♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
(claps)
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist
- Together, we're the most famous
physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today we're gonna show you how to get rid of
painful, stiff neck with just one exercise.
- Bob, we got a good
some good information on this.
I think it's gonna help a lot of people.
- Just worked with three of your patients, right?
- Exactly right.
- I'm not trying to steal your thunder.
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- There you go.
- I got you, Brad.
- Excellent job, Bob.
- All right, thanks.
- Shall we continue?
- Yes, let's go.
- All right, so neck pain is oftentimes associated
with a stiff neck.
And not only that, particularly I had three patients
that had very similar symptoms.
And we've heard these complaints over the years many times.
It's very common.
- Want to point it out on me? - Yep.
Neck pain oftentimes refers down into the scapular area.
Sometimes down into the arm. - [Bob] Shoulder blade.
- Yep, shoulder blade here.
And that's where all three of these were.
Neck pain down into the scapular or the shoulder blade area.
Oftentimes one side, not the other.
It could be both sides.
And all three of these people
were limited with range of motion,
right and left rotation.
One side is typically worse than the other.
And then say, can you look up to the ceiling like this?
And all of them are like,
ah, that hurts.
Which is very typical.
- Right.
And a lot of times they feel,
well, because it hurts, I shouldn't do it.
- Right.
And I had one patient, he's been taking his Ibuprofen,
he's been doing some stretching.
He had a TENS unit from another injury.
He tried that. - Sure.
- He says, nothing's working.
So I said, well, let's give this a try.
- Let's give this a go.
- Okay, so now all three of these people
I used the same exercise, but various options.
Three variations.
- Sure.
- So just kind of hold
and if you try one of these three,
there's a good chance that you're gonna
increase your range of motion and decrease your pain.
- Yeah actually Brad, I saw a study
that was done on lacrosse,
- Oh.
- That if you increase your extension,
you also increase your rotation.
- Yep, yep.
- So, by the way, should we mention that
you should never do this if it makes
you dizzy or lightheaded.
- Right.
- You're gonna hold off then and you're gonna want to have
a professional look at it.
- You're gonna go in and seek some help.
- Yeah.
- Good point, Bob.
The next thing, is you need to have a chair
with a back rest that is low enough.
Now this one is just about,
I wouldn't want any higher than this.
- It's nice if it can go below the shoulder blades.
- [Brad] Right.
- Just right below the shoulder blades.
This one kind of hits you right on the tip, doesn't it?
- [Brad] Yep.
But it works because it rotates.
- It rotates.
- It'll work, it's right on the borderline.
- You can do it on a stiff back,
but it should be lower then.
- Yep.
One of these office chairs really work well.
They're a little cushiony enough to flex.
- They kinda work.
- It's important, that's why we want to emphasize that.
And then the repetition so we remember it is
usually five, no more than 10 repetitions at a time.
And as long as the pain gets better
and the motion improves, you can do it as much
as one time per hour.
And get rid of this.
- I think that's a good point, Brad.
Because a lot of people think that,
I'm gonna do this, my exercise once a day,
like I'm supposed to.
It's like, no, you would really want
to do this quite often.
- Right.
- I mean, five to seven times, five to eight times a day.
And that's where you're gonna see, you know,
some gains made there.
- Right.
There's one more thing.
I know you're entrusted.
You really want to start seeing the exercise,
but all these area absolutely critical
to be successful.
- Sure.
- Is monitor your posture while you're sitting,
particularly at a computer, watching TV, in your car.
Because if you do these exercises,
and you go back to head-forward, slouched posture,
it's just gonna,
- It's gonna come right back.
- One step forward, two steps back.
That's critical.
- You won't be able to stay ahead of it.
- Right.
Okay, now I need to take my mic off
so then you don't have to listen to me talk anymore.
Bob gets to go all of the talking.
- If you say something, Brad, I'll just repeat it.
- Okay. - If there's something I miss.
- Right, right, that'll be entertaining in itself.
- It's like a puppet.
- So, because what happens is we're gonna use a towel.
It binds up with the wires and everything else.
So I'll just talk and I'll be like a mime.
(laughs)
I got that out of the way.
- What a wonderful world.
Okay, so he's gonna take the towel.
He's gonna roll it up.
He's got a quite heavy, thick towel here.
And just like the old days where he used to snap
his buddy's butts.
- You did that.
- Yeah, okay.
So he's actually, in this case,
'cause there's a couple ways you can do this.
But he's actually pulling down.
And you can work a little bit on the level
that you're putting it.
But, generally we just start right
at the base of the neck.
And what you'll find is, a lot of times, without the towel,
you can't do it, it just hurts too much.
And most patients I have, have to use the towel to start.
- Yeah.
- And they always seem to really enjoy the fact
that all of a sudden they can start moving back.
And you may not be able to go that far to start.
You'll be able to go farther than without the towel.
But yeah, just take the movement that it allows.
So, maybe for a couple days you're only gonna go
about 50 percent of how far, the total amount.
But eventually, you want to see
if you can get further and further.
So what Brad is saying is, a lot of times,
you start, instead of just going back,
we start getting your posture correct
by chin-tucking, tucking the chin in,
and then going back.
'Cause what we don't want is somebody going like this.
So that's why we chin-tuck and go back.
- If we're not having good success with this,
- So, we're not having good success with this.
- If we're not having good success with this,
then the next step, I'm sorry, Bob.
I can't just let you do all the talking.
- Right, right.
- We're gonna go to,
you can use a belt, usually not a slippery belt.
- Are you hearing?
A little closer.
- A little close, oh, how about that?
Hello.
And then,
- He's gonna use a belt.
- A strap that has cloth, versus a shiny one.
- Okay.
- Oh these are sensitive.
Bob, I'll let you go.
- All right, so he's got,
I mean you can use a belt, too.
I mean, I've done it with a belt, actually.
What Brad was saying is it's nicer if they're very thin
because then you can really get on to
specific levels of the neck.
'Cause sometimes you'll find out that it works out
really well quite low.
Sometimes it's better doing it further up.
And so you can vary and figure out
which level actually works for you.
How do you know it's the right level?
It actually feels better.
- And more range of motion.
- And the more range, right?
It's gonna allow you to move further.
So right now, Brad moved it up a little further.
And, there you go.
About an inch at a time.
And he's starting to pull down.
Yep, and now he's starting to get more motion.
All right, so Brad's mentioned that all three
of the people he worked with,
there was definitely a specific level that worked better.
And one was up higher, yes.
And I found that myself sometimes,
but yeah, a lot of times normally the stress
is on the lower neck.
But I've seen it myself too where sometimes,
are you getting feedback?
You're hitting the mic, Brad.
- [Brad] Oh, I'm sorry.
(laughs)
- Okay.
And now he's actually gonna go the other direction.
And this is a different variation.
The joints actually are angled like this.
So he's gonna kinda go along with the joint itself.
And then he's gonna actually,
when he's going back like this,
you can see his hands are moving along with him.
He's not just doing this.
He's not doing this, now go back.
Yeah.
He's going with it.
The eyes are staying level with the fists or the thumbs.
So, this is another variation on how you can do it.
That's a good cue.
So he said if you put the thumbs out,
they point right into your eyes
and they should stay with the eyes.
And again, you can try different levels
using the thinner strap.
But this one, I'd start with the thicker one.
Got the mic here.
You start with the thicker one.
- I'll go back.
- He's going back on.
And then usually if you can try a thinner one,
it's gonna often help.
- Can you hear me, Liz?
Everything's okay?
That was really hard, Bob.
- Yeah, it was.
It's like I've had patients that can't speak our language.
I've used interpreters.
And I think, oh, it's just terrible.
- Yeah, it's challenging.
- So you're gonna show one more
with the traction, right?
- Nope, we just did that one.
- Oh, I see.
I see what you're saying.
Okay.
- 'Cause you're pulling.
- You're pulling up.
And it actually almost gives a little traction to that.
- Right, right.
- Is the point we were trying to make.
- Exactly.
- Yeah, give these a try.
Experiment around with them.
Always remember, though, it should be no pain,
or certainly less pain than you would be
doing it without using a device.
- Right, with repetition.
- You're always gonna be pretty safe
if you keep that no pain credo.
- Right.
- And no dizziness and so on.
- Lightheadedness.
- Right.
- Those are critical red flags to watch out for.
- And remember, Brad and I are not just pretty.
- Oh yeah, we're pretty ugly?
- No, we're pretty handy.
- Yeah. - And helpful.
So, make sure you subscribe to us.
- That's right.
We can just fix about anything.
Oh yeah, we can't double up.
- You can't double up.
Don't you dare.
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