♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the Internet ♪
- Well, hi there 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 talking about back pain sciatica.
Can a simple leg wedge take away your pain?
This is not a leg wedge.
(chuckles)
This is our giveaway, by the way.
This is something I've been pondering a while, Brad.
Pondering.
I like that word.
- What, the bed?
- No, thinking about back pain,
- Oh.
- And how it gets better and why it gets better
and we've had some discussions.
But, we're gonna go over this today,
why we think a leg wedge might help you,
or if you could just use a couple pillows, too.
- Sure.
- By the way, if you're new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos on how to stay healthy, fit, pain-free,
and we upload every day!
I gotta get my breath back.
You can also go to BobandBrad.com.
That's where the giveaway will be found
or you could go to Facebook.
It'll be pinned to the top of the page,
the giveaway, that is.
If you want 60 seconds of us, go to Instagram
or Twitter or TikTok.
We got 60 seconds a day.
This is the giveaway.
And if you have back pain or sciatica,
this is something you might wanna consider
because this is the back pain/sciatica mattress,
if you ask me.
(chuckles)
Brad's got spondylolisthesis.
Did I say it right?
- Spondylolisthesis, yeah.
But, it has really changed my life
as far as sleeping on my back.
I just can't say enough about it.
- Yeah, it's got 700,
this is just a sample, by the way.
This isn't a full mattress.
(laughs)
This little mattress, you gotta lay on.
It's got 700 individual mattresses.
It's got air channels.
We're also giving away a couple of pillows.
So, if you don't want a mattress, you might want a pillow.
Their pillows are very unique, too.
It's got individual foam squares,
but it's got springs inside of it.
- Springs, it's supposed to be cooler that way.
- Yeah, it's cooler that way.
And it's not like a down pillow,
like when you push down, it stays down.
- Yeah, yeah.
That's why it's "down".
- That's the old joke from-
- Yeah, old school.
- All right.
First thing.
This is the wedge that I'm talking about.
Where we've used this wedge typically,
is with people when they start off and they have back pain.
Brad uses this all the time.
If you've got a flare-up of back pain,
a lot of people will recommend to lay on your back,
a lot of times, put a cold pack underneath the back,
and put your legs up.
- Right.
- And this is a good position.
I've recommended this sometimes for people
who are unable to sleep in their bed
and they've been sleeping in a recliner instead.
- Sure.
- I've had 'em try to ease their way back
into bed by using a wedge first.
- Right.
- It's worked for some people, for some people
it just did not at all.
They had to stay in the chair.
- If it is for back pain, and you don't have a wedge,
you can lay on a carpeted floor and then a piece
of soft furniture that you can put up on the furniture.
- Like an ottoman or a chair.
- Yeah.
- So, your calf and your foot will be up on the chair
and then your hamstrings will be up against the chair
so you're laying-
- So basically, 90/90.
- Yes.
- Why don't you show, Brad, just with the wedge?
- Yeah.
So, this is what I do, like Bob said,
if I get carried away with yard work or something
and my back is sore, and I've done this
right in the middle of the day.
I say, "If I don't do this now,
"I'm gonna have a sore back for the next two days."
- [Bob] Just to calm it down immediately.
- Yeah, and then I can go back to work,
but at a lesser level.
Now the thing's black, so it will go this way
so you can see this.
I put the cold pack, I use a gel one so it's comfortable,
and it squishes into my back and then I have my wedge,
and I lay here and about 15 to 20 minutes.
And it's very comfortable, very relaxing,
and it really makes a difference.
- [Bob] You've mentioned to me Brad,
that you've even done it at night,
where you've fallen asleep like this
and you wake up a couple of hours later
and you kick it out.
- Exactly.
And I always have one of these in the clinic
and I would say 90% of the time, people with back pain
that I have this with, they respond very well.
Not 100%, but vast majority.
- It's a good universal one.
They aren't that expensive.
- Nope.
- So, I feel good in recommending one.
- Yep.
- But this is what I'm thinking, you know?
Hey, there's some other uses for this.
- Sure.
- So, sometimes with back pain and sciatica,
we have people start the McKenzie Method.
And sometimes they're not able to lay
on their stomach flat.
We like to have them start by laying
on their stomach like this, and they're unable to do it.
So, this is a great way to ease into it.
So basically, you're gonna lay
on the wedge itself, like this.
And I think even if you have pretty severe back pain,
you'll be able to tolerate this.
- Right.
- It's just a very comfortable position.
So, you're gonna try this first
and then if that feels okay, I want you to take your elbows
and prop up onto them.
So, you're gonna get up a little bit higher.
- Sure.
- Now, what this is doing is,
you're putting the back muscles on slack.
- Right here.
- So they're nice and relaxed and they really can calm down.
A lot of times, if you can do this
for at least 90 seconds.
No movement for at least 90 seconds.
And then you can start doing a little bit of wiggling,
just to get a little bit of movement,
and then you can go about your day and see how it works out.
- [Brad] I wanna just say, Bob, you're looking for comfort.
You're only gonna do these if your back feels better
while you're doing it.
You just feel it relax and it's calming down,
you know you're doing the right thing then.
- Now, if you're having pain on one side,
let's say it's on my left side.
- Yep.
- A thing you can try is try what we call,
the roadkill position.
So I'm actually gonna take my foot
and put it against my knee.
On the painful side, I'm taking the painful leg
and bending it up into an angle,
and putting the foot on my knee
of the side that's not painful.
This relaxes the back even more on this side.
So, give that a try and see.
If you're having sciatica pain down the leg,
and this doesn't take the pain out of the leg,
try this and see if it does.
- Right.
- 'Cause we're always looking to get that pain
out of the leg, into the back, and then it goes away.
So, you need to get the pain out of the foot
and ankle first before you can get it to be eliminated.
- So, you could do this, you could do it on a bed
if it's a firm bed and you cannot get to the floor.
Ideally, on a carpeted floor is the best place.
Or unless you have a treatment table,
which most people do not.
- Yes, some people are gonna have trouble getting down
to the floor.
- Right.
- So that's why I do it on the bed.
Even in this position now,
you could even prop up on your elbows now too,
after you've been there for a while.
And even put your chin up onto your hands like this.
You're really putting your back on slack, then.
So now, let's say that feels better,
or maybe it doesn't feel better.
You can also try what we call micro press-ups.
These are small press-ups.
These are good for someone who is maybe
a little bit out of shape and hasn't
been doing these, Brad.
- Mm-hmm.
- 'Cause this brings you partly up already.
- Sure.
- So, I got my hands here on the sides of it
and I start just doing gentle press-ups like this.
And this is so easy to do, as opposed to
if this is not in place.
Brad and I have to go up like this and do an actual push-up.
- Right.
- That's a lot harder to do.
This keeps the back a lot more relaxed.
So, little micro press-ups like this.
Again, we're looking for it to feel better.
That the leg pain is getting better.
That the back is feeling even better.
- Right.
You're not gonna progress through this video during this
if it's making things worse.
Particularly down the leg.
Only if it's the other way.
If it is making it worse, we need to make
some adjustments or it just might not be ready for it.
- Now, the final exercise would be to do full press-ups
off the wedge here.
And I guess, the final final exercise, Brad,
would be just to then progress to taking it out of place.
- Yeah.
Put this in the closet.
- And now that you're out of that, you wanna go
start to do the same progression.
Try maybe prop on the elbows.
- [Brad] Right.
- Maybe try roadkill, then try micro press-ups.
- Yeah.
- And then try full press-ups.
Again, I don't care if you have sciatica,
I don't care if you have just regular old back pain.
You can give these a try.
The only thing that I would say is
if you have Brad's spondylolisthesis and...
You wanna say it again?
- Spondylolisthesis, or-
- Spinal stenosis.
- Yeah.
- I would probably hold off on doing those
'cause it probably won't feel good.
- Right.
- It probably is not gonna do what it's supposed to do.
- So, this is the first time we've actually did a video
for this, using the wedge in this manner, I think.
So, this is another option just to make use
of something like this.
If you do have sciatica and these exercises
don't seem to be working well,
just go to our playlist of sciatica,
and you'll see other videos
and you'll have a very good chance
you're gonna find other options
that are gonna help you out.
- Well I hate to even mention this, Brad,
but we did a full program on sciatica on our website,
but it's not up yet.
(chuckles)
And it's probably gonna be two to three weeks before it is.
- Right.
- I don't wanna get too excited about that.
- That is really gonna be the cat's meow!
- Yeah, we got 40-some videos on sciatica alone.
And we go from start to finish.
We talk about every aspect you should know
to make your sciatica better.
- And the nice thing about, is they're all titled,
so it's all in certain areas.
You're not gonna watch all of those.
- No, you just go through the titles and you go,
"Oh, that one pertains to me."
- Yep.
- And each video also has a PDF with it
which means you can actually go on in and print out
what we talked about in the video.
So, you don't need to listen to us more than once.
You just have to watch the video and print it out.
- And everyone's in favor of that, Bob.
(laughs)
We do not wanna cause more people going to a psychologist
and a therapist to get over...
- Get over Bob and Brad.
- As a matter of fact, this is something,
I gotta tell you this, Bob.
I was at the hardware store, his name is Bob, too.
I know the owner.
And he started running at age 60,
so he started watching our videos to become a better runner.
And 11:00 last night, which the night before,
his wife was hollering at him.
And she said, "Bob, turn Brad down!"
(laughs)
'Cause he was listening to our videos!
(laughing)
- We're causing dissension in the household.
- Yeah, so it was a spousal problem.
So, we apologized.
- And this proves my next point here.
Brad and I can fix just about anything.
- Except for...
- A broken heart or a broken marriage.
(chuckles)
But, we'll work on it, right Brad?
- Right, I got it.
- Turn us down.
(chuckles)
Thanks for watching.
(electric music)