♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the Internet ♪
- Hi, folks.
I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And we are the most famous physical therapists
on the Internet.
- In our own opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today we're gonna show you a simple fix for neck hump
using a towel and a tennis ball.
It's also known as Dowager's Hump?
- Dowager's Hump
- This thing is actually good for most people, actually
for anybody who is having trouble with their posture,
especially in their upper back or neck.
And we'll show you why in just a minute,
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- [Brad] In like Flynn.
- All right so generally,
the neck hump is generally caused
by prolonged poor posture
and especially the forward head posture.
You go forward head, it puts stress on that,
do you want to show how that puts stress on the neck, Brad?
- Oh, yes I do, Bob.
- Before we do this.
- As a matter of fact, I have a little model here
that will demonstrate the force of gravity with the head
bringing it down through your neck
and making that Dowager's hump.
So here we have,
is this Wilson, Wilson number two?
- Well, sure, we'll call him Wilson.
- Represents your head weight
and this is your cervical column.
- So a bowling ball's what, about 12 pounds?
Your head's probably about 10 pounds.
- Yeah, it's a little less.
My head's a little bigger.
I got a fat head. - That's true, that's right.
- I wish there was brains in there.
Anyways, we go forward like this
and I can feel a lot more pressure
the further you go forward
and there was a--
- Basically they estimate 10 pounds of stress
for each inch that you move forward.
- Right.
- So if he moves,
if he's straight up and down like that,
very easy to hold it, isn't it Brad?
- Right.
Yeah, the person's happy.
- Yeah, but if you start going forward
like this one inch even,
there's an extra 10 pounds of stress on the wrist
further yet, and you can see he's struggling more and more.
- There you go.
- And suddenly, he's not happy anymore, he's sad.
- There you go.
That's one of those things you'll remember.
- Yeah, so with your neck
as you have your head forward like this,
and a lot of people don't even know their neck
and head is forward like this,
the body reacts.
If there's increased stress on the area,
it starts laying down more thick, connective tissue.
- Right, and it needs that support
so everything holds up. - Right it needs to hold it
so it's gonna react to it
and maybe even more fatty tissue is gonna lay down there
so Brad's going to show you one on here.
- So we had the Wilson, the model,
now we have an actual real model of the spine
so the head would be here looking this direction.
And you can see-- - You can see how this
kind of forms a bump because you're wondering,
"Where did that bump come from?"
And it's actually part of your spine and again,
there could be connective tissue and fat
that's been deposited over the fat over there.
- Right, and that could be pretty significant
as a lot of us haven't seen.
- It looks bad.
It can increase pain.
You can increase your headaches
so this simple technique's gonna work.
Let's get to it, Brad.
So what you're going to need is a tennis ball,
you could maybe even do with a lacrosse ball,
but a tennis ball's soft already.
Now, what I find with most people
is that this is a little bit too intense for them.
And you'll find out by adding the towel,
it's just the right amount of stress on there
without being uncomfortable.
- Right, so what we're talking about
is you're gonna lay down on a carpeted floor,
maybe a hard floor if you want to,
it depends on your comfort level,
but Bob will demonstrate here.
- Yeah, I'm gonna show where
I'm gonna do it on Brad. - Oh sure, yup.
- So what you're gonna do is you want to hit
the different areas here.
You've gotta put your tag in there, Brad.
- Oh, sorry, sorry.
- You're go on the left side of the spine,
right side of the spine,
and just work your way down.
And by laying on here, like 30 seconds on each section,
it's gonna stretch those out
better than you've ever felt before.
Just watch it.
Especially if you have knots in this area,
it's gonna help that.
- And so you're not gonna go on the spine,
on those bumps.
- I'd rather not.
You can, I mean, I'd rather not.
- Right.
- I don't do it that way.
- Probably going to be a lot more uncomfortable
and you'll feel good, like that's good pressure
that gets into those muscles on the side.
- I'm going to tell for the average person
you can just go ahead and put the ball down.
You put the towel over the top of it
and I'm going to go ahead and lay down on top of it
and I'm gonna get the upper part of my spine,
I just find it right there,
in the upper part of my thoracic area, basically would be.
And then I can just lean back like this
and I bring my shoulders out so I'm getting the stretch here
and that just feels really like a good stretch.
- [Brad] Sure.
- Now, I can move it over to the other part of the spine
and now I'm getting that side.
Again, you can lay each section for 30 seconds.
I've been doing this for a number of months
I've really loosened up already, quite a bit.
- [Brad] Sure, right.
This helps your shoulder mechanics as well.
- Yeah its really helped my posture with running.
I do this before I run.
I actually stretch while I'm doing it.
- [Brad] Sure.
- I found out my breathing's better
because I've got the diaphragm in a better position,
everything's in a much better position.
So you just work your way down the spine.
Now for instance, let's say, you're very tight.
You're already like this,
you've got the head-forward posture,
you might want to start off with a pillow on there
instead of the towel.
There it goes.
- So I'm gonna put that there, the pillow,
and the thickness of the pillow
is going to vary on what you tolerate,
so you have to kind of work with that a bit
and see how it goes. - Yeah.
So now this is more of a gentle stretch to start off with
and you might have a pillow for underneath your head,
especially if you're kind of a forward head,
but you could start this way, just by stretching out
and again, I can work the other side of the spine.
I can feel right where the ball is
and I can work my way down.
So it's real simple.
It's real easy to do.
It doesn't take any effort on your part
but it just takes a little bit of time.
30 seconds, 30 seconds, you know?
A couple of minutes
and you've stretched the whole spine out.
You're going to be in better posture and eventually,
give it some time, you can work that hump out of there
and get back to a (mumbles)
posture. - And did we mention,
it's really important when you're
laying there and stretching to think about your breathing.
- Oh, very good point, Brad.
- Deep relaxed breathing.
In your nose, out your mouth
and just let things relax and allow that body
to get back into shape where it needs to go.
- Yeah, the breathing is really good
for expanding the ribcage and everything.
- Sure.
- So that you want to involve that too.
- Wow.
- So give it a shot.
Give us some shout outs in the comments below
so we know what you guys think about it.
- Right.
- And Brad said someone's gonna define
Dowager's Hump for us.
It has something to do with an old lady or something right?
- Don't, watch out, Bob. - Okay, all right, all right.
- People are sensitive about it.
- All right, all right.
- And gave some very good definitions.
- All right. - Bring them on.
- Thanks for watching everybody.