♪ 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 gonna talk about can yoga
help back pain with spondylolisthesis.
You must know this.
- Spondylolisthesis.
- I know I was gonna say it wrong,
I don't even know how you say it.
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We're giving away a huge bunch of products.
- Right.
- To one person!
Cause we're gonna have you,
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- Right in your house.
- Yep and you could also go to Bob and Brad on Facebook,
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Let me show you the products here,
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These are all going to one person.
- One person gets all of these Renpho massage products.
Everything from the foot massager to the neck and mid back,
to the full back and then the three hand massagers.
- Yep, so you can give them away as gifts
or you can set up a massage lounge
and you'd be the most popular person in your neighborhood.
- Yeah, people would want to come over all the time.
- Let me say one more thing, too, Brad,
we didn't get paid to do this or say this,
but they actually, if you ever want to buy a massager,
now's the time.
We'll have some links below,
they're gonna have the lowest price on these,
coupons and such, because of black Friday.
- Black Friday, it's that time of year.
Oh my goodness, all right, Bob, now this particular thing,
we've got yoga people,
and all due respect, I love yoga,
I really like people who take yoga,
it's a wonderful exercise.
However, if you have back problems.
- There is a caveat.
- Yeah, there is a thing.
Now, we had someone email us and she, you know,
a viewer, and she has spondylolisthesis,
which I, personally, have
and she asked if she could continue doing yoga
because she really enjoys it.
Is it going to hurt her back?
Now, I've, I'm bragging by success, I feel pretty successful
on my spondy rehab over the last five to seven years.
- Let me vouch for you, Brad, that you would actually,
I think the average person, not knowing what you know,
would be almost disabled.
And here you are, you still run, you still bike,
you still do triathlons.
- I was just using my chainsaw to clear brush on Sunday.
Which, I could never do four years ago.
- Sure.
- But anyways, the answer to this young lady's problems
is it's either yes or no.
But if you decide to do yoga there are some things
that you must obey, and we're gonna talk about that,
if you wanna keep your back healthy.
- Right.
- Spondylolisthesis, it's a mouthful,
we pronounce it differently, but as far as the diagnosis,
it can be easily diagnosed with some x-rays
from the lateral view.
So, Bob, you wanna hold up a healthy looking spine?
Now, we're talking about spondylolisthesis
in the lumbar area, which is the most common,
and it's often at L five or L four or between L five
and the sacrum, which the pelvis is in the way here,
but if you look at this, all the vertebrae are in line.
Now, if you have spondylolisthesis,
one of the vertebrae shifts forward.
And if you look at this, see this is an older spine,
you can tell by the color.
Can you see this pretty good, Luce?
If you look at, this is where mine is, this is L four
and L five and this whole, this vertebrae shift forward
one to two centimeters and it depends on different people.
Grade one is not so bad, grade two,
and if you get to grade four, you probably need surgery.
They're gonna put some hardware in to make sure
it doesn't shift so far that you have some nerve damage,
which could be very serious.
- Permanent nerve damage.
- Right, it could affect your walking
and your leg mobility.
So you do not want to let this get shifted
more than it already is.
Now, there's some specific movements that put pressure on it
and it will promote that shift.
One of them is, and the big one is, extension.
- Back extension.
- Lumbar extension, which means any movements
going back this way,
and I don't even like to do this right now.
- Sure.
- Bob, Bob is normal, show your normal extension.
- So, or like this.
- Right, and that feels fine.
- That feels good to me.
- Yeah, I don't like it, I won't do it
because I know it's not good for my back.
- Right.
- So, as far as yoga's concerned
and you wanna keep your back stable
and get it to heal.
- There's a lot of exercises in which you're doing.
- Now I'm pretty sure this is called the cobra.
- Right.
- Now, Bob likes to do this a lot.
It could be healthy for a normal back
but if you've got spondy, your back isn't normal,
and this is completely out of the question.
- Right.
- You don't want to do it, it's going to make those bones
shift in the wrong direction.
So anything like that, anything standing.
Bob can do it again but for no extension, standing,
so if you're gonna take the class,
you're not going to do that, you're not gonna do the cobra.
You're just gonna have to either do another exercise
or wait for the class.
- I would also say, Brad, as a, kind of overall statement,
that anything that hurts you while you're doing it.
- I completely agree. - I would not do it
because if you fire up those nerves
and they get hyper sensitive,
you're gonna start having pain all day long.
- Right.
You gotta listen to your body.
- You gotta listen to your body.
It's not a issue of that, you know what,
it's gonna feel better if I keep stretching it
and stretch it'll get better,
that's not necessarily the case.
- It's gonna start shifting and shifting
and you're gonna get yourself closer and closer
to where you don't wanna be, possibly surgery,
and we know there's doctors and yoga instructors
have a blanket statement, do yoga,
it's gonna make your back better
and, again, there are specific cases,
and this is very much, I am very dear to it,
cause I have it,
and you wanna save your back.
If you can go to class and your instructor
doesn't encourage you to do these moves that hurt,
or, you know, what was I gonna say, or the peer pressure.
- Yeah, I was gonna say the peer pressure.
- Everyone else is doing it, so it's like,
I don't feel comfortable, I'm wimping out.
- You gotta really pick the ones that you won't do.
You know, I had a patient, Brad, that, he was in his sixties
and I think his spine had somewhat already fused.
- Sure.
- And, but his doctor was saying you should try yoga,
and it's like, no, yoga's not correct for you.
For him, it was better to keep his back braced
and not do the stretching and it got so much worse
whenever he would do any stretching.
- Right.
- There's a time where your back
is not able to stretch anymore
and that's fine, keep it still.
- Right.
- There's a lot of other things you can do.
- Exactly.
- Stretching is not always the answer.
- I know one thing I could not do was planks.
- Right.
- I could do them but my back.
- You can't do them now.
- Well, I just don't do them now.
- Right.
- I think maybe I could but I'm not gonna chance it.
If things are going so good, I've got my exercise routine.
As a matter of fact,
we've got videos on what has made my back progress
to where it is.
No, but I just don't do planks anymore.
I would be sore for the next two or three days.
- Yeah.
- And it's like.
- And that's a sign.
- Right.
- That was a sign right there
that you shouldn't be doing it.
- So, good luck with your.
- Listen to your body. - Yep.
- And we love you, yoga people, don't get mad at us.
We're just trying to give the right advice here.
- Exactly.
- All right, thanks for watching.