- Hi, 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.
- Indisputably.
- Ah.
All right, Brad, today, we're gonna talk
about, it's really not a new treatment.
It's new to these people.
- Right.
- Because they've never heard of it, I'm sure.
But it's old to us.
It's called contrast baths.
- Mm hmm.
- Contrast, meaning opposite or what?
- White, black.
- Cold, hot.
- Yeah.
Viking, Packer.
- Right. There you go.
- Anyway. So what you're gonna start off with is,
you can do this at home.
If you have two sinks, works really well.
That's why I've had people do
and today we're gonna do it with the hands.
So if you're having arthritis, it's really good for that.
Cause it helps by going in,
what you're doing is you're gonna have to fill one sink
with hot water, one sink with cold water.
- Right.
- And by doing and going back and forth
you're actually vasodilating, dilating the arteries
and getting more blood flow, which helps
- Sure.
- Helps the area heal.
- And then when it goes in the cold, they constrict it,
it helps push the blood.
So you get more circulation as well.
- It's kind of a massaging effect.
- Right.
- Wouldn't you say?
- Yep. Temperature differences.
- So you have the two sinks.
The one sink you're going to fill up.
Now if you can do it, use a temperature thermometer
if you want.
- Right.
You know a candy thermometer or what are
they baking thermometer?
- Right.
- Otherwise you can just fill 'em.
I just have people fill 'em up.
Like the hot one is about as hot as they can tolerate.
- Right.
- So they don't burn themselves.
And the cold one, you can even throw some
- Ice in there.
- Ice there, if you want.
- Sorta more aggressive that way.
- Yeah.
- So it's gonna vary.
You're gonna have to kind of work with it.
See what your body tolerates the best.
- The temperatures that they recommend are 59 to 70
for the cold. 59 to 70.
And 100 to 110 for the warm.
- Right.
So this is our cold
- Right. Blue is cold.
- Okay. This is our warm.
- Right.
- All right, Brad, you're gonna be the victim.
- Yes. Okay.
So I have our arthritic hand, our painful hand.
You know, you can do this if you hit your hand and you gotta
it's all swollen up from trauma.
That could be another thing to help get the
swelling to go down.
So we're gonna start in which one, Bob, the hot?
- We're gonna start with a warm one
and you gonna go three to four minutes.
- Now this is a little awkward, cuz I gotta reach over.
Normally I would be in here, but I don't want to block the
- Now while you're in
- Oh, that's nice and warm Bob.
- While you're in there, what is
I often have people do is maybe even do a little bit
of range of motion.
- Sure. Yeah.
- You know?
- Yep.
- Work their hands.
Now, if you're doing this in your sink
you could probably do your dishes too.
Maybe while you're
(Brad laughing)
- I mean you could. Well, you go in the warm one.
- Well, I suppose.
- So, but this is a good thing maybe to have your TV
in front of you or something.
So they could, you know, but three to four minutes.
- Right.
- And then you're gonna, this is the shock part. Right?
- Yeah.
This is the part that kind of opens your eyes up.
- So now you're gonna go into this one. Just
- Ooh, that's cold.
- Just for a minute.
It's supposed to be.
- Yeah, okay. How long am I gonna hold this?
- You're really not tough, are you?
Okay, so three to four minutes then one minute. All right?
- I'm used to it now.
- All right.
Then after one minute, you're gonna go back into this one,
Brad, for three to four minutes
- That feels a lot better, Bob.
- It's back and forth.
- Right.
Three to four. One. Three to four. One. Three to four. One.
And you can do that for a total of 30 minutes.
And I've had people that have done this, Brad,
with their hands and they've really had
some good luck with it.
- Sure.
- They really have felt better after they've done it.
- So contrast baths
- I'm keeping in the warm, Bob, for a little while.
- Sorry, you gotta toughen up.
Brad and I were talking about when we were
in school and we had to do this.
We had to do one where we put our feet in ice water.
We did. I did.
And we actually had people passing out.
It was so cold and didn't bother me
because my feet got numb.
- Oh, Bob was tough.
- I'm tough, yeah.
All right. Anything else, Brad?
- No, I think it's a good treatment.
The nice thing about it, you can do it in your house.
It doesn't cost you anything.
- That's right.
- And the worst that can happen is you may not like it.
But the best thing you can do is have a good treatment
without any medication and you can do it at will. So,
- And just remember Brad, we can fix just about anything.
- That's right, Bob, except for?
- A broken heart.
- Oh.
- But, we're working on it.
- We're working on it.
- You better believe it. Here, take that.
- Peace out.