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. 7 exercises
That's not 7. This is 7
7 exercises that instantly unhunch your shoulders plus we're gonna give you a bonus
I like the number 7 Bob. It's complete. Yeah it is
You've said that many times to the point of ad nauseam, today Brad
You know the thing is before we even get started let's invite some people in, oh very good
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Were not like we're turning things around. It's a better day in the neighborhood right Brad? You better believe it,
All right the first thing is when you have
Shoulders that are hunched over. It's likely that there's other things going on, that you probably have a forward head, too
And it's most likely that your back is hunched too
It may be unlikely a result of poor posture over a number of years
And that's especially nowadays when everybody's doing a lot of sitting and working at computers
And you know over their phones
It all brings us down and you know brings our posture down so
You're gonna want to try to correct that part of your life too but the first thing the first suggestion that we're going to
Recommend is and I want you to do a test first Brad
No it's not long. It's an easy test and you know why don't you do this at home
You have no idea what's coming up do you
I really don't I'm not even sure if I want to be here right now. Actually let me use the stool
Okay, because this will work out good
So I want you to sit down like this and you're gonna have to have somebody looking at you
And I want you to go ahead and bring your neck back like this, there's a lot of people looking at you Bob
Now when you do this there should be some movement in your mid-back too so I go like this
What do you see Brad my back is extending, right so his chest his coming out
He's extending here, so everything's working the right direction, if you do this and this happens
You're getting no motion in here, you are really tight in there
And that's where you may need to do this first thing. This is where you may
Need to use the back pod, because this is so tightened up
Everything should work together in the back, flows together
When it's working properly
But once things gets tightened up in one section it
Throws everything else off and even if even if you aren't tight in there or even if it does move you still may need to use this
I use it all the time Brad actually and I'm going to apologize. This was invented by Steve August
He's a therapist from New Zealand really a neat guy came up with this and I
Thought when I got this I was like oh you could do this with a sock or some other
You know some other small device in there, but no I found that this is really designed
Specifically for this problem. It's actually kind of a treatment, and what you got is you got a really plastic
Portion here, that's very solid, rigid yeah, they ran over this with a car
And it didn't break and then they have the foam on top, would you call that foam?
Rubber, yeah rubber and its cushioned inside so it's evenly cushioned throughout. It's designed well
There's a fair amount of engineering put into that it's not just a green little bump there. Yeah the reason
I'm saying this Brad is because it's fairly expensive, but I think if you look at the reviews a lot of people say
It's expensive, but everybody said it worked because
He has it for costochondritis. Yeah, that's what he developed it for I think initially was costochondritis
So if you have that you definitely want to get it and the thing you also get along with it you
Not just a brochure
Brad it's a booklet. There's an actual book on there that talks about posture. I can't get the box open
So what you're gonna do with this is especially if you're new I actually got two books in there
It's a decent sized book. It's well written
So you can follow it
So what you're gonna do with this is you're gonna have to lay on a hard surface and for someone who
Is really tight you're gonna start with two pillows and
You're actually and he goes over all this and you're gonna put a towel over this
Because this would be too much for you to start with, it's uncomfortable yeah
A little aggressive. I was able to start you know on the floor
Without pillows with just this I think you did too. Yeah, yeah, but it's aggressive, but we both used the foam roller
Yeah, we're used to that pressure
Yeah that back pressure, so Brad can I show them on you? Yes
So what you're gonna
Do is he has you know he hits it all in the mid-back area here
So basically from the cervical spine the base of it down to where the ribcage
Ends which is down below the shoulder blades here, so you're gonna
You can put it in the middle you can put it two inches over two inches over this way
I just work it all the way around the spine here, and I'll find quite often
That my back cracks or cavitates when I hit a certain spot
So do you want to just lay down Brad and take the pillows away
After a while you work away from the pillows work away from the towel, so
I know I just used this because he told me he
Communicated use this because my costochondritis was still not complete, Brad has some costochondritis. He said use this and I haven't had it since I was
Aggressive with it
So he has you get on it, and then I think you bring your arms back like this is what you want to do
Now this is a soft cushy table. You do not want to do it on a bed or anything soft
We're just doing it like this for the video sake so that it's a little easier for viewing
But you can see I don't like to go right on my spine with it, I like to go on the side of that muscle area and
Then I just work into it, and like Bob said you know if you
I just cavitated, take a good deep breath. I'll tell you one day
I used it and I was having some pain in the middle there, and it felt so good when it was done so
All right, I don't want to belabor that but again
Thanks to Steve August for sending this they did a great job with it. We'll go to the second one Brad
This is one that you all can do all you need is a wall
I think you're gonna have to follow us over here Lonnie. Do you mind doing the wall angels Brad?
I feel like an angel today, there you go
My wife would agree with that
Wall Devils in your case so okay so up here if you can get flat up against the wall
And if you're pretty hunched that may not happen, it may take some time, but then you really know you're hunched
You work your way back and up and down
Just like when you were a kid, you used to lay you know if you are in an area
In which you there's snow and you lie down on the ground and you would go ahead and do wall angels well
We called them snow angels
Yeah, not wall angels
All right next one Brad real simple too this is one you can do in your chair
We call it hit the road so all you do is you sit up in really good posture
And you bring your arms back like this
Kind of a right angle, and then you hit the road and this actually
Not only helps work on the mid-back, but it also is stretching that pectoralis, so you bring it back hit the road
Back hit the road and right now all over America and
Different countries people are going doing this in their chair and people are wondering what's wrong with them
Yeah, hitting the road hitting the road, why are they hitting the road Bob. I don't know hit the road
The thumbs are like you're hitchhiking is where it came from
I came up with that Brad by the way, oh
Oh, I thought that was, no no that's not standard. Next one is nice if you have we have the Sank
Band here really comes in handy for a lot of postural things
But this is just a simple one to do you go up over like this, and then you
Pull it apart like this and
That's working on those posture muscles, and you're stretching at the same time
So you're strengthening and stretching at the same time Brad. I'm gonna double mine up because I didn't have enough resistance
Oh, he's got to be the tough guy
Strong like bull today
That actually feels really good. That does, that's why we can do that for a while, alright we'd better get going you're up next Brad
You're on the foam roller. This is one that
It's just a good
Passive one you can probably do this on the floor
But you go ahead and lay down and and get yourself you maybe want to grab the pole arch too right away Brad
This is a great end of the day lay down and just let
Gravity do its thing and it's going to put you in good posture, and it's gonna
Stretch everything at the same time so, so this is a 36 inch foam roller, and it's
For most people I would recommend the
Softer one the low density
It's more comfortable, and you can lay here and just relax now if you do have
Hunched and your head forward, and it's uncomfortable
And you can't get your head to touch, you put a towel roll, a pillow
They do make this nice arch that is made to fit right on there
I'm gonna use that and that works well, and that's comfortable as well
But if you can
Go flat you will want to go flat like this and you can do some chin tucks in there if you'd like a little bonus stretch
Good wake up now Brad all right next one Brad
That we actually want to mention is and you can do this with really a soft ball
You can do it with a tennis ball, actually this was sent to us by OPTP
It's a pro soft release ball, and we're gonna do actually a whole video on this when I first got this like yeah
But I started using this Brad, and I really like it. I mean it really does
I'm gonna tell some stories on the other video on how I can see the improvement
I can't wait yeah, I bet you can't, so it's a little bit firm
It's got some sponge to it
But it's not like one of those nerf balls that you can really squish a lot it needs softness
But it needs yes, the right combination, the right density. Well I use it one thing
I do every morning is I do work on my chest muscles here with this
I just go up against the wall you're gonna have to get out of the way Brad, and I just you know
This is probably a strange sight
My wife probably sees this in the morning going
What's he doing now, but what he's working is that pectoralis major and minor
And those are the muscles that keep your shoulders pulled forward if you loosen those up it allows
That motion so you eliminate that hunched so it can be a real critical
Exercise yeah, it's just it's real fast. I mean that's why I like doing against the wall. You know it takes
I'm done
But my shoulders feel more relaxed
And it feels like, right it's one of those that feels good doesn't it? Yeah
It does, our next one is you know we
Can't get through a video without mentioning our wall anchor this of course. If you haven't bought one of the wall anchor systems
What's wrong with you?
You want to go ahead and you're gonna get it with along with a band like this
And if nothing else you want to have this for posture alone
We work it
The posture usually different ways we go up like this and the upper working the upper traps
And Bob already has his shoulders squeezed back
I squeeze the shoulder blades together, and then I do the act, and I keep them squeezed together the whole time
That's how I
Run this show so he's working on that static muscle contraction and those muscles are
Wide and that's what those muscles are, postural muscles are made for that long-term contraction
So it's a good way to work it and I usually turn my wrist like this Brad
I go this way and that way
So he's doing this and this while he's doing the exercise and then I go to the bottom one here
Well anchor on there
Why don't you show them how easy it is to move that up to there, sure, just stretch it out
And if you want to work the lower traps, which are real critical for your posture. You simply move to another
Angle, and that's a big benefit that you can have with using a system like this
Yeah, it's got a million uses, and we've gone over this many times, so all right the thing is Brad
I was gonna mention as a bonus. Oh the bonus. We got to mention the Thermatex
So Brad just brought in his extra one today, so we weren't prepared here, but one thing
This is the Platinum model, are we ever prepared. This is the
Platinum model it actually comes with straps that you can strap on and actually pulls your shoulders back, right?
While the heat is on and I'll tell you that is a fantastic feeling, so this elastic straps
And it's gonna end up, you pull it on you pull it on it pulls your shoulders back
You can heat up your mid-back and your neck at the same time and
I'll tell you this is my go to treatment when I'm hurting, what else you got in here Bob?
So alright, so again the reason we like the Thermatex, it has deep heat
It's infrared heat, so it's not just penetrating a little bit it goes two point three six inches
Which is much deeper than regular heat, get into that muscle tissue in those joints and gets that circulation going. I'll put the
The cold below so you can get a discount and you can get free shipping if you use the code
Oh, that's very helpful. Alright. Thanks everybody for watching make sure you subscribe if you haven't already