♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists on the internet ♪
- Do you look pretty?
- Hi 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.
- Today we're gonna talk about sciatic pain relief,
really long term success to, you must know this.
It's based again on the work of Robin Mackenzie.
We are big, big fans.
He has since passed.
- Right.
- But in the world,
he definitely was probably one
of the most notable physical therapists in the history-
- Particularly for sciatica.
- Yeah. - Yup.
- And for a lot of things
but we've got a lot of his books in our list down below.
- Sure.
- In our Amazon list.
And these are really excellent books.
They're inexpensive, they're like 10 bucks.
We don't even have the Mackenzie one here for a back.
- Well, a patient has it.
- A patient has it.
This shows you never borrow a book, right?
You'll never get it back.
But he's got "Treat Your Own Shoulder",
he's got "Treat Your Own Back", "Treat Your Own Neck",
"Treat Your Own Knee".
Real simple books but they're golden.
- Right.
They're written for the patient to use.
- Yeah.
- So that's we're gonna base this treatment.
And this is something that if you have sciatica
and it's improving and it's feeling good,
if you don't do this part,
the chances of it reoccurring in the future are much higher.
So pay attention to this and just hold on for a little bit.
Sometimes we babble on, but Bob, can you,
Oh, we are. If you are new to our channel
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we've got some big giveaways coming up here.
We're gonna do seven in a row.
This is all gonna happen before the holidays,
cause people wanna promote their products.
And, and so they're giving us big
big stuff to giveaway.
Right, this is exciting.
2018, if you watch it
it's a couple years from now.
The thing about the, with the Robin Mackenzie thing.
I, I, again, we were focusing
on the person that's better now
but you don't want it to reoccur.
Right. So in other words, that leg pain is pretty much gone.
And this is a point as therapists, you get into this point
and they don't want to come back to therapy anymore,
cause they feel good. - Right
- And then they leave
but this is critical to do these next couple steps.
And then some long term, real basic,
- Yeah.
- Exercises and, watching-
- Habits.
We're looking for, we're looking for the habit.
Okay. So the pain is gone and probably sitting, bending
flexing forward, back when this was bad, all made it worse.
- Right.
- Okay. Bob, can I just?
- Sure.
So generally, the treatment generally is extension to start
off with, and that's what the book is gonna show you.
You're working on extension.
You're extending the back, you're keeping the butt down.
But once you're beyond that, once things are better
what are you doing next then, Brad?
- Okay, so you went through your inflection
and we've got a number of videos that go more detail
and how to improve it through the exercise
I just demonstrated.
But again, you're better. You're feeling better.
The next thing is
you wanna start flexing the low back
and but you do that initially by laying down supine
just like I am here, pull both of knees to your chest.
And when you do those, they should feel perfectly normal.
They shouldn't irritate the back or the leg at all.
And do 10 of those.
- [Schrupp] If it irritates the leg or back
you're gonna stop immediately.
- Right.
And then you're gonna go back to just the press up.
- [Schrupp] Right.
But if you do 10 of these and it's like, feels good
then you must, absolutely must, roll
to your stomach and finish the series with,
- [Schrupp] Yeah, you always finish with extensions.
- Right. And you're gonna do 10 of those.
- [Schrupp] Now you notice Brad's a little bit stiff
in that direction cause Brad has spondylolisthesis
and you wouldn't be doing those.
Right, Yeah. If you have spondylolisthesis
- Now you don't even know how to say it.
- (indistinct) We do pronounce it a little differently.
Anyways, that's beyond the point.
You're gonna do those, 10 of those
and then we're not gonna go through the whole series.
I really think that the book is a really good reference.
It's only $10.
And if you've had sciatica, it's worth,
well worth getting it for a guide.
- You know, we do these videos and, and you know
if we were to do the whole, a video, explain the whole book
it would take probably an hour.
- Right, right.
- I mean, so there's just a lot of information in there.
So we try to give you bits and pieces.
But if you want to be a little more comprehensive
then you know, we're not trying to sell books here
but I'm, I'm trying to help you.
And by trying to help you, sometimes you need to
have more information or you need to digest it at your rate.
- Right.
- I mean, you can't be going with the, the video.
We're moving along pretty fast.
- So have your little library, their skinny little books.
And also if you compare that to a visit
to the doctor or a therapist, it's, it's really nothing.
It's, it's a great (indistinct)
- So you can do some flexion and standing tube, right?
- Right. And if that feels good,
you can start to go back to doing this, again,
should be completely pain free.
pain free, no pain in the back,
no symptoms, no numbness, tingling, pain down the leg.
You do 10 of those.
And then you're gonna want to extend backwards 10 times.
And that also should be pain free
and feel like a good stretch.
So we're balancing that
- and we've taught you in other videos not to do this bend.
- Right.
And, and what we're doing now is we do
want you stretch a little bit because you've had this
we want to stretch out that, the fibers
of the disc and stuff like that.
So this is the one time where we're gonna allow
you to do it.
And we don't want you to do it with weight that's for sure.
You don't wanna lift anything like this.
- Nope.
So you're just gonna do a little bit of gentle stretch
and then you're gonna finish up by counteracting it.
So that you can get away from it
- Precisely.
Now, when you can do those
and you're completely symptom free, things are going good.
Then again, you really need to, the habits.
So where we couldn't find is your habits seated posture.
So Bob, why don't you pull a chair out?
The seated posture, I think is probably one
of the things that will create sciatic
without you realizing it.
- Yeah. This is the, we've become a, a society that sits.
And, and with that, a lot
of times you're sitting slouched like this.
- Right
- And if you sit slouch like this for hour upon hour
that's where it's gonna make that disc problem worse or
or give you a disc problem.
- Right. Particularly if you have a history of it.
- Right. Absolutely.
So what you wanna do, is you're gonna wanna make sure
using a rolled towel or something to start
off with, and you're gonna create that arch in your back.
So you're gonna have kind of regain or,
or establish a, a straight posture.
So yeah. - I can see this better.
- Yeah, a lot of times people, we have people talk,
start up with a roll towel and they find one, you know, the
the size that works for them.
- Right.
A lot of times I've found that people who are in the throws
of back pain of sciatica, they like the thicker towels.
- Sure.
- And then after a while, you know,
after they get better, they get by with a thinner towel.
- Sure.
- And, and then eventually you probably wanna go
out and buy, you know, a lumbar support.
So you don't have to go around with a towel in you.
- These are more comfortable, anyways.
- They're more comfortable.
They're cushiony and they got straps on them.
So they, they can strap onto your car,
or onto your office chair.
And then you can go ahead and, and
and give yourself the support.
- And those, if you look, those supports up
those are Robin McKenzie, lumbar supports.
You can get more dense ones, they're a little more firm
softer ones, different sizes, different shapes.
And that's how you- - memory foam,
You got, you know, you got square ones.
And, and the problem is that, is
that we can't tell you which one's gonna work for you.
We don't know.
It's gonna be a little bit of experimentation.
Boy. You know, if you have a friend that's using one
you wanna maybe try to see if you can borrow it or try it.
You know, just to, to see how it feels.
But that's why I often have people start
with a towel just to see, does it feel better?
Are they getting in better position?
And then, then they work towards, you know
picking out a lumbar support.
- Right. But it is really important.
The next thing is you're by the mechanics, live
bending over and lifting.
Because when you bend over like this with another five
or 10 pounds, that really increases the stress on the back.
So we want to make sure you're bending
like this as much as possible.
One thing you can do is take a cane
or a stick or anything that's straight, you can handle with
and you're gonna go like this.
My head's touching the stick.
My back is touching.
- He's got three points of contact here, here and butt,
so he's gonna, he's gonna keep
in good position while he is doing the lifting.
It's a great, great one to, to train you.
- And it's a great, you know
good way to work on squat mechanics
if you're wanting to do some squats, but it, it works.
It forces you to have good mechanics with bending
and then hopefully that'll carry over to your everyday life.
- And if you got somebody with you, you know, and
and you're doing these, and you're going like this
and then he does them wrong,
you just pull it away like this and you
and you hit him a few times.
- Why Bob?
- Well, you wanna, it's negative reinforcement.
That's a psychology Brad.
That works.
- I hope people have tuned out by now
- What? It works.
All right. Thanks everybody for watching.
Remember, we can fix just about anything
- except for
- a broken heart - There you go.
- You know how hard I've been working on that by the way?
And I don't think you have been.
- What, the broken heart?
- Yeah.
- Well, I get busy, you know,
I've been busy and, but I'm getting back to it.
Just wintertime. In the wintertime I get-
- Does Robin Mackenzie have a book on breaking a heart?
- Well, I don't, he's not alive, Bob.
- All right, that's right.
Thanks for watching.