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 Bob.
Today we're going to go over the simple self treatment for neck popping cracking and grinding
and we're also going to tell you what you should worry about that. Sure
You know as if you don't have enough things to worry about, by the way
you know if you're listening to us for the first time or
our microphones went out, so you're gonna maybe notice a difference, if you are listening to us for the first time
Compare us to other videos. It's going to be weird sounding but, we'll get them fixed and
by next week, we should be back on track again
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All right, generally when you hear popping, cracking people are always surprised at this aren't they Brad? A lot of patients I have
they think that it's something they only have, right
It's always louder to the person that has it because your neck is so close to your ears and it just, it's like, it vibrates through the bones.
It's just a much louder noise, sounds much worse
And you know, sometimes it's the pop sometimes it's what we call crepitus or like I always say like Rice Krispies
Which is two different things which we're going to get into, that's right
And you know the first time, generally this stuff is harmless
I mean, let's first start off by saying that Brad. I want to take away your worry
We'll tell a couple of instances of when you may want to get it checked out
But your neck is deteriorating almost from age 20 and on, but don't get too worried. It's not that it's gonna fall apart
It's a slow process, it's like getting gray hair, but starting a little. Yeah. It's all part of life unfortunately and the alternative isn't a great one.
So truly and if you're...
We're going to show you how to do a test here first off because generally with the popping sound is a release of gas, nitrogen gas
And you say when it goes from liquid to solid or what is it? It goes from liquid to a gas
A liquid to a gas, cavitation
If you're into physics you understand how that works, well it's like cracking your knuckles, right
So if that's what's going on in your neck, and it pops
Whatever action you did to create the pop
Repeat it
And if it doesn't pop the second time that means it was probably gas
Because it takes a while for that gas to build up again, right
Yeah, or for the gas to turn into a liquid then it's going to pop, whatever takes some time
It's like when you pop your knuckles, you pop a bunch and they won't pop for another 10, 15 minutes
So if I go crack and I check it again and it doesn't crack then it's unlikely that you know
And then it's likely the nitrogen gas. It's cavitation. All right when to worry
If you get pain with every crack and every pop then in that instance
It still could be like arthritis and that's not uncommon at all
But then in that instance, you might want to get checked out. You may try the exercise we're going to show you
See if that helps, the other occasion would be if
it starts cracking after a traumatic accident or some type of trauma
You hurt your neck, you know, you may have gotten a little whiplash or something like that, and if it cracks
along with pain then in that instance you definitely want to get checked out
They'll probably take xrays, whatever it takes to
assure that there's no problem, by the way Brad
And this also if you have the habit of cracking your neck, try these exercises too
this might help break you of it, a lot of people crack crack crack and that's not necessarily good
I mean, it doesn't lead to arthritis or anything. Some people do it just to annoy other people. That's what you think Brad
They crack their neck just because it would be loud enough you could hear it
And they, oh don't do that. Sorry I got off on a tangent
He's got an interesting life. All right. So let's start off with the first exercise Brad
We just got more exercises and what you're doing is if you have arthritis in your neck by the way
These are going to be good for you too, because we're trying to maximize range of motion in your neck
First one is the one that we have done ad nauseam
Which means that you may get a little bit sick even watching this but you're going to do chin tucks
Well we do it because it works well, they're fantastic to do. Okay. Brad is going to show you
I'm going to show you from this angle, and what you're doing is you're basically backing your head up
So we're not going down like this and we're not going up like this, we're going just straight back like someone's taking a pie and
throwing it in your face or if someone undesirable's trying to kiss you
Then you probably go like this too
All right what I want to add to that though
You're going to go ahead and do some overpressure with it now
You can do that with the web of your thumb or you can do it with a couple fingers
But you're gonna again just do a little overpressure
and sometimes by doing these motions, it helps smooth out a roughened neck, you know
Like if it's starting to get arthritis in there, it's kind of like getting the rust out of it. Yeah, and
it's maximizing your range of motion, which a lot of times will decrease the pain, now if you're doing these things and it hurts
what I want to see is after you finish. Does your neck feel better?
Because you can actually do it if it hurts a little bit if it feels better afterwards
But if it hurts and then afterwards it still hurts then don't do it and one thing is
when Bob says gentle we mean gentle, you're not going to go in there, push really hard. It's just a gentle stretch
A stretch pain is all you should feel, no sharp pain
All right let's go to number two yes, number two is going to do rotations
And make sure you have very good posture when you're doing all these because if you were like this and you're slumped any and
you do rotations, this is not good for your neck. It's just not doing, it actually hurts from just doing it, yeah it does
Yeah, so good posture and then we're gonna start the rotation you can rotate to the right
and rotate to the left
And you want to do these, what do you think five to ten times Brad?
Yeah, I would say that would be a good number
to start with and the same thing with this now you're going to add some rotation with over pressure
So again, you can just take your fingers and rotate like this
Usually right at the jaw's a good place to do it
Now if you want to do a little more of an advanced stretch Brad
You can actually grab like this and give a little stretch like that
but generally the fingers tend to be enough, because you know, there's gonna be some of those guys out there
Rip their head right off
Yeah a little too much enthusiasm
So you want to again
maximize your rotations if one side really hurts a lot work the other direction
for a while and sometimes that one will come back then on its own
All right side bending, again
very good posture and in fact a lot of times we even have people do a chin tuck
before they do the side bending, chin tuck and then bend to the side
This is a direction where I usually get some popping and cracking going on, I can feel some cracking right now Brad because
as a habit I go like this when I'm writing my notes, so I'm tight this way
So I do this one all the time. This is the magical one for me
This is the one that it'll take away my pain, this is the one that feels good and I'll do the overpressure with these too.
Again, this five to ten reps is probably a good place to start five and you can work up to ten
Yeah, and look he's taking his fingertips and he's not grabbing his whole noggin there
Yeah be good to your melon
All right, the final one we're going to do is some extension
So you're gonna go ahead and go back like this again good posture
This is one where we're not going to do overpressure. You want to show with a towel Brad? Yeah that's a good idea
This is one that a lot of people have trouble with, this is one that a lot of people are tight on because
it is a direction we normally don't go unless you paint ceilings or do sheetrock or something like that
So I'm here. He's pulling down on the towel and it really gives some nice support and
this I'll usually go back. Yeah and lean against the chair, to get the back rest, get some gets some support here. We have some variations
I don't know if we'll get into that where we go up with this, I think let's just keep it simple Brad
So a great one again the further and further you want to go further with you know, it's gonna feel better
generally the more range of motion to get back
If you have any symptoms of dizziness or nausea
Then you stop that you do not continue. It should feel good, a good stretch all the way through. I feel good!
Wow Bob? We're in rare form today. All right. Thanks for watching.