(playful electronic music)
♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- And I'm Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet. - In our opinion, of course.
- Hey Brad, top three ACL range of motion exercises
or stretches that you should perform after surgery.
- Right, and this is pretty much
within the like two or three weeks after surgery.
When that knee is tight yet sore.
You cannot straighten it.
You cannot bend it very far.
- All right, you're shooting for both.
- Exactly.
- Get it straight or get it bent more back.
- You better believe it.
So you're gonna have to get off the table.
- All right, let's go. - All right.
All right.
Nothing fancy.
And that's,
the best exercises are the simplest ones.
- [Bob Schrupp] Right, that's right.
- In this situation,
you need a slippery surface
or something you can slide your heel on.
I'm just gonna put a towel down
on this vinyl plinth
and the knee'll typically be like this.
Most of the time, it won't straighten,
but we're gonna think about bending it up
and just do a little scrubbing if you will
or working that heel across the table.
You can do this on a floor.
If you do it on carpeting,
you can use some, a plastic bag
to make the carpet slippery for you.
And it's certainly okay to help bend it.
When you start to get to that part
where it starts to stretch and hurt,
don't go too far.
Sharp pain is no good.
- [Bob Schrupp] So you can do it in a seated position, Brad?
- Yep, you can do it seated.
It's a good point, Bob.
Or if you wanna do it laying, you can do it laying
I've got two people with ACLs right now
and I just have them at this point,
they take their other leg and they'll just push it up
to stretch it a little bit more.
And so the other leg will help.
- [Bob Schrupp] Sure.
Gotcha.
- You can also do this straightening
and just right here,
lay, let it down like this
and let gravity straighten it out.
- [Bob Schrupp] For a little stretch.
- Yep.
And you can take a towel roll like this.
So there's a little air gap.
- [Bob Schrupp] Sure.
- Can you show that Bob, right under the knee?
- Yep. So right under here, he's got a gap
and the knee's not straightening all the way
and he's gonna let gravity do it's thing.
- Exactly.
This is one of those nice exercises you can relax
and let gravity work for you.
- [Bob Schrupp] Yup. - Okay.
Now the next point,
grab, you wanna,
or, Bob?
- Sure. - You wanna grab the ball?
If you got yourself-
- It matches you.
- Yeah, what do you say?
Not bad, huh?
Color coordinated today. - [Bob Schrupp] What say you?
- What say you?
(both men laugh)
Exactly.
Okay.
Here we go.
Knees up here and you can straighten it a little bit.
Here's my good knee. (tapping knee)
Here's the one with the new surgery.
We'll pull the pant leg up.
- [Bob Schrupp] Yeah, pull it down.
- There you go. - [Bob Schrupp] Pull it down.
- Look at that leg, huh? (Bob laughs)
Forget that.
Anyways, we're gonna,
you could do a little straightening on here
like you did before.
And then the nice thing is you just use the strong leg.
You see this leg, it's pulling the ball in,
stretch, stretch, stretch, and down.
- [Bob Schrupp] Right leg's pulling the left leg back.
- Yep, yep.
Exactly.
Stretch.
- [Bob Schrupp] Put it into a stretch.
- Exactly.
Ooh, that feels good.
You can work that 10 to, you know, 10 to 20 repetitions
until it's slower.
You'll know.
You'll know when it's time to get done.
Okay.
Now, there's more.
But wait, there's more Bob.
(Bob laughs)
All right.
- [Bob Schrupp] No way, I've seen a better leg on a chick
than a kitchen table and a chicken.
- Oh yeah.
Be careful.
Be careful, Bob.
- All right.
Am I up?
(laughs)
- Are you up? - Am I doing prone?
- Yes, of course Bob.
- Okay, I don't need this, do I?
- No, Bob.
(Bob laughs)
- Okay.
- Actually you gotta go the other way.
- Other way?
- Yeah.
Now this is a, again, easy stretch.
You're gonna feel this one.
This is how you get the knee straight.
- This the one?
- Yep, this is the knee that had the surgery.
You lay, you can do this on a bed
if it's a firm bed at home.
And you can see,
bring it up a little bit, Bob.
Here's the good leg
and it's nice and straight here.
And this is the one that's been,
had the surgery.
And Bob would be completely relaxed right now.
And that's as far as we'll wanna go sometimes.
And you're just gonna relax and let gravity go.
And with time, you're gonna see Bob's legs stretch
and it's gonna go straighter,
straighter, straighter, straighter.
And I never have my patients hang like this
more than five minutes.
And if it's really uncomfortable, it may be less.
Sometimes this can get pretty uncomfortable
and you always have the kneecap past the table.
'Cause if your kneecap is on the table
it's uncomfortable and it's doing no good whatsoever.
- Will you use weight Brad or not?
- Sometimes I will put weight on the ankle,
maybe one or two pounds.
It all depends.
Don't make the stretch so bad
that you're screaming and yelling.
Use good judgment.
It's gonna be a little uncomfortable
but if it's too uncomfortable
and you just can't bear it,
you're not ready for this one yet.
I've got one coming up that you will be ready for.
All right.
- You don't wanna be calling your physical therapist
a physical terrorist.
- Right.
Yep, exactly.
Or what is that other one?
PT stands for pain and torture.
- Pain and torture.
Right. - Yeah.
- We heard 'em all. - Yeah, yeah.
Don't go there Bob.
- Okay, seated.
- We're really nice people.
- What do you need for seated now? I need the towel.
- Towel?
- Yeah.
- Okay.
- So, if you're on a smooth floor,
you just put a towel down
or you can do it with your sock on.
Anything to make it slippery.
And simply get the knee,
this is to get it to bend.
And you can push it in like that.
Use a strong leg and just push it in.
You got that in there (indistinct)?
It looked like the camera's pointing towards Bob.
I'm the one doing the thing now.
(Bob laughs)
Keep me focused.
- If the camera breaks
then we'll know it's on the right person.
- (laughs) Yeah, no kidding it.
- Now if it gets to back so far, Brad,
then at some point, you want to take the heel.
Instead of going here, you go off the toe.
- Yeah.
'Cause eventually you're gonna want to get up
to that hundred and ten, hundred and twenty
and further range.
- Right.
- And have a seat on the ball seeing how we're doing this.
You can actually just sit on the ball.
- And rock.
- And, yeah.
Now you're pretty far advanced.
Pretend that that's the-
- Yeah.
- This is a little tricky
'cause you gotta be comfortable on the ball.
You could fall off the ball.
- Probably about the right size, too, for you.
- Yep, yep.
- This just is probably a little low for me, but-
- Yeah, that ball is too small for Bob.
Bob's a tall guy and that ball's-
- But you can do this in a wheelchair too.
- Yep. - You can rock back and forth.
- Mm-hm.
- And you can do it on the ball.
- Probably a glider, rocker, maybe.
- Sure.
Yep. - Yep.
- Anything that you got at home.
We're gonna take that, a stool.
If you got an ottoman at home.
(wheels gliding)
'Cause you probably don't have a stool like this.
And this is to get it straight.
I mentioned sometimes laying on your stomach,
the prone hang Bob was doing before.
It's too painful.
This one you could adjust so it's not too painful.
And, you can put a cold pack on
which you have to do anyways
to keep the swelling down at the same time.
Acts as weight.
It cools down the knee for inflammation.
Battle that a little bit.
Bob, am I forgetting anything?
- Nope, you're cool.
- And if you wanna be aggressive,
you put your heel out there
and you let the weight push it down.
'Cause it may start like that.
And you can do a little pushing,
reasonable stretch pain, not too much.
And if you, you know,
you're gonna have the cold pack on for 15 to 20 minutes.
Most people, my patients, I'll have 'em stretch hard
for maybe five minutes and that's enough.
- Well that and also,
what I have people do is give themselves a break.
So like, let's say you've done it for a minute.
It starts to hurt. Then I just bend it for a little bit.
- Pull it up like this.
- Yeah, give it a break. - Yep, sure.
- And then go back into it again.
- Yep, that's a good option too.
- So, but, five minutes total.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- And then just bring it up to here.
- Right, and it's nice and relaxed.
- And then you put a big smile on your face
and it feels good.
- Yeah.
- It's just a cold pack cooling down the knee.
This does feel good, Bob.
- All right.
- I'm getting pretty happy here.
(laughs) - Okay.
- All right.
- Remember we can fix just about anything but?
- Except that break, broken heart.
But I'm thinking we can work on that.
I, this gives me another idea.
We'll come up with it next time.
- He's always thinking.