(upbeat music)
♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapist ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- So a little bit of a strange title.
Today we're going to
talk about neck pain relief exercises while sleeping.
- Exercises while we sleep?
- No, actually, so what we're going to do
is we're going to show you some exercises you can do in bed,
but we're also going to show you some positioning things
you can do while sleeping.
- Let's start off, Brad.
- All right.
So the first one is you would need a rolled towel.
- Like this one?
- Yeah, that, that will work fine.
- So you've got two of them, two different diameters.
- Yeah depending on what you want or prefer.
- Yeah body shape size
Bed size.
- You're going to start with this.
- You want this right?
- Yes I want that one.
Right underneath the occiput.
- Sounds German doesn't it?
Occiput.
- Yeah.
Some people call it the skull pan.
- That, very good.
(Brad laughs)
- So we're going to go put it in position here
and you can actually do a chin tuck.
Brad maybe you want to show what it looks like on a person.
- So we're just doing this,
but it's different when you're lying down on your back.
Especially with the roll under here,
because it makes it easier to stretch.
- It's very easy to stretch .
It's is very comfortable.
Especially when you're getting pain
and tension in that suboccipital or in that.
What else?
- [Brad] Upper neck area there.
- Under neck area, yeah.
- The thing is suboccipital nerves come out there
and they come over here,
over the top of your head, up to your forehead.
So sometimes if you get those radiating foreheads,
this stretch can help that.
- So after you've done the sub chin touch,
you can also do it with over pressure.
And this sometimes, if you're having a headache here,
that can take it away by
just put a continuous pressure like this.
- It's harder to talk, isn't it?
- Yeah.
- But don't, don't get too aggressive with that right away.
Gentle.
- You can later on, you can really give a yank at it.
( both laugh)
- So there you go.
That's one exercise,
or two exercises with the overpressure.
Third one, exercise.
This one, it feels good for me.
I do a chin tuck and I bend to the side.
- So if you look at it from this way,
he's chin tucking and going as two motions at the same time.
Only do this if it feels good and it makes things relaxed.
- If makes it worse, avoid that side,
and tried the other side instead.
For me, I could go to the right,
it feels really good.
To left, does not help.
- So then you just go to the right?
- Right just go to the right.
And you can actually do the chin tuck,
go to the side,
and even add a little over pressure if you'd like.
So finger tips only.
- Finger tips only.
- Now, Bob, I know they're going to ask this.
How many repetitions?
- I do around 10.
- About 10, yeah.
And there's no firm number on this.
You feel good after five or six, you know,
you may want to hold right there.
Next one should tuck and now a turn.
- So that'd be like a rotation technically speaking.
- And the same thing.
You could add a little over a pressure if you'd like.
- [Brad] Just a little bit on the chin, the jaw.
- Am I messing with my mic when I'm doing that?
Chin tuck, turn.
- [Brad] Gentle pressure, gentle.
- All right, now we're going to adjust.
We're actually going to do,
take it, probably a smaller towel.
This towel would be too big.
- Yeah, this one's a thick one.
- Now you're going to take a towel
and you're going to actually place it along your spine.
Brad, can I use you as an example here?
- [Brad] Now these tiles, we've got them rolled up.
If you find the right size towel you some rubber bands
or tape it so they stay in place.
- Right.
So we're going to run right along the spine there.
I'm going to go like this.
I'm going to put it along the spine
and now I can work on stretching this way into the Y.
- [Brad] Y bob, Y.
- Stretch this way to the T.
I got to do over here.
- This way if you're looking down it goes like this.
- Then the reverse Y.
- Right.
And that towel roll under there,
if you've got a really soft bed,
you'll probably need a thicker towel roll
to get the proper stretch.
- To be honest Brad, I think I need a thicker one.
Even for this one.
- Yup, yup.
- It ended up being not as much as I thought.
- Here want to give it a go with that one?
- Yeah.
- I had a teacher once.
- Yeah this is better.
This is enough.
You could tell.
You can feel it.
- This is a really good stretch.
- It feels, it doesn't hurt,
but it just feels like it's opening up your chest somewhere.
- Right, because, what you'll find
is that a lot of neck problems
stem from what's going on between your shoulder blades.
If your shoulder blades are flexed like this,
and tightened, that's going to make your neck go forward.
So if you scratch out that area.
- Yeah, these are very similar
to our stretches we show standing,
but you're doing them in bed.
And you're more relaxed
so they can be more effective sometimes because of that.
- All right, that's the exercise you can do in bed.
Pick out the ones that help.
- Right.
- And discard the other ones.
- You'll probably only find one or two
and just do your favorite one.
- Now I'm going to show you
the position I do at night, Brad.
- Yeah this is a quite interesting.
- It's a little bizarre but yeah how your body is.
- I have a SleepOvation pillow by the way.
- Oh yes.
- So.
- It's got Springs in it unbelievably.
- Want I want to show you is how typical people sleep,
and why, what the fault with that is.
So here we have a spine.
- Was this your towel, Bob?
Pretty funky.
- It's a dish towel.
- Oh, you took it from your wife?
- Yeah, I stole it.
Don't tell, sh.
Okay, so we got the head, we got the pelvis,
we got the spine, first seven vertebrae of the neck.
- [Brad] Yeah.
So people lying on their back, look at what they do.
- [Brad] So if you've got too many,
too thick of towel you mean.
- [Bob] Right, but let's say even only have one pillow Brad.
Even that could be too much.
- [Brad] Sure.
Especially if you got a thicker pillow.
- [Bob] Right.
So what I do is I actually, I have,
I have a pillow and a half.
I have a squished down pillow.
- [Brad] Yeah, a thin one?
- [Bob] Yup, a thin one.
And then I put a throw pillow like this,
and then I sleep like this,
and it keeps my thoracic area.
- [Brad] Elevated.
- Right.
So I'll show you.
- What do you when you roll around a little bit?
- Okay, I'll show you.
- Okay.
This must be quite the adventure.
Should have a camera on your neck.
- So this is a little bit too far back for me.
So I have a pillow under here or a tall.
Yeah, there you go.
Perfect.
This is how I sleep.
- You could tell, as soon as it got in the right position,
you said, oh, I know this position.
- So now let's say I'm going to sleep on my side.
- Yeah.
- What I do is I roll over onto my side.
- Yes.
- I take the throw pillow like this.
- Oh, the create the valley.
- And I have the canal here for my shoulder.
- Oh, the canal, that's right.
- Yup and look at this.
My head, neck, is in good position.
- Yup.
- My shoulder is a good position.
- So your spine is like this.
We're looking at that.
Look at that.
This is, this could have been from one of your relatives.
It matches perfectly.
- But if I go back onto my back, I just go like that.
And I go like this,
and it's all in good position all night long.
I've done this for I bet you 20 years.
- Really?
- Yes. - I better get a patent on it.
- It's a natural thing for you.
You don't even have to think about it.
You don't even wake up.
You just turn in and all this stuff happens.
- That's right.
- And my wife already knows, like, I like a certain pillow.
It's gotta be squished down enough.
- If she, does she, ever take your pillow.
- She took it one time.
- And it kind of messes with you?
- Are you kidding me.
- All night long you're frustrated.
- Yeah, right.
- That'd be fun to see that too.
- We're, Brad and I can fix just about anything.
- Except for.
- A broken heart.
- But we're working on that.
- This is probably helping someone.
- Absolutely.
The heart has more room to relax and heals better.
- That's right.
- We'll hold a whole chapter on that.
- That's right.
- Be careful.
- All right, we forgot to mention this week's giveaway Brad.
This week we are giving away a SleepOvation mattress.
We don't usually forget stuff.
Do we?
- Yeah the SleepOvation.
- We don't even know what we're talking about, do we?
- It's an outstanding mattress,
and it's got 700 tiny mattresses.
It has air channels, so it's keeps you cooler.
- Really good pressure relief.
- Yeah, I'm very happy with mine.
- And you can get whatever size you want.
It doesn't come like this.
It comes covered up.
- Yeah, this is just a sample,
so we can show you the insides of it.
- People I know, including me, they love theirs.
- Yeah.
So you can win it.
They just ship it to your house,
and open it up, and it's amazing.
Yeah get big a popcorn and a six pack of soda and (laughs).
- Yeah.
- All right, well, good luck with that.
You never know someone definitely is going to win it.
- That's right.