(upbeat music)
♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
(clapping)
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, Physical Therapist.
(satisfied exhalation)
- Brad Heineck, Physical Therapist.
- Right here we have the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Title today: You're sitting wrong, and your back knows it.
Try this, instead.
It's our belief, and this is a pretty solid theory,
- Ehhh.
- that sitting shapes your posture
more than any other thing.
In other words, if you sit bad,
you're gonna stand bad, you're gonna walk bad,
- Mmm.
- you're gonna move bad, you're gonna lift bad.
We'll show you in a minute what we mean by that.
- Well, Bob, most people sit more than they stand.
- Right.
- It's a sitting society. - Sitting society, correct.
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And we upload every day.
Also, if you get a chance, go to bobandbrad.com,
go to the giveaway section.
We're always giving something away.
- That's right.
- This week, we're giving away the Bob and Brad wall anchor.
- Wall anchor!
Not to be confused with a boat anchor.
- Right.
It's a thing you attach to your wall,
and you can actually do resistance bands off of it.
- Exercises, yes.
- You can also find the contest,
it'll be pinned to the top of the page at Facebook.
Go to Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok
if you want a 60 second version of our program.
- That's right.
- So yes, we sit in our cars, we sit at our office,
and we sit when we get home on the couch and watch TV.
- We sit at the supper table,
which was a good thing.
- We sit at the supper table, dinner table, breakfast table.
So what happens though, quite often,
is that we start slumping into poor posture.
Now Brad is in the chair, this is not a good chair.
Just sit into it as straight as you can, Brad.
And if you feel your back up against there,
you're gonna slouch, a little bit.
Now, this is minor.
He's not slouching a lot.
- But you can see the lines here.
- Yeah, he's rounded out.
And over time, he's gonna slump even more.
And then what happens, is what happened right now.
He gets a little of a forward head,
(exhales)
his shoulders start rotating, rounding out.
His chest is collapsed.
- And forward posture.
- Yup, and the back is rounded out.
- Oh, man.
- And, so when he's sitting like that all day long,
then he stands up, and maybe it's not as dramatic as this.
- But Bob, it could be.
I want to emphasize to our viewers
that it's really, it's an influence on your back.
- Yeah, well what happens is that starts to feel normal.
- Right!
- Your body as position sense.
And I remember, I always remember this.
Good friend of mine, - Ooh.
- he said he saw himself on camera once, a security camera.
- Yeah.
- He worked at 3 am or something like that.
- Was he stealing something?
- No, he was-
- Oh, he worked there.
- He worked there.
- Oh.
- And he's like, "Who is that old man?"
(laughter)
I mean he had just developed into that slumped posture.
- So the security camera was watching him walk away?
- And he saw the footage later.
- Yeah, and it's like, "That's me?"
- I have to watch my posture, right now.
- That actually happened to me on the bicycle,
when we were doing a video on the bike.
- Yeah!
- I was so embarrassed, it's like,
"I look like that on the bicycle?"
- I kept saying something to you.
- No wonder my back is killing me when I get off!
- And you kept correcting me on pushups, one time,
because my pushups were really bad.
- Yeah.
- But I, even now, I start slumping.
All right, so we're gonna show you
kind of a seven step plan that you can do.
- Seven.
- Seven things you can try when you're sitting.
Little variations to try to correct
this problem with posture.
So one thing, by the way,
- Is? - is you try to avoid sitting
to some extent.
- There you go, yeah.
- You might get a standing table, even.
- Right.
- You know a sit to stand table?
- Yup.
- But let's show you one of the exercises I like to do,
is you just lean forward, slide forward on your chair,
so you're not slumping.
- Yup.
- You can bring your arms up like this.
- How are you getting work done, on a computer?
- Well, this is just every one in a while.
- Oh.
- Bring your elbows back,
and then rotate your hands back, too, at the same time.
- So, this way?
- Yeah.
What that's working on is the external rotators
of the shoulder, 'cause you internally rotate
when you have poor posture.
(inhales)
So you're going back like this,
and you do a chin tuck at the same time.
- And breathe in, take a deep breath!
- And breathe in, yup.
(inhales)
(exhales)
(inhales)
(exhales)
So, yup, just do sets of these.
- How many?
- Oh, whatever you want to do.
- I do about three, myself.
You could do more.
- Yeah, you don't need to do many.
When you get done, you're refreshed,
you're back to the task,
and it's a reminder where your posture should be.
- Right.
- Now, the second thing.
Slide back in the chair.
You'd like to have a chair with a nice solid back support.
- Yeah.
- So this chair is actually that way.
It's just a kitchen table chair, or dinner table chair.
And it's got a good, solid support.
- Great.
- So if I lean back, I've got fairly good posture here.
- Yup, a nice firm chair,
and you can see Bob's got that.
Technically we're looking for a 90 degree angle here,
about a 90 degree angle there, close to it.
- Maybe a little bit of a recline, but...
- Right.
- The problem is if you're at a computer
and you have to move forward, so...
- Yeah.
The big thing is, is feel your butt
back against the back of the chair.
- Yes, exactly.
- That's a good way to start.
- We're gonna show you supports here in just a little bit,
too, that you might try.
One thing I do, Brad,
and I don't know if this is right or wrong,
but I'll work forward on the chair quite often, like this.
- Oh yeah, mm-hmm.
- And this is good, but once in a while,
what I'll do is I'll just rest a little bit.
- Yeah.
- But look how I rest, I keep my back straight.
I don't rest like this.
- Right.
- I rest like this.
- Well, Bob, I gotta tell ya,
I actually like to round and stretch the other way.
Not for a long period of time,
maybe just for a little bit,
but maintain the posture.
- Well you got spondylolisthesis though, too.
But we'll kinda go over that one, too.
- Okay, yep yep.
- We'll talk about that one, too.
We can talk about that right now.
When you move forward, and you slide forward,
- Yup.
- you can actually do pelvic tilts.
- Oh, yeah.
- So, this is actually, you're moving the pelvis
back and forth like that.
- Yup.
- Do you want to show standing, Brad?
Or can't you show it very well?
- Sure!
I'm standing right now- oh, pelvic tilts, yeah.
- Yeah.
- So here, is this that thing where you arch the back?
Now, my back's not real flat.
- And flatten the back, yup.
- Yeah, but, you know.
And you're doing the same thing,
Bob was doing the exact same thing.
- So...
- This is one of things that some people
don't have a lot of good body awareness.
- And we have 'em actually start off lying down.
- Yes.
- A lot of times, it's easier to do lying on your back.
- So you're saying that this is something you can do
while you're sitting?
- You can do it just one:
to be aware of where you're body's at.
- Right.
- 'Cause you might be like this, slouched,
and you don't realize it.
And you might go into the arch.
- Sure, yup.
- But also, it's just a good way to loosen up
the back a little bit.
- Yup, get that motion.
- Right.
- Your back has joints in it,
the facet joints, they all need motion.
You don't want to be in a perfect posture for solid 8 hours.
You want to, every half hour, - Right.
- at least every couple of hours for sure,
move things around.
- Well that's where it's actually almost more important
for you to get up and walk.
- There you go.
- If you could set it up so that every 20 minutes,
30 minutes, you get up and take even a short walk.
- Right.
- That's gonna be better for your back
than anything else I'm gonna tell you, today.
- Right.
Especially if you're sitting, like we're talking about.
That's what the whole video's about, yup.
- Yeah. - The opposite is walking.
- Brad I'm gonna show some of these supports,
do you want to go and grab a ball?
I forgot to get a ball.
- You did?
- Yeah.
So, now, you really- no!
(laughs)
You know the ball that you bought?
- That bigger ball.
- Yeah, the bigger ball.
You want to go ahead and get a back support for your chair,
especially if it's a chair you're gonna use quite often.
And your couch, we often take a throw pillow
and put it behind you.
That works out really well, 'cause a couch is really soft,
and it's not firm.
The second thing, if you're in a car,
what we recommend is actually rolling up a towel.
And the reason I say a towel
is because you do not know how much support you need.
If you are a larger person, with a larger buttocks,
you're gonna need a larger towel,
'cause you're gonna have a huge gap, here.
If you are a thinner person, a slighter person like me,
I don't need much of a support in my car.
I have a thin support, and it works really well.
Maintains my arch, there.
And I like to have it down lower, over the pelvis,
a little bit over what we call the sacrum, the SI.
That's what I like, belt level, basically.
- Right around the belt line.
- Yeah.
- Move it to where it feels good.
Bob, why don't you put one of those in there,
'cause they can't see that light one on your waist.
- Yeah, what I'm gonna show now, Brad,
is once you determine the thickness that works for you,
- Yup.
- then try to find the support
that is about the same thickness.
Now this one looks a lot larger,
but actually squeezes down fairly easy, so.
- [Brad] Right, well that's what they're designed for.
- Yeah, so this one is probably not too bad.
It's got a little strap on it,
so you can put it around your chair.
- [Brad] Right.
- But you can go ahead and put this in your car.
Give it a try and see, you can see that it squeezes down.
Can you see it?
All right, so you can see this one's not bad for me, Brad.
- [Brad] Yeah.
- [Bob] I would use this in my office Chair.
- [Brad] And you can tell that fast.
- [Bob] Yeah, guys.
- [Brad] I mean you put it there, if it feels good.
Even though you might want to give it
20 minutes or a half hour to make sure, but...
- Yeah in most cases, if it doesn't feel good
it's probably not right for you.
And they have lots of variety of supports.
Here's a really pretty thick one, Brad.
That's what you would need, in that chair.
- Yeah, this is a little more dense, too.
They give a little density rating
when you look on the description.
Now for me, if you've got spondylolisthesis,
you probably do not want to use something like this.
You probably want to use one of those broad ones.
- Yeah, those broad ones that are maybe like this high.
- Yup.
- And they're more of a square, or rectangle shape.
- They support the whole back.
- Yeah.
- But that's just with that case.
Or if you have stenosis, the narrow one may not be-
Lumbar stenosis, the narrow one may not be the one for you.
Everyone's a little different.
- Yeah.
- So this is something we can't say, "This is for you."
- I know, I wish I could tell you, "This is the one,
"it's gonna work for ya."
This is an air filled one.
- Yeah.
- So it doesn't work as well, I mean it does work,
(laughs)
if you want to make the adjustments.
- Right, yeah.
- You want to show the ball, Brad?
- Yeah, I do.
- Here's another exercise you can do.
Works well on the mid back, especially.
- So it's nice to have a ball that's squishy.
Not like a soccer ball or basketball; will not work.
We used to use this, it's about 35% deflated.
Either one works, I'm gonna use the red one.
And you just put it back.
And we're talking for support or the... ?
- [Bob] For he exercise.
- The exercise.
- [Bob] So we showed you one exercise so far.
We showed you maybe two exercises with the pelvic tilt,
and now we're showing you a third exercise.
- Yeah, hands up here, behind your head.
Over like this.
Those are all options.
- [Bob] Yeah. - You may want to do both.
And then you move the ball up and down.
We've had a lot of good responses from patients.
- [Bob] Right, this is an awesome one to add
to your repertoire.
- Yeah, the sale of kick balls like this
have gone up dramatically,
- [Bob] Yup.
- over the last couple of years.
- Now we said this is mainly for the mid back.
- Yup.
- What do you think about the lower back, Brad?
- I think it can be okay.
I would not get too aggressive.
If it feels good, do it.
For me, it doesn't, so I'm not gonna do it.
- Sure.
- But I've got spondylolisthesis,
my back is sensitive to extension.
But the majority of people don't have that.
- Definitely worth a try, that whole one.
Now, let's say you go ahead-
And I see we're gonna run out of time here real quick.
- Oh!
- But you can go ahead and do some standing
whenever possible, like we talked about.
You can actually stand and clasp your hands
behind your back to kind of straighten your posture out,
especially for a walk.
You can also sit on a high stool,
'cause when you sit on stool,
you don't slump or slouch as much.
Because the hamstrings aren't pulling on your pelvis.
- Right.
- So you're not getting pulled around like this.
It's easier to sit up straight.
- You notice the big thing
is that the knee is well below the hip.
- Right.
- And that kind of has a tendency
to give you that proper pelvic tilt,
the give geared-
Oh, I'm stuck in my mouth, Bob!
- Yeah, there we go.
- Better low back posture.
- Yeah I think with the high stool,
this isn't something you're gonna wanna sit on for hours,
by any means.
- No.
- This is, we always talked about this,
this is a great one for people who stand at their job,
and want to get a little rest and sit down like this.
And rather than sit in a low chair,
- Right.
- you can sit on a higher stool.
- 'Cause a lot of time, if it's adjustable,
you can continue to do your work,
it's called a sit/stand station.
You can be productive and work, whatever you're doing.
Whether you're sitting or standing,
and the back gets a break.
- You really want to avoid, especially if you're taller,
you want to avoid low surfaces.
Bleachers are really bad.
- Mm, oh yes.
- And I found out, like we gotta get new chairs
around our campfire, because they're too low.
- Oh, Bob!
- They are! - Oh Bob, you can't do that.
- And I'm like, I can't sit on these.
It's just, they're too low, and my back rounds out and...
- You could get the tall stools, the camp stools.
- Well, I sat on a stump.
Yeah, they are tall.
- You could cut the trees down close by about this high,
and you could have a custom tree stump
- There we go!
- for each member of the family.
- There we go, that's what we're gonna do Brad.
- Put their name on it, that's a good idea.
- Brad and I can fix just about anything.
- Except for?
- A broken heart.
- Yup.
(slaps back of chair)
- But we'll work on it.
- And you could get cushions to put on those stumps,
and a little place to put your beer.
- I think it's time to go.
(laughter)
Thanks everybody for watching.
(outro boops)