- Today we're gonna show you how to put your pants, shoes,
and socks on when you have back pain.
- It's a problem, Bob.
It's something that we really need to be prepared.
- En garde.
♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists on the internet ♪
- The first thing, Brad, is you want to keep your back
in a nice straight position.
You don't wanna round out like this.
If you feel pain when you're doing this,
you're doing it wrong.
So if you have hip mobility, flexion, and external rotation,
you can actually keep your back straight
and just bring the foot up to you.
- Right, so if you're putting on your shoe or your sock
like this, you do not want to do this.
That's gonna really stress your back.
- You'll feel it.
- Yep, if you can do this, keeping good posture.
You can see I've got a back support to maintain.
And really take your time is a key.
Take your time and do it right.
- That's why as a part of this series
we have so many videos on how to get increased hip motion.
- That's right, exactly,
'cause it's so functional for daily things.
Okay, if you do not have hip mobility
and you cannot bend forward, so you wanna protect your back,
they have something called a sock aid.
Here I have the sock put over it and I'll show you
what it looks like and the procedure right now.
So these are used very commonly
for people after surgery as well.
- [Bob] After the hip replacement.
- [Brad] Yep, so I'm gonna go in there, put my foot.
Now I've got my other sock on,
but normally you don't put a sock over a sock
but it works just as well.
You can see my toes coming
and you simply pull up.
Voila, there we go.
- [Bob] There we go.
- Yep, so the way that works is before you do that
it's easy just to slide your sock on and prepare it like so.
- And then if you wanna pull up a little more.
- Ah yes, let's say that your sock was down to there
and you can't get up and you don't want to bend
because it's gonna hurt your back.
You get in there with this reacher
and they have a little thing here that sometimes works
and you can just pull it up.
These are things that don't always work really fast,
as you can see.
As you get better with it, it works better.
I'm gonna get in there and pull.
There we go.
You can see my nice skeleton socks I'm so proud of.
They're warm, too.
So you go on with that.
Now should we go onto the horn?
- Yeah.
- For putting on your shoes,
if you have the hip flexibility to do this,
simply do that
and monitor your back posture.
This is what I always holler at my nephew for.
He doesn't untie his shoe laces.
If you have stretchy shoes laces it works really good.
- Yeah, if you have elastic shoelaces.
- Which is pretty common in the, you know, geriatric.
- Elderly position.
- Or after surgery.
Now, if you do not have that and you can't bend forward,
get your shoe prepared like this.
- [Bob] Yes, wide open with laces untied.
- [Brad] Yep, get yourself a long shoehorn like this.
That's critical that you get a long one
and they're readily available and they're not too expensive.
Get your foot in the shoe, the horn goes in there and voila.
- [Bob] Yeah, it worked pretty well.
- Very nice.
So again, if you get the elastic shoelaces.
- You just leave them tied.
- Yep, you're simply done and they work great.
They're becoming very popular now.
You know, people, runners are wearing them.
People walking, the whole works, so.
- There's even types of shoes that you can slide on.
They're made to slide on.
- Yeah, they got the collapsible heel.
My mother has those and she's grateful.
- The Zebas.
- Zebas, yes.
- Okay. We're gonna show you how to put some pants on now.
Brad, one leg at a time, right?
- Yeah, absolutely, Bob.
- So you just throw your pants out there and, again,
if you have hip mobility, you can just go ahead,
go right to it.
But if you don't,
you actually make sure the legs are straight.
Use your reacher
and slide the leg in there.
- Very common where people after hip and knee surgeries.
But for low back pain, this is a good way to avoid
irritating that back on a daily basis.
- Right, it doesn't pay to even irritate the back
for a short period of time.
- Yep, that's all it can take is one bend forward and, ooh,
you can set yourself back.
- There you go.
- Wow, Bob, that was incredible.
You are a man of steel.
- Whatever that means.
All right, thanks.
- I saw that on a movie.
(cheerful upbeat music)