♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
(hands clapping)
- 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.
- Today we're gonna show you some easy exercises
to help hemorrhoids.
Yes, believe it.
This helps hemorrhoids
and I'm going to actually sacrifice myself here, Brad.
Cause I'm going to admit that I had hemorrhoids
and this has helped my hemorrhoids.
- Say no more, Bob. - All right.
- You're out of the closet. (laughing)
- No, out of the closet.
- Whatever, I don't know. - Yeah, okay.
By the way, if you're new to our channel
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos, how to say healthy, fit, pain-free
and we upload every day.
Also go to bobandbrad.com, go to the giveaway section.
If you want to, we're always giving something away
go to the giveaway section this week
we're giving away a FitGlide.
We'll show you just in a minute.
If you go to Facebook, it'll be pinned
to the top of the page to contest.
Go to Twitter, Instagram or TikTok
if you want a 60 second version of our program.
And as you might already know
this is a podcast and a video.
- Yeah. Cause this is going to be a podcast.
- Yes, yes. - Absolutely.
Should we look at FitGlide, our giveaway?
- Well, he'll describe it. Brad to you. Right?
- Oh, you want me to?
- I'll describe it on the on the video for the podcast.
- Sure, exactly.
- So on the podcast what we have here
is a device that you can use
in a seated position or lying down
and you actually can glide your feet back and forth.
Again, you can be in bed doing this or you can be seated.
It's great for knees and hips.
And it's also, it has a stand where you can raise
up the front part of the stand and work quads more.
You can raise up to the stand in the back
and it works hamstrings more.
- Yeah. If you're on the podcast, just, you know, Google
Bob and Brad FitGlide and you'll find
you'll see pictures on how to use it.
- Now I'm going to just go and warn you right away.
The language is going to be
a little bit graphic at times on here.
Not, not, you know, we're not using blasphemy.
We're just using descriptive words.
So we're going to be talking about
the genitalia and stuff like that.
- It's all professional.
- It's all professional, yeah.
So what we're talking about here is Kegel's exercises.
Now, or you say cay-gle? Cay-gle.
- Well, we should probably Google that
and see what the correct pronunciation, so
It's Dr. Kegel. - Arnold Kegel.
He invented this in the fifties
and it was really done mostly for urinary incontinence
but I saw a bunch of articles, Brad
that it does, can help hemorrhoids.
It gets more blood flow to the area.
But in my case, I'm gonna get little graphic here
but it firms things up so things don't
droop as much. - Around the anus.
- Well yes, because you're strengthening the muscle
of the pelvic floor. - Sure.
- And the pelvic floor is made up
of the superficial level and a deep level.
But when you do this exercise
you're strengthening both levels.
- Sure. The pelvic floor, they're kinda like,
I envision them kind of like- - Like a diaphragm?
- Flat like a pancake or a diaphragm.
And it literally is the pelvis floor that keeps things
supported so that your visceral organs-
- Exactly. - Stay where the need to be.
- It's like a netting bat down there.
And you know, it's horizontal just like the diaphragm.
In fact, I think it's called,
there's a name where they call it something
like the diaphragm.
- The bottom diaphragm?
- Yeah, something like that. Seriously.
- Inferior diaphragm.
- Well, if not, we just made that up.
So if you want to strengthen these
or we're going to give you hints on how to do it.
What you're going to feel is like
a gentle gathering of the pelvic floor muscles.
You're going to contract and lift them up.
You should feel like you're including the anal sphincter.
Like that should be moving up.
With ladies and men too, in fact,
we're going to talk about this later,
you want to feel like the perineal body is lifting up.
The perineal body. What is it, Brad?
You want me to tell?
- Yeah, go ahead.
- It's the area between the anus and the vagina for women
and the anus and the scrotum for men.
So it's really, we'll talk to it later
how you can actually palpate that
and feel it moving up.
- So I'm assuming this is preferred in the seated position.
- You could do it lying down.
You could do it seated.
In fact, it's a good thing to progress.
Like start lying down.
Then you could even do it in a quadruped position.
- On your hands and hands and knees.
- Hand and knees. You could do it
in a seated position and they should do it standing.
The whole thing with this,
you should continue to breathe normally
while you're doing this.
People should not be able to tell that you're doing this.
Brad and I could be doing it right now
and you'd have no idea.
- Assuming you've practiced it.
- Practice, and you know what you're doing.
With men, you may actually feel the base
of your penis lift up and possibly your testicles as well.
You know, we'll get into all the queuing that goes on.
What you should feel is you should feel
other muscles contracted, like the glutes.
- You should or you should not?
- Should not. - Okay.
- They should not.
You're trying to focus on the pelvic floor.
You shouldn't feel the inner thigh.
You shouldn't feel the abdominal muscles contract.
- So if you're doing- (strains)
- Yeah, if you're going like that.
You know and I've seen some other channels where
they were actually promoting that.
And I was like, you know, I don't think that's right.
- That's not along with this- - Kegel's, yeah.
- It came out of a book, you said? Two books.
- I've read a couple of books on it, so.
- Sure.
- Don't hold your breath.
You should be able to talk.
Don't tense, anything up in your face either,
your eyebrows or shoulders, biceps.
- It's just one of those things I'd isolate.
I mean, we do this with people, with your abdominal muscles
try to isolate that because the pelvic position,
a lot of these areas of the body are very difficult
or it's just not a normal thing.
It's not like moving a finger, you know?
- Yeah, I think that's a good point to be made, Brad.
You can voluntarily control the pelvic floor muscles.
But it's also got an added automatic component to it.
It's going to automatically work at times
when you're lifting, you're carrying something or you know.
- I compare it to your breathing muscles.
I mean, you can voluntary control your diaphragm
and your breathing.
But at the same time you don't have to think about it
and you continue to breathe.
- It's gonna keep going.
Hopefully, thankfully.
So these are the common cues,
and this is probably the most important part of this,
is for women,
you're going to squeeze and lift the pelvic floor.
They tell you, you want to tighten up like
you would like to stop the stream of urine.
But they don't want you doing that.
They don't want you to just start going in and stopping-
- Not literally- - Not literally
because you could develop a urinary tract infection
and it can mess with your reflexes, I guess
a little bit your urinary reflexes.
So yeah, you want the feeling like you're stopping urine
but not actually doing it.
And another cue is you can make it feel like
you're lifting and holding something in your vagina.
You can also squeeze, like you're trying to hold in gas,
which Brad and I know quite well.
(laughing)
You know you're afraid to let one go,
you're among company so you tighten up and...
- Flatulence, Bob. - Flatulence.
There you go.
- I got to put some professionalism-
- And that's right.
So the other thing you can do, and you can't see this
on a podcast, but you can actually take your sit bones.
That's the bones that you're sitting on.
You can feel right when you're palpating.
- [Brad] Or if you're sitting on a hard surface-
- Like bleachers.
- Yeah, you rock back and forth,
you'll feel those sit point bones are making contact.
- Yeah, now those sit bones.
What you want to feel is like you're pulling them together.
That also helps raise it up.
So now this is interesting, Brad.
They only had one cue for men and they did a study
on this and they had a bunch of cues for men.
But the one that worked was this one.
So you're supposed to shorten your penis.
- Bring it in like a turtle.
- There you go. Like a scared turtle.
- I think most guys could relate.
- So, it's funny.
People, men really seem to latch
onto that and it worked for me.
- So the whole idea is we're contracting those muscles
and you said, it's going to increase blood flow
for the hemorrhoid-
- So they can heal better.
- Right. And we know that-
- The other thing, you know
especially a lot of people with hemorrhoids
they sit in the toilet too long. You know what I mean?
And everything starts to get slack.
This is year after year.
Do you know what I mean?
- So you shouldn't be reading or looking at your cell phone.
- You really shouldn't. You really shouldn't.
- Get on there, get your business done, and go.
- That's what you're supposed to do.
And otherwise just stretching things out.
You know, you're letting things sag.
And so this helps tighten things up here.
So... What are you laughing at now?
So we're trying to keep this as serious subject
because you know, hemorrhoids are a issue.
- Oh right. I've never had them, so-
- Well I had them, and it's not fun.
Let me tell you, so.
- You know, this is one of those things that
there are therapists who have taken courses on this
and become certified, and they have actually some tools
that are specifically made for this.
- Yeah. Feedback tools.
So if you are having trouble,
seek out a therapist that has expertise in this area.
Some of the larger hospitals that generally have someone
dedicated towards that.
- But I think what we're doing here, I think
for some people, it's-
- Oh! My wife picked up right on it.
I mean, she was able to do it right away.
In fact, she hardly even listened to me, I think.
Because she was doing it.
But this is how you can actually feel it, Brad.
If you want to try to feel it.
You can actually take a piece of toilet paper,
small piece and put it by your anal sphincter,
do the exercise, and it actually kind of
picks it up a little bit.
So, I mean you got to put your finger on the anal sphincter.
- Sure. Oh. Yeah.
- All right, Brad, keep serious here now.
Next one, the perineal body, which we already recommended.
I think this is the best cue of all, Brad.
So again, the perineal body.
It's the area between the anus and vagina
or the anus and the scrotum.
Put your hands there.
Obviously you do this in private.
You could be lying on your back and you put your hands there
for feedback and if you're doing it right
you're just going to feel it gently lifted inward.
- Feel some motion going inward.
- Up, yep.
- I can see where lying down
would be a good place to start that.
- And men, one more one, you might actually see the penis
lift up a little bit when you're doing this.
If you're doing it right.
- Not if you got your pants on.
No. You know, you'd have to check it out.
You know, one of those things where, and don't
don't send us any phone videos of this stuff.
(laughing)
All right. So repetitions, you start off
probably like eight to 12 reps.
You're going to hold it for 10 seconds.
- Boy, that is a long hold. That's work.
I mean, especially to get started.
- Yeah.
- But that's what they recommend.
- It's not really hard to hold it.
I didn't think so.
Yeah. You can do that three times a day.
Eventually, they said you want to work up
until like a hundred reps in a day.
- So how many reps? Hold it for 10 and do it 10 times?
- Yeah. Eventually, over the day.
And the other thing is you,
it is a fast twitch and a slow twitch muscle.
So you can do the hold one, that's slow twitch.
But if you want to do fast twitch, you can actually tighten
and then relax, tighten, relax just for a second.
- So did they give any statistics
on people who do this on success rate?
Cause I mean, you don't have to do this
for the rest of your life, do you?
- No, no, but I'm sure you know
for women and incontinence and for men and incontinence
you might have to do it in the rest of your life.
It's not like it's a big burden, Brad.
- Sure, once you get used to it, but I mean
a hundred times a day, or do you get to relax often?
(speaking over each other)
- Yeah. I don't know on that.
I find it can be very helpful with urinary incontinence.
It can be the difference
between you having trouble and not having trouble.
I mean, there's definitely been...
There's a reason it's been around since the fifties.
I mean, it works.
Give it a try! - Good luck.
- Thanks everybody for watching.