♪ Bob and Brad, ♪
♪ the two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ on the internet ♪
(clapping)
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- We are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion of course, Bob.
- Today we are gonna provide you
with the secret to the best hamstring exercises
that you can do at home and it's also gonna help
you prevent hamstring injuries.
- Right, exactly. - Which is very important
because you know, you see that a lot in the weekend athlete.
- Oh yeah.
- The guy who's running to first base,
sprinting, I mean - Right.
- Every direction. - Right, right.
after he drank his beer, in that beer league.
(laughs)
And also he's going like this, - Yeah, yeah.
Pulling up, so.
Don't want that to happen.
- Right.
It's well as high level, I remember Barry Sanders distinctly
he's just runnin' - Oh yeah.
And there he goes, down he goes with hamstring
just like that.
- Yeah. - But anyways,
wow. - If you are new
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Especially Instagram and Facebook; Bob and Brad.
- [Brad] There you go.
- Because by the time this video
goes up, we're gonna have a million subscribers
by the end of the day - Oh yeah.
I'm thinking by the end of the day.
- I haven't talked to you about this yet, Brad,
but I'm thinking we might
just do giveaways every Sunday for a year.
- Oh, Bob!
Why Bob, why?
- It's just because we got so many people
that wanna giveaway stuff, we're like, we'll help 'em.
- Oh, that's good enough for me.
- All right, let's get started, Brad.
- Okay, so hamstrings, like we mentioned.
Very commonly injured, and the unique thing about
the hamstring muscle, it's biarticulate.
- Right, that means it crosses two joints.
- Right, so not only does it make your knee bend,
but it also makes your hip...
- Extend. - Extend.
- Extend is this way or like
you said going up this way. - Right.
So it's one of those things you can study
at for a long time and try and figure which joint
is gonna work more and whatever but, we don't wanna talk
about that, we just wanna get to the strength of..
- By the way and I just read
this Brad, I don' know - Oh, okay.
If you knew this, that did you know biarticular joints
are more likely to tear.
It can be injured. - Oh really?
- Yes, they are.
- Well that helps explain it.
- So yeah, exactly. - Okay.
So one of my favorite ways to do hamstring strengthening
is none other than the ball.
- Right.
- I call it the beauty of the ball as well as Bob.
Should we get on with it?
- Yeah, let's go on with it.
- Yeah go ahead.
- Which one? - Use that Booyah Stik
and get that red one down.
- The red one?
- Well, I think it's more colorful for today.
All right, now.
(grunts)
Whoa, be careful.
So, this is how you do it.
Supine.
And you know you can do these at home.
Balls are not very expensive, you can get it for 20 dollars
and you'll use them for other things too.
But here we go.
This motion right here.
Just a gentle warmup for your hips and knees.
But it is working your hamstrings.
- And his butt is staying down.
- Right.
You're pushing the heels into the ball, right?
- Right, yeah.
If I push down, now my hamstrings are kicking in.
It's really isolated.
- Yeah, you get stuck by not pushing down
is what you're saying. - Right, yup.
Yup. - And then we'll need
to push them down.
- So, right here.
When I push down on that ball, hamstrings.
I can just feel my hamstrings working right now.
So, very good.
- You know what I like about the ball too, Brad?
By the way, is that it will remind you to do your exercises.
When it's sitting - Yes.
- in the corner there, every time you go by
it's saying use me. - Right.
Right, there you go.
And if you got kids, they like to play with them too.
- Yeah, they do, exactly.
- Okay, so now I'm assuming that we're not doing any
rehab here, we're tryna get
some good hamstring strengthening.
You're healthy.
So you're gonna lift your butt up,
'cus see where the lines on my pants,
we wanna keep a nice, square butt or straight body,
and this is quite a bit more difficult
than what I was doing.
- Yeah, he makes this look easy,
this is not easy to do.
What you're gonna find out.
It's funny 'cus I just had a patient doing this,
and he's just shaking all over the place like this.
It's very difficult to start off with.
- And that's the other beauty of the ball, here.
You're not just doing hamstrings, but my core
- You're getting core - is working.
A little bit of balance as well 'cus unstable surface.
So, you know, you're gonna work 10 to 15 of these
and then you'll take a break and do three sets of 10.
That's what I do.
- [Bob] That's a good starting point.
- I do these three days a week.
Then, if these get too easy,
then what you're gonna do, say, you wanna isolate one leg,
I'm gonna take my left leg, cross over.
Now my right leg is doing the majority of the work.
The left one's helping.
And you can switch and work on each leg.
And when that gets too easy.
- [Bob] That is significantly harder.
- Right.
And this next one, if you lift up one leg,
keep it up, and work it here.
- [Bob] Now you're gonna be in the challenge
arena here.
- Yeah.
And, you know, for the real stud muffins out there,
highly qualified athletes,
you can put a plate or a weight on your belly here
and hold onto that and really work at it.
I don't do that.
(laughter)
But you know, ha ha ha,
they're out there, believe me.
- [Bob] I think the question is
who uses the term stud muffin?
- Bob!
Bob!
Why, Bob?
- [Bob] I know, I hear you.
- You steppin' on my cupcakes.
- [Bob] Sorry.
Somebody just threw a snowball at us.
Another one.
They're comin' in.
Look at this.
- When you're in a therapy department,
this kinda stuff happens.
- Yeah, that's right.
- All right, let's get onto some serious talk here, Bob.
People get mad when we do this.
Okay.
Just ignore them.
So hamstrings, if you wanna strengthen a hamstring
so that you minimize risk for injury or pulled muscle
in the future, when you're out doing your activity
or your sport,
you wanna do eccentric strengthening.
So the way I like to do it on the ball is...
- Eccentric strengthening is strengthening while
the muscle lengthens.
Not shortens, all right?
Here you just shorten the muscle.
Now, as he goes the other way,
it's gonna lengthen the muscle.
- So, I'm gonna come up with both legs
so it's not so hard.
Now I'm gonna do my right leg eccentric.
I'm gonna let it down slow and with good control.
So there's one.
And there's two.
- What you could do, Brad, is you could
keep your butt down and roll it this way
and now lift up.
- There you go.
- So then it would just be almost complete
eccentric strengthening.
- That's another option.
- And you could do it with two legs or one leg.
- Depending on how aggressive you wanna get
with the strengthening.
And you'll definitely feel a difference
when you work it there, especially slow with control
Makes a big difference.
- It's good if you've injured, did you say
after you're injured or to prevent an injury,
but also it's good after you've injured
to help recover.
- Right, for rehab.
I mean, you're getting pretty close
to getting back to sport at that point.
So, yeah, good point, Bob.
So, now we wanna go to the next avenue of strengthening,
and that's with weight bearing.
- Okay, do you want me to start, Brad
or what are you gonna do?
- Well, no, I was gonna just start with the easier
ones, now again, considering we're at home,
we don't have all the equipment,
benches, and weights, and slag rails,
and this, that, and the other thing.
So a very beginner
start with hamstring strengthening
is if you just do a squat and down.
'Cus the hamstring is working
as we flex the hip like we talked about before.
- Again as an extender of the hip, it's working.
- And if you just go down partially, it's mostly quad.
You need to get deeper before the hamstrings kick in.
And the other thing is you don't wanna do this.
'Cus some people, I have patients, I'll have them do squats,
and oftentimes, they'll throw the mechanics off.
If some of them weight-lift, or whatever,
they understand this.
- You also don't want your knee as much as possible.
You really wanna keep it back, Brad, right?
- Right.
- I mean, you're kinda tall.
- Sure.
And that's something that takes some practice.
- Yeah, it does.
- You really have to think about it.
- But that'll get more hamstring than quad
if you stay back a little further.
- And if you're a beginner and you have a problem with that,
just put a chair in front of you,
or hold onto the cupboard here.
- Yeah, it'll make it easier. - It becomes much easier.
- The side of the cupboard
because you can grab under the counter and you can pull.
- If you got some parallel bars, it's easier, yeah,
but most people don't have those.
Okay now, to get a little more aggressive,
when you can do three sets of 10 like that,
and you wanna really work the hamstring muscle more,
get a taller stool.
If you just work on your stairway or stool
that's just tall, it's not gonna be effective.
You're gonna be working mostly quads.
- You can do your stairs,
you just go up two stairs, probably.
- Right, yeah.
So, you'll go up the second step,
or you'll get a stool like this.
So I'm here.
You wanna get your femur so it's about parallel
with the floor, okay?
Again, we're not gonna do this,
'cus when I do this,
that's gonna work my quad more.
- The other thing you want parallel
is this bone right here, the tibia.
And not parallel, vertical.
- Vertical, plum, whatever you wanna call it.
- Now, that's difficult to do.
- And that's why I'm using the Booyah Stik,
or use a balancing stick because
it's gonna help a little bit,
but it's gonna help me keep better mechanics.
So that I'm not gonna do this to maintain balance
but I use just a little bit.
I just got my finger tips, thumb and my pointer finger
working it.
- This is gonna be completely vertical, I should say.
I just don't want you goin' past the toe.
- Yeah, we don't wanna get this kinda thing.
So, work that up.
And down slow.
- Again, if you're in the stairwell, you can grab onto both
- Handrails?
- Handrails.
- There you go.
- Instead of the Booyah Stik.
- And again, I'm gonna stick with three sets of 10.
You're gonna get stronger.
If you want some hypertrophy, it's gonna work that as well.
You're gonna feel quadriceps working on this
a fair amount too, but you're getting that hamstring,
it's a closed chain, it's a function movement.
And then, Bob, one of his favorite way
to work his hamstrings, he's talked about this many times
when getting sore hamstring muscles.
- So, it's the kettle bell and actually, Brad,
I saw that EMG study, and they had 10 exercises
they looked at.
- Yeah?
- This was number one for strengthening exercises.
That's where I first became interested in it.
- For the hamstring?
- For the hamstring!
- All right!
- Yeah, I couldn't believe it.
So, what they teach you, to do a kettlebell swing
is what I wanna do.
Is they teach you to go down like this
and have the back completely flat.
- Yup.
- Completely parallel.
- Horizontal, yeah.
- Horizontal, and I don't like that.
I just think that's too hard on the back.
I just keep it straight up and down like this.
And keep a really good posture.
- Right?
Nice posture.
Look at that.
Nice and straight.
- And believe me, you feel it on your hamstrings.
'Cus, I've done this two days in a row,
I always worry I'm gonna tear my hamstrings.
It's so sore.
- What do you use, a five pound kettlebell?
- I use a 50 pound.
- Oh, 50 pound.
Sorry, Bob, to mislead.
- So you wanna make sure your knees aren't in like this
or out like this, and always lined up nice and well
and, you go straight down, like this, so again
my knees are not going past the pose.
And I keep my head up, I'm keeping my back straight.
Using your hips to thrust forward.
You're not lifting the bell like this.
- Right.
- The kettlebell.
You're actually thrusting like this.
- The power comes from the hips.
- And you actually can squeeze your buttocks together
so you get a little butt action there too.
That'll really work the hamstrings.
I actually do a set of 15, which is maybe a little too many.
- But you're getting a little endurance,
and that's just fine.
- And it works your core
and it's really good for your back, too.
It's a great functional activity.
- It is.
So, once again, Bob, we're not just doing the hamstrings,
we're working the associated muscles with it
to get you stronger, prevent injuries,
and you know, like I normally say, get you strong like bull.
We're gonna raise the bar on just a few more things.
- All right.
Thanks a lot for watching.
- Ooooh.