanna get
really targeted area,
with the cross fiber,
this one works really well.
- 'Cause you got an edge there.
- Yeah.
- Let's get this thing goin' here.
- And you know, if you don't have a gun
and you're wondering which one to get,
this one or the bigger one, boy I don't know.
It's a tough choice.
If you want to get the more aggressive one...
- If you're a smaller person you might be able
to get by with this one,
but this does not translate as much.
- And it doesn't have these heads
that we're talking about.
- Right, right, it has different heads.
- Yeah, yeah.
So I'm goin' sideways with this flat head, if you will.
And I can get in pretty close
and very specific on those fibers with this, so.
- You know what I discovered Brad (laughs)?
- Yes.
- So I've been, we're using a standing table now,
almost continuously.
- Oh, you mean working at a desk
so you can raise it up, have it standing, yup.
- And my calves had gotten so sore just from that.
Because I wasn't before, I was sitting so much
and they're developing the endurance now
to stand all day.
- Sure.
- So my calves have been super sore (laughs).
And these have been the answer to me.
- The massage gun, yeah.
- Yes, it has.
So we're gonna, should we get back to shin splints?
- Yeah, sure.
(both laughing)
- Okay, so you're gonna work that area,
you know, a few minutes.
And once you get used to it
and you know it's doing well,
you can go, you know, 5 or 10 minutes.
Be careful with your skin,
obviously you don't wanna irritate it.
If you're older and you have sensitive skin
or a rash or anything, obviously you want
to stay away from that.
- With shin splints let me tell you if,
you know, if you start feeling shin splints,
that's where you wanna start this massage.
- Sure.
- I mean, if it gets too far along,
nothing's gonna be able to help.
- Yeah.
- I mean, you're just gonna have to rest
and maybe ice it and let it calm down.
- Yup.
- But if it gets too far,
massage isn't gonna help.
- Right.
- So you wanna hit that
pretty aggressive right away.
If you're, especially if you're a serious runner
and you have big designs on the year
as far as (laughs), the records.
- Get after it early.
- Yup.
All right, this video, by the way
is a part of a series of videos on massage guns.
And if you'd like to see the entire series
go to bobandbrad.com, go to the 'programs' section.
And under the program section
we have programs on sciatica and plantar fasciitis.
You'll see, when you get there.
- So, you go to that
and you're gonna find out for calves,
you're gonna find out a number,
you know, I don't know, 20 or 30 videos.
Look at the title that pertains
to your specific problem.
That way it's easy, it's all right there.
Look at it.
You can go to PDF printout,
which gives a complete review of the whole video
with the exercises and techniques in there.
And the whole thing is absolutely free.
We don't even ask for your email.
- I would probably charge any friends of yours.
- Well, yeah, that's a given and they understand that.
- Yeah, all right.
- I told them they're gonna be charged.
- You have to pay a price
for being friends with you.
- That's all right.
- All right, thanks.
(pleasant music)