(happy horn music)
- Arg, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- And I'm Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
Together, we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- Oh, in our opinion opinion. - In our opinion.
Yes. So what are we gonna talk about today, Bob?
- Brad, you had a hint
on how to help increase the flexion, or the bending,
of a knee after you've had a knee replacement.
- Right, and this is one of those things where it-
- It's a Pearl.
- It is.
- Right? It's a peal of wisdom.
- It's a pearl. I never knew what that meant, "pearl".
It's a little tidbit of knowledge
that you're gonna really appreciate
if you have your knee done
and you want to get to bend more with less pain.
- So right now, though, we're gonna switch out here
because apparently you don't want me.
(men talking over each other)
- I need someone else to help me out.
- Nance is gonna come out. I'm gonna get behind the camera.
- I don't want hurt your feelings, Bob.
- Yep. You're heading out. - All right.
- Okay. I want to take your shoe off
that way we know what's the... - Both of 'em or just the one?
- No, just that one. - Okay.
- Are you ready, Bob?
- [Bob] I'm an excellent cameraman, by the way.
Okay, go ahead. We're ready.
- We're ready? We are! (laughs)
- [Bob] Yeah. We're we've been running the whole time.
- Okay, here we go, a total knee. Nancy's helping us.
She's usually behind the camera.
This is gonna be the knee that had the surgery done.
Okay, total knee replacement.
When you get home, almost invariably,
all therapists are gonna say
you've gotta get that knee moving.
And they say, you gotta wax the floor.
So, what you're gonna be doing
is going back and forth just to get that knee moving.
Typically within a week after surgery
you get about to here and it hurts, and it hurts a lot,
and you cannot pull your foot back any more
unless you go through some pain.
Okay, as a therapist, when I first see a patient,
this is one of the things I found out works really well.
I did not invent this, another therapist taught me this
about 15 years ago, when I was just getting started.
If you take your hands like this,
you know, I've had spouses do this,
or family members do this to their family member,
or friend who's had the knee replacement,
is you take your hands
and you grab right around the knee gently.
Okay? Your middle fingers
will go right in the crease of the knee, back here.
We call it the Popliteal Fossa,
otherwise just the back of your knee.
And your forearms are gonna go on your thighs.
And you're gonna grab here and ask the person,
you just have to have 'em relax.
Okay, Nancy, I just wants you to relax.
Pretend that your leg is just like Jello.
There's no muscles in it.
Take a deep breath and just let it relax.
And I'm just gonna lift it up like this
and you simply start to bounce it very gently.
And at that point the patient will look at me and say,
geez, that feels kind of good.
Little grin on their face.
And then I'll go back and forth this way.
Now, Bob, can you pan in on that knee?
And this is exactly what will happen
if you'll get that the knee to be relaxed.
And once they get relaxed,
you can start to float the knee back and forth.
And then you bounce it, go back and forth.
And I'll usually gain 5-10 degrees of flexion on this
with very little pain and the person's actually happy.
And part of the reason is because they learn to relax
and when the quadriceps relax,
it allows the knee to bend more.
And you do this for about, oh, 2-3 minutes.
Usually, depending on the size of the person,
the size of the leg,
I'll go until my hands get tired.
Smaller person, you can go longer,
but you're not gonna do this
for 10 or 15 minutes straight by any means.
It's usually just 1-3 minutes.
And at that point you can go off
and continue with their exercises or their ice packs.
Now we've got a number of videos on little pearls or tidbits
that are really gonna help
improve your knee motion with less pain
and make the whole rehab process much better.
So look at our other videos
and actually subscribe to our videos.
And we have a number of other things
besides total knee replacements.
From shoulders to neck pain, back pain, you know,
everything about a broken heart, pretty much, we can fix.
So, very good.
Thank you.