♪ Bob and Brad, the two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists 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.
- How do I say that with a straight face?
Today we're gonna talk about how to decompress your back,
your mid back, fix your pain,
plus we're doing a giveaway, Brad.
- Oh, outstanding! But the giveaway is
at the end of the video.
- At the end of the video.
You gotta wait around it's fantastic.
- It is a big, it's a big, big giveaway.
- All right, Brad, let's get into it.
- But Bob, what are you talking about mid-back,
we're talking shoulder blade area?
- Right. Why don't you show them on me, Brad?
- Yup. So stand up, nice and tall Bob.
Ooh, I gotta reach up.
So we're talking here, not here,
but we're talking about right here at the thoracic
12 vertebra right in here. And there's some-
- Starts at T1. Which is thoracic 1.
- Yup. T1.
- Which goes to thoracic 12.
- Right.
- Which is about five below the shoulder blades, right?
- Yep.
- Shoulder blades go to about T7.
So any pain within there,
sometimes the pain might get referred down further.
- Sure.
- I've had it quite often, Brad, quite often,
if you don't mind turn around.
- Oh, now it's my turn.
- Quite often when I feel pain in the low back,
it's actually from the mid-back,
it refers down.
- Right.
- Pain from the low back often goes down
into the block.
- Right.
- So, so my go-to treatment when I was treating people
in the clinic, was using Mulligan and Syriacs, that's two
- Physical, well-
- Well, one's a doctor, one was a doctor,
- Orthopedic doctor, right?
- And one is a physical therapist. I think he's still alive.
- Brian Mulligan.
- Yeah. So I would have people lie down like this,
the patient, they put their arms out like this
and their legs would be out.
And I have an aid pull on their arms,
- Grab the wrists here. You want me to pull you?
- You can do it, just like that.
And that feels good, actually.
- So you're not pulling really hard,
you don't have to have a big bruiser, you know,
just someone that gets some traction.
- Yup. And then I'd have somebody pull on their feet
at the same time.
- Yep. Grab around the ankles.
I would oftentimes use a towel.
It was a little more comfortable on the ankles,
but that's not that important for this discussion
- Contact. She feels good right now.
- Well, of course, Bob. I have a way with traction.
- Yeah. Apparently you do.
So I wanted to figure out a way that we could do this
on our own.
- Without having-
- Right.
- three, cause then, while there was traction-
- While there was traction, I was working on
manually on their mid-back.
- Right.
- And I have to say,
I wouldn't say it was successful one hundred percent
of the time, but it was a very high percentage.
- Right. Felt comfortable with success.
- Now, what I would always work on is,
I would first check their motion.
So you want to check your motion and
the main motion of the mid-back is rotation.
- Right. Right.
- So I would check which direction hurts.
So I often would have them cross like this
or like this, like "I Dream of Jeannie"
and you go ahead and turn to the right.
- Yep.
- Does that hurt? And is it, or is it restricted?
- Or painful too, right?
- Yeah.
- So the motion and pain, kind of take note of this,
- Right. Or one or the other, I mean,
and I would not work into that direction.
- The painful direction.
- Right. I, we're going to show you how that works
in just a minute, but where I have you work into
the non-painful direction.
- And I do want to mention, if you do assess your motion,
make sure you're doing it in a seated position.
Not standing.
- The pelvis should be stable.
- Right.
- And by sitting it is stable.
- Right.
- First off too, I want to mention
you shouldn't do this on anybody
who has rheumatoid arthritis
or if you have a lot of laxity or are double jointed.
- Right.
- I don't want you doing this.
- Or if you've had previous surgeries or,
or things like that on your spine, you know,
those are red flag things.
What about if their bone loss, osteoporosis?
- Yeah, probably be a little careful with that too.
I think I would hold off on that.
- Right. So typically, if you're,
if you're older, over 60, and you know
you have some bone density issues.
- Yeah. I don't have any problem probably with just hanging,
but I don't think I'd add the twist to it.
- Right. Well we can mention that again, as we show it.
- All right, Brad.
So we know now, let's say, for example,
that we found out that twisting to the right bothers you.
Now we've got to show you because it's actually gonna be
opposite with hanging,
and Brad's going to be our subject today,
but we're going to use the hanging handles.
These work really well because
while you're hanging, the wall supports you.
- Right. And the hanging is using
your body weight with gravity to provide the traction
that Bob, what we mentioned earlier,
where it had two people assist with.
So it's independent. So, should we-
- Yeah. Let's get jumping right in, Brad.
- So if you have something to hold on,
we use the hanging handles. If you had a pull up bar,
it works, but it's best if you can-
- The pull-up bar is a little bit problematic if you're out
away from the wall.
- Right, because then you're got a gap there.
- You need the wall to support you while you're doing this.
- And it actually, I think it really provides some comfort
and you can tell it, it gets your back in alignment.
You can really feel if you're, you know, straight.
So I'm going to slowly, and plus when you go down gently
and slowly with your traction,
the friction of your back against the wall,
it's very helpful.
Allows some real good control.
- And that's the first, like Brad is mentioning here,
the first thing you want to do is just work on traction.
You're going to slowly work into it.
It might be a couple of days that you do this
- Sure.
- And you can control the amount of traction you're getting-
- Right.
- Or decompression by your feet.
- Right. Yeah. Cause right now I'm probably,
I'm guessing 50% of my body weight and it feels pretty good.
And if you're doing this for the first time
and you go all your body weight and it hurts,
stop. Just go to the point where it feels good,
give it some time.
It may take a few days for things to decompress and get to
normal.
- And this is not a painful maneuver.
- No. If you're feeling pain, you stop.
- And that's how it was when I was treating patients.
If there was pain, we stopped.
- Right.
- Immediately.
So now, you know, what's weird about this, Brad,
is turning to the right, like this, is actually
similar to moving the legs to the left.
- Right.
- So we're not going to have Brad
move his legs to the left.
We're going to have him move to the right.
- Because turning to my left
- Legs to the right is like turning to the left,
and his left direction was fine.
It was his right direction. I hope this isn't too confusing.
- Well, the big thing is,
is when you do this only go the non painful route.
- Right.
- That's the easiest way to remember it.
- Yes. So you're going to use this, right Brad?
- Yes. That's what I use.
And I think it, you know-
- Like use a chair or a stool or-
- So let's say I'm to the point now,
where I feel comfortable, it feels good
to have the traction on.
And you know, I could hang there as long as my grip is fine,
you know, 20 to 30 seconds maybe or less,
I personally go a little less than that,
but now I'm going to go to the right and feel how it feels
like, oh, that feels good.
- Just starting a little bit of thoracic
or mid back rotation.
- Right.
Cause we mentioned before rotation in the spine,
the majority is from the thoracic spine,
not the lumbar or the low back.
- The way the bones are shaped.
- Yup.
- They promote rotation.
- Right. I'm going to come off and give a little break
because I need it. I'm gonna go back to it.
- Brad does have an evolved back,
- Right. Yup.
So this one I don't do because it doesn't bother me
for short periods, but I wouldn't do it on a regular basis.
So I'm going to rotate this way, assuming, oh,
that feels good. Everything is going good.
It actually feels better.
You might put your foot up on a stool there.
You don't necessarily have to do that,
- Right.
- but you can trial with level here
or here.
- The further you bring your feet,
the higher up the thoracic spine you go.
- Yep. So this might get to my low shoulder blade level.
But when I get up in here, it may be up to that, you know,
- Right.
- just below, not probably just below the neck,
but up higher for sure.
- I can imagine T1 through T12.
That's how they number them.
You start off, you're just hitting T12.
- Yep.
- But once you get your feet way up like this,
you'd probably getting up to T4, T5.
- This actually feels good,
but part of the reason is because I'm flexing my lower back
a little bit, but you know,
right now the only thing that's limiting me is my grip.
I need a little break.
- Hey, you gotta be aware of that.
Cause we don't want you to fall.
- Right.
- Brad's gonna show what he does with his spondy.
Kind of a bonus here.
- Yeah. Spondylolisthesis, I believe it's,
there's a component of stenosis with my back.
And if you do have stenosis,
this is probably going to be helpful for you.
Again, same rule. If you do bring my feet up to here,
and hang, if it feels clearly feels better,
you would continue.
If it hurts, stop. Always follow the rules. For me,
I go up to here and it clearly feels better on my low back,
right around the belt line I can feel that stretch.
And if I give a little twisty, this,
the booty thing, whatever the hell a booty is,
I'm not really sure if guys have one or not. I don't know.
But anyways,
- Most guys don't.
- (laughs) Yeah, we've got a video on that flat butt thing.
- And uh, good.
- So after you do this, I want you to retest.
- Oh, right.
- I want you to sit down and actually
see what your rotation is like.
So originally Brad's rotation, pretending,
hurt to the right.
- Right.
- So we went like this and he rotated to the right.
Ow!
- Yeah.
- Now, he worked on going to the left,
but that often improves rotation in both directions.
So he might try it again, say,
"Oh, I'm going a little bit further" or,
"Oh, that feels a little bit better."
- Yeah.
And you know you're doing the right thing then.
- If you go back and for some reason it's worse,
- Right.
- then you probably, you're gonna hold off on that.
- Yep.
- So very cautious. Make sure you take your time with it
and do not, you know,
no pain, no gain is not what you want to do.
- So Brad, people are waiting-
- Oh, my goodness. Yes.
We do have the big giveaway.
And this is big.
This is worth hundreds or over a thousand dollars.
- Right.
- It is a mattress and it's a high-end mattress.
- It's the SleepOvation Mattress.
- With 700 tiny mattresses.
- You can see them now.
You don't get it like this, there's a nice cover
that covers the whole thing.
And air channels provide cooling.
There's a nice, springs on the back half, which allows
I don't know what it allows,
but it makes me feel really good when I sleep.
- Yeah. They really know what they're doing.
You just got to go to the giveaway section of our website
BobandBrad.com and you can sign up.
It'll also be on Facebook.
- It's pinned to the top of the page.
- Pinned to the top page.
I can't tell you Brad, how many family members,
friends, I have had that came in and you know,
I didn't ask them at all.
They just said that was the best night's sleep
I've ever had.
- Yeah.
- I mean,
how much you give them to drink the night before?
- Well, yeah, that probably helps too.
- Just kidding! Just kidding.
- That's part of the Schrupp household.
All right. Thanks for watching.
- What are people gonna think?