♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Howdy 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 talk about the number one tool,
I mean tool number one
that is in our toolkit
to help you get better from back pain.
So, what is the tool?
- A half-inch wrench?
- No, it's actually an exercise, a stretch,
or some type of mobility,
or you could even position, Brad.
It's not an extra tool.
- Hey, that makes me feel better.
But anyways, yeah.
And these are all gonna get you to achieve your goal
of abolishing your back pain
or getting rid of it,
or at least making you have control over the pain.
- Right, I put this as tool number one, Brad,
because I think it's simple to do.
It does take time, but it's very, very effective.
I think everybody who has back pain
should be doing this.
So, we're talking about walking.
- Yep.
It's important.
You're not just gonna go up
and walk up and down a hill or anything like that.
You're probably gonna walk on the flat,
be attentive to the road that it's not curved,
because that can affect your back as well.
- Yeah, you don't wanna be tilted one way
for the entire time.
Walking can have a healing effect on your back.
Dr. McGill, Stuart McGill,
world-renowned back expert
says that it acts like nature's balm.
- In other words, it makes your back feel better.
- So, if you think of yourself as the Tin Man
in "The Wizard of Oz."
And he was all.
- Rusted.
He couldn't move and painful.
- This is gonna give you a little oil,
and it's gonna get your back moving really well.
- And also there's other benefits to walking.
So, it's a win-win situation.
- There are, right.
It's a good thing you should do anyway.
- And if your back happens to be so bad
you're unable to walk,
there are gonna be other tools
to help you take care of you in that situation.
- Right, let's talk about that now, Brad.
Let's say you're an extender.
So, you don't like to straighten up
and you might have spondy or you might have spinal stenosis.
You're gonna feel better
maybe if you start your walking program
with a wheeled walker.
- Well, I ain't doing that, Bob.
- You can steal a shopping cart.
- But yeah, I mean, some people will be happy to do it.
If you can, it works better.
Or if you don't have one, we're gonna go to a walking stick.
- A cane.
Walking sticks.
Double walking sticks.
I had one for my wife, but she got rid of it
and she's doing fine now.
- The walking sticks are cool-looking.
You don't have that stigma of being an old person
that's crippled, if you will.
- All right, let's talk about the opposite, Brad.
Let's say you're a flexer
and you're a person that when you bend forward,
it actually bothers you.
Some of you when you walk,
you may not realize it, but your posture is terrible.
I mean, I see people that oh my God.
- May not be aware that this is happening.
- Right, so one thing you can do is actually take your hand
and grab behind and string yourself out.
And then you can do it while you're walking even.
You can just get yourself in the right position.
The other thing you could do.
Bob, you want to grab the Booyah Stik?
- Sure.
- Just briefly you could,
don't walk outside with this,
but you can make sure
that you got three points of contact when you're walking.
So, the three points of contact
are the head, the mid-back, and the sacrum,
or the low-back pelvis.
- Right about the belt line.
- If you're like this at only one point of contact,
you're not walking with good posture
and that's got a cumulative effect on you.
It's gonna actually make you sorer
and sorer and hurt your back more and more.
- So yeah and you probably aren't
even aware of your posture,
but you just need anything,
a four or five foot long stick that's straight
and put it back and feel that.
You may feel like you're really up taller
bending backwards, but actually you're straight.
- Yeah, if you use the Booyah Stik, Brad,
you can use it as a walking stick then.
- Yep, it's a wonderful deal.
- I know the other thing Stuart brings up is like
if you're bent forward like this
and you poke your fingers in your low back, they're hard,
because you should be able to relax 'em
if you're in good posture.
- And he talks about they fatigue
and then become more painful.
And he does talk about getting a position
and then slightly tapering out your stomach muscles and core
so that when you walk, you're in a good posture as well.
It all revolves around that spine position.
- Okay, another thing.
You might be walking too slow.
My gosh, you wouldn't think that would help,
but it actually helps take more stress off your back
if you walk at a little quicker pace.
- Yeah, we're not talking about speed walking,
but not shuffling either.
- Yeah, it was funny, Brad.
I had a patient like this.
He came walking.
This is so clear to me.
He came in and he was like limping.
He looked like he had been through war.
I go, "We're gonna walk and I want you to walk fast."
And he starts walking fast.
This look kind of came on his face, like,
"This doesn't hurt as much."
I mean, it was amazing.
I was
Jesus for a day.
So, another thing.
I wanna give the example, Brad,
when I hurt my back, I actually ran the next day,
and it felt better because I was getting the back moving
and I was trying to run without too much pounding.
- We don't suggest everyone run.
- No, no.
- If it does help, it's okay.
- Another thing, you might be going too far,
too much, too fast.
Brad's middle name.
- I'm one of those that if a little bit's good,
maybe I should do a lot, 'cause it'll be better.
- So, you wanna start off slow,
maybe start walking in your house,
just going back and forth.
Nice and controlled.
See how it feels the next day.
But you wanna get some walking,
especially Stuart recommends after every meal.
Like three times a day.
- So yeah, if you're gonna walk,
it's nice if you're living in town,
you can walk around the block so that you're not too far.
When you find out you've gone too far,
you can get back to home.
I used to tell my patients that a lot.
- You might be taking too long of strides, too.
Sometimes if you take a long stride,
you're actually hitting on your heels,
and it's reverberating the force back up through the spine.
So, you take a little shorter stride.
Sometimes you're more on your forefeet
and that kind of cushions it.
It's kinda hard to explain,
but I mean if you just shorten your stride once
and see if it feels better.
- All right.
You may have to actually
decompress your spine once in a while.
- Oh, a little bit of traction, so to speak.
So, this works out well if you're in a park
and there's some cemented park benches.
Yeah, Brad if you wanna show 'em that.
- So, a solid park bench or even a fence that's solid
that has something about this high.
And I've done this many times
and I'll just lean forward.
And this is tilt-y a little bit,
so it's not working quite as good.
I'm gonna go here like this.
And that works good.
I'm taking here.
Well, let's see.
- Yeah, you could do it on countertop.
- The trick on that is being able to support your weight
and then relax in your core,
so you get a little traction through your spine.
And it feels good.
If it doesn't feel good, you don't do it.
- Sometimes it'll buy you like 10, 15 minutes
of walking without pain.
You could give it a try.
The last thing is be really careful
if you have a dog and you're taking it out on a leash.
And if it's an active dog,
it's gonna be a lot of work on your back.
- If it's pulling and jerking on you.
I've treated patients with dogs
injuring their back or their shoulders.
- Absolutely.
I've had patients who fell because of their dog.
Their dog got wrapped up and around them.
- So, if you're gonna buy a dog and you got back pain,
get a little one,
so it can't pull you over. - Get a little dog.
All right Brad, anything else you wanna add?
- No, no, no.
I didn't know if you wanted to put anything
about the traction from the hanging.
- Sure, why don't you mention it?
- Yeah so, if there isn't a park bench,
but you have a pull-up bar
or some method in which you can grab,
like a good, solid bar like a pull-up bar.
I'll demonstrate here.
These are hanging handles
which most people don't have.
But they do work really well.
But you just simply slowly.
If you had a pull-up bar and it was really high
and you had to jump to it, that won't work.
You have to have something you can slowly
and gently get some traction.
And I can feel the decompression on my back right now.
And I'm about 50 to 75%
of my weight going through there now.
And if it feels really good, there's nothing wrong
with going full weight.
What am I saying Bob?
Hanging, hanging.
This feels good on my back.
I'm a happy person.
And if that's the case
and when you get done with it, it still feels good.
'Cause that's important.
When you get done,
it should continue to feel that relief.
Then you can continue with that.
- Yeah, we invented them so that you could do it
in your own office or bedroom.
- It really does work well to have the wall
behind the back.
- It's good support.
All right, check out the rest of our videos.
We'll have more tools for you.
- Ah, yes!
Now I understand the tools.
(soft, playful music)