♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous Physical Therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi, 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 ♪
- Wow, what a voice!
Today we're talking about stretching expert
reveals best time to stretch every day.
We're actually gonna talk about the best methods
to stretch too.
- As well, yeah, I think this is gonna be very interesting
cause this is a good question.
I think a lot of people may be questioning.
- My expert is Brad Walker.
- Oh, I thought that was gonna be Brad Heineck.
- Yeah, not Brad Heineck,
I actually just had him on a podcast
and he verified all the stuff that I'm about to say.
- Yeah, he's got a really nice book with-
- He's written a dozen books. - A dozen?
- Yeah. - I guess I've only read one.
- Yeah and actually,
he's been at this stretching since the 90's,
so he's been around. - Yeah.
He knows what he's talking about.
We better carry on.
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- Yes and we're always giving something away.
This week, we're giving away a Sleepovation mattress!
Oh my God! - That's right!
- How can we do that?
- Well, Bob, it's just the way we are.
Yeah, it doesn't look like this except for on the inside.
You know, it's completely covered.
This is a cutaway view.
It's got 700 tiny mattresses for your comfort.
- Really.
You know, my nephew and his wife,
they got in a fight over who's gonna get to sleep
on the Sleepovation mattress at our cabin.
- Who won?
- They decided to sleep together even though he snores.
- Oh really? Wow, we don't want to talk about it, Bob.
- Okay, you want to get rid of this, Brad?
- Yeah, let's get rid of this
and let's talk about stretching.
- So, when is the best time to stretch?
Now, Brad, I know in the morning is not always
the best time to stretch for this reason.
One reason is your discs.
The discs in your back.
- Between the vertebra - Between the vertebrae,
the bones that stack out to make your back,
they fill up with fluid at night called?
- Imbibition! - Imbibition, yeah.
- The imbibe! - The imbibe.
So actually in the morning,
you're taller than you are in the evening.
- Sure!
And you're also at a little more risk,
put that disc under stress, more stress,
because it's already got the stress
from the increased fluid.
So, you want to wait till you're up for about an hour,
maybe after you've walked for a while,
before you do any stretching.
So, morning's not a great time.
Midday for most people, I think, is just too busy.
- Yeah. - You know they're working!
- Yeah, unless you got a siesta
and you can get two hours off or something like that,
which in the United States that's pretty rare.
- Right, so Brad, not Brad Walker,
what he does is he stretches right before he goes to bed.
He and his wife they have all their torch tools
on the floor and they lie on the floor,
and they work on stretching.
And he said this has a lot of benefits.
One, the body heals all night long.
So if you're stretching the injury,
it'll have a chance to recover all night long.
- You get it to relax a little before you go to bed.
- He also says it works on a neuromuscular level.
- Sure.
- So, last thing your nervous system remembers
before you go to bed is this stretching.
- Sure. - So, if you want to get
the best bang for your buck,
stretch tonight.
- So, we're talking probably 10 minutes maybe more.
- While you're watching TV,
you're making a relaxing thing.
- Absolutely. - But now this is the key.
If you really want to make some gains,
what you really want to do is apply some heat first.
This is probably the best thing you can do.
So, if you have a body part that's really lagging,
let's say your calf muscles in your squats.
- Sure.
- Put a heating pad on there and warm it up a little bit
before you massage it.
The next thing you could do is massage
and then you stretch it.
- Now, if you didn't have a heating pad
or you wanted to take a warm bath, would that work?
- Yeah, I'm sure. - Or a warm shower?
But you want to heat it up,
get the initial relaxation going.
- Yeah, they have those heating pads
that you put a microwave and heat them up.
- Yup, there's a lot of options.
- I like the Sleepovation, not Sleepovation.
(both laughs)
- Thermotex! The Thermotex heating pad.
This is infrared, far infrared heat.
These really penetrate deep.
I won't recommend this just for this.
If you're having trouble with your back
or something like this,
I always liked this because it penetrates deeper
than normal heat.
- They're relatively expensive so if you really want
to get deep heat and get benefits from heat,
then it might be something that you may want to invest in.
- It's an investment.
But this penetrates 2.36?
- Yes, 2.36 inches.
- Yes, as opposed to regular heat
which only penetrates- - Skin deep.
- Yeah, so.
All right, so what you gonna do if you're gonna let's say,
if I'm really troubled with my quad
and my quadricep is really tight,
I would just put this on,
maybe I'd hit both at the same time.
I would heat it up for maybe five minutes
once it's already warm,
because this takes ten minutes to warm up.
- Right. - And then I would hit it
with a massage gun.
And you know it depends on your tolerance,
you could maybe use the bullet head.
- Sure. - These massage guns all come
with five different heads.
From the easiest which is probably the air-filled.
- Less aggressive, yes.
- The bullet is probably one of the most aggressive.
- Yeah, and I got kinda in the middle,
the round head here.
So, yeah, if you do have a tight like your quad,
you may get on that.
If you get down closer to your knee,
then you don't want to use a bullet head,
use a round head.
But you may spend like right now my quads
are a little sore from running over the weekend.
But you know, you may spend three to five minutes
on a larger muscle like that,
that you're getting after.
- Yeah, if you find a spot that's real tender,
you may want to spend a little more time on it
or work around it.
I mean that's an indicator that it probably needs some work.
If you want to know which muscles to work on,
which ones feel tight. - Right.
- When you put it out to stretch,
if it's the hamstrings,
work on your hamstrings. - Right.
If you've got some sore muscles
from doing something outrageous or you know,
more than you normally do,
work on those muscles a little bit.
- Right, right.
And then after that you can perform the stretch.
- Yeah, the whole idea is to get the muscles relaxed,
get circulation to increase,
and that's gonna improve healing, relaxation.
It's gonna make life better.
- It's funny Brad, when I was talking to Brad Walker,
the stretch expert,
he mentioned heat last time I had a podcast with him.
And now it's so obvious that you should do heat first.
Have you ever done it?
- Well, not really you know.
- No, I mean, I've never done before I stretch.
- I stretch after I get done working out where my core is up
as a result of working out.
But not like this.
- It's interesting.
He does not think you should stretch
for flexibility after working out.
He goes, "The muscles already tired,
they're a little bit vulnerable.
We don't want to stretch it to the point of injury."
So that's why he'd wait two hours
before stretching after a workout.
- Well, that's a good point to bring out
because historically I've heard from many people after-
- I told him that,
I told him that and and he goes,
"Right, there was a lot of misinformation out there."
And he goes, "That is not true you should not stretch."
I said the same exact thing.
- Well, wait ten years and they might change
their mind again. (both laughs)
- If some more studies come out on that.
- But really, try this and see how you respond.
If you sleep better,
if everything is working better it's clear.
- It does make sense to me.
I like to massage my feet with the foot massager at night.
- Yeah, sure. - Right before I go to bed.
But I'm gonna start doing my calves and heat
because my calves are always the problem area.
Do you want to show a couple of stretches, Brad?
- Yeah, for example,
I've got a hamstring issue that if I maintain them,
I'm much better off.
I ran over the weekend.
- You had a five mile race, right?
- Yeah, I did. - How did you do?
- Good, I felt really good about it.
Actually, I won my age division.
- Oh! - I might've been the only one
in my age division,
I really don't know.
But I think I ran about a 7:20, 7:25.
- Oh wow! Wow!
- But I'm sore. - I'm impressed, Brad.
- I'm sore as hell. - I'm very impressed.
- My calves and my quads are sore.
- 37, 30, what is that for a total time meant?
- It was 30, I can't remember.
But I had my phone talking to me every mile.
Yeah, my stepdaughter Ashley,
she set it up and it worked out beautifully.
The first mile I came in-
- So, you paced it right away? - Yeah.
The first mile I came in, I got 7:15.
It was like this is too fast,
I'm going to burn out.
- I couldn't even run a 7:15 now.
I mean, for one mile.
- I was pleasantly surprised.
But anyways, so now we're gonna do this for five minutes.
Oh, that feels great.
Oh, we've got to quit because we're getting bored.
- Right and then you do a stretch.
- Yeah, let's just show.
This is I think the best hamstring stretch,
particularly if you've got back problems
and you don't want to irritate your back,
this is the best.
In my opinion, of course. (Bob laughs)
But you know, you get a stretch out strap
or you can use a belt, you know.
- Well you got a whole routine here though, don't you Brad?
- Yeah, I'm not going to go through the hip part of it,
but you know the thing is I can go like this,
don't have to grab, I can relax.
And I'm just going to go up like this
and I may bend the knee,
and then go like this and get the hip a little bit.
And I always have a pillow or something to rest on,
or just relax cause when you're relaxed,
and the big benefit I like with the stretch out strap,
you're not interfering with your back.
And then I'll go over this way
and I'll get the medial aspect and the groin muscles,
which really is helpful I think.
It really completes that stretch.
- So, how long do you think he recommends
to stretch before you race? - Ah! Pop quiz time?
That's a good question. - You're gonna be wrong.
I know what you'll answer.
- Yeah, I read his book too and it seemed like
I thought it varied a little bit.
There were some variables.
- Depending on the type of stretch probably.
- But let's just say five to ten seconds.
- You're getting close. - Aha! Not the 30 seconds one.
- No, it was only like three to four seconds
that you stretch.
- And how many repetitions?
- He didn't say how many reps,
but what he would do is he'd go stretch,
then he'd start,
he'd run really slow.
I walk to start. - Sure.
- And then if he feels something?
You know like a spot that's bad?
He would stop and then stretch that spot.
- Oh, so is this all part of a warmup?
- Yeah, all part of a warmup,
which makes sense to me because I've done that before
where I've gone out for a run,
I started feeling something right away.
I stopped, I stretched my calf or my quad.
So, really good thing to follow.
So, you have to watch the video on Brad
or listen to the podcast.
- Yeah, B-W, Brad Walker. - Yeah, Brad Walker.
- Not B-H, all right. - All right.
Not B-S. (Bob laughs)
Oh, it says me!
- Yeah, but be careful in whatever you do.
- Yeah, thanks for watching.