♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi, 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.
- Our great opinion. (laughing)
Okay, today Brad, we're gonna talk about top three
elbow straightening exercises or stretches.
This would be after you've maybe had surgery on your elbow
or you broke your elbow
and it's just not straightening out all the way.
- Had it in a splinter or a cast
for the last four to six weeks and it gets tight,
they take it off and it's like oh my gosh.
- I just had a patient with this
so I thought it'd be a good topic to talk about.
- Sure, mm hm.
- So first of all, what we had him do,
or what we had her do actually
is we just put a towel down or a sheet down
and we put the elbow on to give yourself some protection.
- Right.
- And you're gonna do, and we have her do this
quite often, like every hour if she can.
- Mm hm.
- And what she does is she does pressure on, pressure off.
Pressure on. - Stretch, stretch, stretch.
Get those. - Pressure off, yep.
- Scar tissue to break up.
- Yep, pressure on, pressure off ten times.
- Mm hm.
- Another way of doing this,
which might actually work better,
you're gonna lose my head here but that's okay.
- Yeah, we don't wanna look at that face anyways.
- Don't look at it anyway.
So you just put your hand on a table like this
and you're gonna pull like this
so you're actually getting some weight baring
through the arm too but.
- Right but it's hard to see through a shirt
but now it's bent - Yeah.
- And then he's pulling it straight.
- Yeah, same thing, pressure on,
pressure off. - So this is locked on
to the table right here.
- Pressure on, pressure off, pressure on, pressure off.
- Sure. - Okay, got the idea?
- Yep.
- All right, next one is, you need a little more equipment
for this one, you're actually gonna go ahead
and you're gonna take a hot pack or a heating pad.
- Mm hm.
- And put it on the elbow or maybe even around this way,
depending on how - Sure.
- You're gonna do it.
Start getting that warmed up really well
and then you'll take an ankle weight
or a weight with a strap on it
and you can put it around the wrist like this.
- Sure.
- And can you strap that, Brad?
- I only got one hand.
- We all got one hand here, there you go.
So then you can just let, now this one
is a prolonged stretch, this is one you're gonna let time
do its thing. - Right.
So the heat pack is gonna heat up the tissues,
get it a little more soft to relax and stretch,
the weight is going to help stretch.
Yeah and you just relax,
so this is the easy one. - Mm hm.
- Gravity's doing all the work,
although it may not be real comfortable
'cause there's gonna be a stretch on it.
- A prolonged stretch.
- Right.
I wouldn't do this one if you have some swelling
or anything in this elbow. - Right.
- The heat pack is not going to help
so only do it - Right.
- If it just needs stretching and there's no tenderness.
- Yep and you can actually increase the weight
over time if they can tolerate really well.
- Right, you're gonna hold it there for how many minutes?
- I dunno, what do you think?
Sometimes it's tiring. - It's good, I like five
to 10 minutes. - Sure.
- It's the comfort level, some people will hold it
for five minutes and they say, "That's it."
- One thing, too, while you're doing that.
If it gets to be too much, they can give themselves a break
a little bit. - Sure, yeah,
take the weight off. - Take the weight off,
stretch, and then go back into it again.
- Sure.
- The third one is actually also one
where you need a little bit of equipment.
You can Google this, it's just air splint.
I'll put the spelling down below
and these, they aren't that expensive
and basically you just go ahead, put it on,
you blow it up and it helps keep the elbow straight
and they don't have to work at it at all.
We sent one of these home with the patient
and she just put it on couple times a day
and just sat there for a half hour.
- Yeah, yeah, you just blow it up with your mouth
and the pressure actually, it works well,
it's comfortable and it's straightening my elbow.
Obviously if your elbow's real bent you're not gonna do it,
it's more at the end range.
- It was surprising, she was like this
and we could still put it on.
- And still get the pressure on.
- Yeah, you still get the pressure on.
- Sure, okay. I stand to be corrected.
- Yeah, you do need to stand to be corrected.
You can actually let the air out that way itself.
- Oh man.
- Now with some people too,
it's just a little bit of a bonus.
You can go ahead, you can stretch the wrist extensors
and flexors, so stretch both of these
'cause they do cross over the elbow too.
- Right, right.
- So little bit of that stretching won't hurt either, so.
- You bet.
- We always give a bonus, don't we, Brad?
- Yeah, no charge either.
- All right.
- Say no more.
- Next time we might though.