♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet. ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And, together, we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today we're gonna talk about when you have back pain
you wanna make sure you are lifting correctly.
- Right.
- Because if you lift incorrectly
you can make your back pain worse.
- Even if you're lifting up something as light as a pencil.
- Right. Exactly.
So, the big thing when you're lifting something,
you wanna keep the back itself,
it's like it's in a cast, it's not gonna move.
The movement's not happening here.
It's happening all at your hips.
- Yep. - Yep.
- And there's different options we're gonna go over
to make this easier.
- So, let's talk about the first one.
How about squatting?
- The basic squat, yes. - Yep.
Now, what you wanna do is probably get, well,
you can use a yardstick, you could use a broom stick
you could use a Booya Stik.
- Yeah, anything about at least four feet long,
maybe a little longer,
and you'll see exactly what we're talking about.
- This is gonna keep you honest.
Now, when you're squatting Brad, first off,
a lot of people don't do this.
I really want you to have a wide stance.
- Yeah.
- It's gonna be easier to get closer to the ground
if your legs are really wide apart, not shoulder width.
I mean wide.
- Yep. Yeah. I've always, I'll have people.
- Sumo. - Yeah.
I've had people lift and they go like this
without even being aware of that.
Then I say, "Stop, get like this.
You're gonna be more stable, stronger."
- Even if it's a pencil.
- Absolutely. Absolutely.
- So, you don't have to do this every time, but just
a couple times to get you orientated where you should be.
When you lift, you put the stick in place
like this, it's gonna have three points of contact
- Here at the head, here between the shoulder blades,
and then here at the belt line or at the sacrum.
You should feel contact.
- If I do it wrong, I'm only gonna have maybe
one or two points of contact.
- And the back is rounding.
- Right.
- Not with good mechanics.
- But if I do it right, I'm bending all at the hip
and I'm keeping my back straight.
- That's right.
- This really helped my wife just visualize it.
I mean, she thought about it, she goes,
"Oh I understand what you're saying."
- I have used this technique for patients and I'll say,
"I want you to do squats with a stick like this."
- Yep.
- And do 'em every day.
It strengthens your legs
and it really enforces proper body mechanics.
- It trains you.
- Yeah. - Right.
So, then if you're going to pick up
it's something that, it's not new,
you know what to do without thinking so much about it.
- Brad, do you wanna show a lunge?
- A lunge?
- Yeah. - I want to lunge.
- Again, for the beginner,
you might have something to hold onto to start off with.
- Cupboard, bed, whatever, you know,
if you got a cane or a stick, so...
- It's basically you're doing a half squat.
- Yeah. And then, and while you're doing that,
you're still gonna maintain that straight.
- And don't do this with the stick.
- That's right.
- But that's the idea. Boom.
- If you don't have enough strength,
start by training with something beside you.
- 'Cause if you got back pain,
you're definitely gonna want support.
- Exactly. - Right.
- Now the golfer's lift, which I do a lot.
- Oh, yes.
- When you take a ball out of the hole.
You're basically gonna dip.
- But you don't have to be golfing to do this.
- No, you don't.
- It's not a rule.
- So, like, here we've got the mouse.
- Right.
- Say there's a mouse running around
and you wanna pick it up.
Look at my back leg.
Our back is gonna be straight and I can bend this leg.
One hand is over here.
Imagine you hold on to your golf club, your putter.
- Right. Yes, I do.
- Yep. - Exactly.
- There we go.
And this one, the big thing is you have to be careful
for who's standing behind you.
- Yeah, it's like you do a little back kick.
- That could be an issue.
- All right, next one Brad.
Let me take a look here, we have the saw lift.
- The saw.
- You didn't know what I was talking about.
- Well, you know, no, it's a good one, though.
'Cause you know.
- So, whenever you can. - If, you know,
cut some wood.
- If there's something next to you?
- What about the spine?
- I'm gonna pick it up.
- Oh. (laughs)
- But you can see again, I'm keeping my back
really straight. - Yep.
- All the bend is happening at the hip.
Now I hold on here. - Mhm.
- This really takes a lot of stress off your back.
- Yes.
- And this is the saw.
It's like I'm sawing, right?
- Yeah.
- If you're gonna saw, you're gonna hold a handsaw.
- Right, yep, yeah, if you're cutting, you know,
some firewood when, you know, you don't have a chainsaw.
There you go. Use a spine.
- Either way, it's a great way to pick things up.
- Yep. It is the right idea.
- All right. We have another one here.
- Oh, yeah. - Leg straight.
Let's say you come up to a bin or something like that,
or something on the table, like, I'm gonna lift this spine
off the table.
- This is like making your bed as well.
- Right. Oh, very good point.
- You're reaching over for the sheets.
- I don't want you to arch, I mean, round out like this.
- Oh, yeah. Here, let's demonstrate here.
- Yeah.
- Let's use the red. See, look at that.
- Yep and you see this so often.
- Yeah.
- I would see this in nurse films
all the time. - I'm sure.
- By the staff.
So, you can actually keep your legs straight,
but you keep your, you bend forward like, I don't know,
a dipping soldier.
I don't, I'ma reach for it and grab the spine
and keep my head and back straight.
- You know...
- I'm doing it the entire time.
- On a bed, I've always suggested take one knee
and put it up.
- That works too.
- Yep. - Yep. Absolutely.
- Which you cannot do if you're reaching into a bin
that maybe has...
- Right.
- In a work setting, that's probably most common.
That's a real challenge.
- Another one, Brad, if you go down like this
and you keep your hands on your knees.
- Uh, yeah.
- And your elbows on your knees.
- Yep.
- It's a great way to support your back.
And if you're going do a lot of weeding.
- Gonna weed the garden.
- Yeah. You can go like this.
If you're not getting all the way down,
if it's muddy soil, whatever you do.
- Yeah.
- But that one's a good, good hint.
- Yeah. I don't do much weeding anymore, but
and I did when I was a kid.
We had a garden, you know?
Did you have a garden?
- Yes, we did. - Oh, good.
I imagine with eight kids or how many kids you got? 12?
- A thousand.
- All right, let's say you're gonna have a raised surface.
You wanna, again, make sure your back is straight
when you're doing that.
So, if you're working a bench or something Brad.
- Yep, high level.
And this is usually much easier for people to work with.
It's a big thing is you're not gonna twist,
you know, if you can move your feet and keep them in line.
- It's really nice to have a flexible table that you can...
- Adjustable. - Adjustable.
I knew I was looking for a word.
- And they're getting more and more common,
where you can just push a button.
- Keep 'em between your waist and your shoulders.
That's a good area to be.
- Right. If you're, if you have something heavier,
actually, probably belt level is ideal.
- All right. Those are the lifts Brad.
- That's it? - Yep.
There were seven of 'em.
- Seven, you can't go wrong.
Yeah. Seven is complete.
You can't go wrong with it.
- This is part of a series of videos, by the way,
on back pain that you can find at bobandbrad.com.
Go to the program section and you'll find one on back pain.
You can watch the ones that you feel are pertinent to you.
- [Brad] Right. Just look at the titles
and also you'll see a little button you can click on.
It says PDF printout.
You can print out a review and photographs
and illustrations of what the video's all about.
So, it works out very handy.
- [Bob] It's our gift to you. It's all free.
- [Brad] Yeah. There's not even a e-mails ask.
- [Bob] Right. - [Brad] Not even that.
Great, yep. Just a smile.
- All right, thanks.