♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Howdy folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Almost cut you off Brad, I'll try--
- I, yep, we'll have none of that.
- Okay, today we're gonna talk about the most
important exercises to help a pinched nerve and neck pain.
This is an updated video, we did it before,
we've gotten smarter, and we think we've got
better technology so we're gonna redo it.
- Yeah, we got much better mics now, Bob.
- Yeah, if you're new to our channel
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(laughing)
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Yes, we are giving away, once again,
a SleepOvation matterss.
Fantastic mattress, this is just a little sample of it.
You can see it's got the individual mattresses,
it's got the air channels, very comfortable.
Brad and I both have one of these, and we find
it's a world of difference between this and
when I sleep in the other bed that we have in our cabin.
- Yeah.
Well I'm tellin' ya Bob, I didn't wanna get out
of bed this morning, it was just fun to lay in it.
- All right, I'll get rid of this
and you can show the pillow real quick.
- Yeah, yeah, it comes with a pillow, too,
and the pillow also has a patented, they have springs
inside this pillow.
- I don't know where I'm goin' here.
- Oh Bob, you look like a lost puppy.
(laughing)
- Yeah, there we go.
- Anyways, these are really nice pillows,
we've got a cross-section here.
But we gotta get on with this neck pain issue.
- Yeah, we gotta get goin' here.
We gotta go to work.
- Say no more.
Okay, Bob.
- First you wanna adjust posture, right?
- Well, I wanna talk a little bit about
- You wanna talk about the nerve?
- the pinched nerve.
- Okay.
- Why are we addressing posture when we got a pinched nerve?
So, why don't you show 'em where the nerves come out
the neck on my neck there.
- The nerves, you know, you got the cervical spine here,
and the nerves come out at each level.
They come out and they actually come down
and into the arm, giving innervation to the arm
as far as sensation and movement, muscle movement.
- Right.
- So if you get a pinching actually in the neck
or anywhere along the line, it can cause
pain down the arm all the way down the arm into the hand.
- Right.
- And weakness.
- Right, as well as in that shoulder, too.
- Right.
- Typically, the pinched nerve we find is in the neck.
- Yep.
- It can be along the line, but majorities is in the neck.
So in order to keep that nerve from being pinched
we find that poor posture, head forward posture,
can cause problems where the nerve
comes out the foramen in the spine itself,
causing that pinching.
So if we just change our posture it's a critical step.
You have to do that.
- It is because if you try the exercises,
the other exercises we're gonna show you to help try
to decrease the pain, but you don't correct your posture,
it's not gonna go away.
It won't stay away, it's gonna come right back again.
- Right.
- So you gotta correct posture first.
- Right, so here we go.
The first one of these, we talk about these
a lot over the years, but you gotta stick with the basics,
the fundamentals.
- Foundation, fundamentals.
- Right.
So we're gonna do scapular retraction
or you can do these in a seated or standing position.
- I'll show how my shoulder blades
are basically squeezing together.
Or, if you wanna think about them going downward
into my pockets.
- So this one goes down to this pocket,
this one goes down there.
That gets those lower traps working, and the middle
traps all together for good posture.
Do 5-10 of these.
- What's nice about these is you can do these anywhere.
- Oh, right.
Well you can't do 'em driving in the car.
- Yeah, I suppose it'd be a little difficult.
(chuckling)
- Well you can as long as you don't let go
of the steering wheel, you might be able to.
- I even do it in church.
- Oh Bob.
- Why not?
- Get the whole congregation doing it.
- Yeah, that's right.
- And then we go to chin tucks.
Chin going in like this.
So we're not tucking down, it's in and back.
In and back, this way, like you're
bringing your chin right to your adam's apple.
(inhales deeply)
(exhales)
- Now this ones great for posture, and this is
also actually the first exercise that we start
for treating the pinched nerve, too.
- Right.
Yeah, when you're doing this, well we don't need
to get into the foramen, but if there's an opening gap,
the foramen, which can take that pinched and relieve it.
- Now this is one you can do in church.
You can do this in church.
You can do this in your car, too!
- Well, yeah, I've done it in my car at the stop light,
and people look at ya funny, but it's okay.
Everyone will be doing it.
- It's not because he's doing chin tucks.
Okay, go ahead.
- Now, this one you need to do in a chair.
- Right.
- Particularly if you're at work or at home.
You take a ball like this, and if it's a little soft
it works a little bit better.
You don't want a hard ball that's blown up
with a lot of pressure.
And you're gonna put that behind your back
like I'm showing here, and the W exercise
that we showed before is basically the same technique
but we're gonna relax into the ball.
And you can adjust the ball up or down.
And you'll know because it feels better
in a certain position, then you're in the right spot.
So right there, I need to go up a little bit.
I can just feel it, there we go.
And stretch back, we can do this, you can do Bob's
hallelujah stretch, either way you're gonna
get the shoulders to come back with a chin tuck.
And you can even let your head go back
and get the full extension.
- All of it should be pain-free.
- Right.
- This is a wonderful stretch, it seriously is.
It's great for the neck and upper back.
- Oh yeah.
- It's just a fantastic stretch.
I highly recommend it for most people.
- And in all these you're gonna do 5-10 repetitions,
and every 1-2 hours throughout the day
as long as you can fit that in your schedule.
The next one, this is where you go up against the wall.
- All right, follow Brad over to the wall.
- We use the wall, and the wall's gonna
show you good posture.
You take your belt line or your butt area,
that goes against the wall, shoulders against the wall.
Bring your shoulders back.
The back of your head with a slight chin tuck.
Now I've got good posture.
The wall is my guide, and I'm gonna bring my arms
up like this, and slide my arms up like this.
Now, I personally have kind of a tough time
gettin' my elbows to the wall,
but it's getting better over time.
- There we go.
- Few years ago this was not possible for me
so I'm improving.
And this works the proper muscles for posture
and the wall guides you, that you are in good posture.
And I'm gettin' tired, you can feel those posture
muscles working aggressively.
You're gonna do that for a minute or two
if you can go that long before you get tired.
- So they're called "wall angels"
- Yes.
- And, you know, if you can picture Brad as an angel
(Brad blows out)
- There you are.
- Oh yeah.
Yeah, that's a far cry.
(laughing)
Now the other thing, if you wanna go the next step up
this is actually a postural exercise.
It's great for the shoulders as well as the low back,
and it's our hanging handles.
- Right.
- And you do that against the wall, too.
And I'm just gonna hang out here, ha ha, no pun intended!
You know, you'll do this for anywhere from 10-30 seconds,
depending how long you can hang.
- And again, it should be pain-free.
If this bothers your neck, pinched-nerve neck,
you wouldn't be doing this, but if it feels good, it's good.
- Right.
- And this basically comes with our wall anchor,
and then comes with a clip that you could
just clip on there, and you have the handles.
And these things are rated for how many pounds, Brad?
- 250 each.
- 250 each, or no, I think it's 275 each, isn't it?
- It might be, yeah.
But if you're close to 500 pounds you better
not hang on there.
- Hold off, yeah.
- So either way I think you're covered.
Now we're gonna look at symptoms down the arm next,
and it's not uncommon for a pinched nerve in the low neck
to send numbness, tingling, burning sensations
all the way down to the fingers.
- And weakness, even.
- And weakness.
And if you are having weakness so you're grip
is obviously weak, you have a hard time opening the door,
you probably better go see a doctor.
- Yeah, you better see a doctor if you get symptoms
in the hand, I would say.
- That's pretty extreme.
But what we can do, and we've had a lot of success
with this exercise, is in a chair with a back rest,
you put your bottom all the way back in.
- Very good posture.
- Very good posture, we've just worked on posture
so you got that in your head.
And we're gonna do some chin tucks, and then we're
gonna actually bring our head back.
Now if you do this and it starts to become uncomfortable
and painful, and it makes symptoms down the arm worse,
it's pretty clear you got a pinched nerve in your neck.
So if you take a towel roll--
Now the red tape is just something
to hold the towel together.
You can use rubber bands, you don't even have to
hold it together as long as you keep with your hands.
Low on the neck, back up against the chair.
Now, I've got an office chair that works good for me.
Don't get the kind that lets you go back real far.
- Yeah, flexes, yeah.
You want good support.
- Right, so you feel confident in it.
Then I'm gonna do my chin tucked, and then gently go back,
and with this support here often times makes that pain
much more comfortable.
And then you can go back, and then when you start
to feel pain you come forward again, and back.
So you're not gonna hang out back there for 30 seconds
or anything like that, it's just a back
until you feel the discomfort, then come forward, relax.
- And sometimes if you have, let's say this is the
painful arm, sometimes I'll let that one relax.
- Yeah.
- And just grab with one arm.
- Sure.
- And what you're looking for here, ideally,
is we're looking for centralization of the symptoms.
What does that mean?
Let's say you're getting pain all the way down the arm,
into the hand, even.
What you're looking for first, is that it's gonna
get better in the hand or better in the forearm first.
- Right.
- So you want these symptoms to go away first,
and it might even get a little more intense here,
but it's going away here that's great.
That's a very good sign.
Even if you have less tingling there, that's a good sign.
Anything that improves down here.
- Yep.
- Eventually it'll improve here
Eventually you'll feel it just into here.
And then eventually you'll feel it just in the neck.
That's the progression you wanna feel.
That's centralization, that means it's going the right way.
- Why don't you show 'em another option.
Sometimes you got that pinching and instead of using this,
it actually improves from going to the side.
- Right.
Sometimes, for some people, this is for me.
I told this story before, he was such a great example.
He was a dentist and he was getting pain down his arm
very serious to the point where
he wasn't gonna be able to practice.
- Sure.
- And so what we had him do, he tried those,
it didn't really help, so what we did instead,
pain went down the right arm, so we had him do
the chin tuck and then side bend to the side.
- Ah ha.
- And he would do these repeatedly.
And he would do these 10 times every hour, a set of 10,
and it was miraculous, Brad.
- So his arm pain and symptoms improved.
- Yeah, within two days.
- Oh.
- It was very much improved, and within a week
it was pretty much gone.
- Sure.
- No, it doesn't always go that way, unfortunately,
but you like these small miracle wins
that show up in the clinic once in a while.
- Yes, you bet.
All right, last but not least, we didn't do anything
on the floor yet, but if you do have a six inch foam roller.
- Just another great postural one to do.
- Yeah, and you're gonna roll and typically kinda up
towards the neck.
And you can do the W's here as well, hand back in here
with some chin tucks, all the same basic movements.
- And again, pain-free.
- Yep.
And then one thing, and I was just doing this
with my wife 'cause she was having some issues
with pain down her arm, and you can put the roll this way.
Now, if you have a foam roller that's a softer one,
like this blue one, they're more comfortable to do this.
This is all you do, you just hang out here
for 15 to 30 seconds.
Now I've done this after exercise, I'll just hang out
here for 3-5 minutes and just relax and close my eyes.
But you gotta have the softer roller, otherwise
it's a little uncomfortable.
The black ones are hard density, the colored ones
are typically the softer ones.
- It's kinda the lazy man's way to posture there.
- Yeah.
- Just lay down there and let it stretch,
let gravity do its' thing.
- I'm tellin' ya, Bob, you give the lazy person
how to do a task and it'll be the easiest way.
- That's right, they'll figure out the best way
to do it, that's right.
- All right, thanks everybody.
- Enjoy the day.
- Thanks everybody for watching.