♪ Bob and Brad, the two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- We are the most famous
physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- How modest are we, Brad.
Today we're going to talk about how to fix tight hip flexors
and quads, it's a new approach using mobilization.
It's new to us, anyway, we've done some of it in the past,
but we're adding a little distinction.
- Well if it's new to us, Bob,
it's probably new to everyone.
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- 60 seconds of Bob and Brad, let's get started Brad.
A lot of you out there, you sit a lot.
You sit for your job or you maybe sit and watch TV,
and when that happens, what tends to happen
is your hip flexors get tight.
- It's those muscles right up in here in the hip,
the front of the hip.
- Where the front pockets are.
I'm gonna show you a little of what we call the pinch test,
this is based upon the work, by the way of Dr Kelly Starrett
and his book, Becoming a Supple Leopard, I love that title.
And I love the book, it's actually not so much
for the lay person, it's really more for maybe a coach
or someone whose had some instruction
in anatomy and physiology and kinesiology.
- That's enough, Bob.
- Yeah, okay, it's a good book though.
All right, let's get started, show you the pinch test.
Watch where you're pinching, you're gonna bend over,
I'm gonna pinch right where
the hip flexors are or the quads.
- So you're actually getting quite a fold of skin.
- A fold of skin, and look what happens
when I try to stand up, my back won't straighten up.
- You look like an old man.
- Yeah, that's what's gonna happen to you
as your hip flexors get tighter and tighter
and you can't stride out, and you can start getting injuries
in this area, start getting hip pain, yep. (laughs)
- And you're more at risk for fall,
because your balance is inherently not as good.
- It throws everything off,
it's starting to create muscle imbalances,
so we're definitely going to want to stretch this.
So he's got three rules of mobilization, Dr Kelly Starrett.
One, you want to go across the fibers to have results.
The fibers run this way, now we're talking about
the rectus femoris, the sartorius, tensor fasciculata,
ileo soleus, all of those muscles.
- You've been doing your homework.
- I did, I reviewed, so those muscle fibers run this way,
don't they Brad?
- Yes, vertical.
- Except for the sartorius, runs a little bit.
But anyway, we're going to want to go mobilize this way.
You can use different devices to do this,
you can use a soft ball, you can use a tennis ball,
you can use a lacrosse ball, you can use a foam roller.
And we also have a couple devices here,
a new one that we think is really cool and works quite well.
- Yeah, they get in there a little deeper,
plus they have the benefit of-
- Vibration.
- There you go.
- Yeah, so this is the fit index, and it's got three levels.
This is like a miniature foam roller, really cool,
I really like this thing, you can see
it really jumps around here, really does the work.
- [Brad] Yeah, don't leave it by itself.
- [Bob] Yeah, I'm gonna turn it off now.
And remember, you've been reading Tom Brady's book
right now, and that's what he recommends,
using a vibrating foam roller.
But you can imagine, this thing
can really get into the tissues.
- Especially in these hard to get areas.
- Yeah, but we're not saying you need to buy anything,
just grab that tennis ball and give that a try,
that lacrosse ball, something you have at home first
to give it a try, see what you think.
I'm gonna get down, I'm gonna work on this hip flexor
right here, I'm gonna lay on this,
this could be representative of a tennis ball,
it's kind of dark here, isn't it?
- [Brad] Well, yeah.
- So anyway, but I'm gonna roll across the fibers this way.
So there's nothing magical about this, Brad,
you just lay down, get on the floor, get onto it,
and you can roll back and forth like this,
and you can vary how much weight you put on it
by leaning over onto the side, or leaning away from it
if it's too much when you start.
And you're gonna work your way all the way down
into the rectus femoris, which is part of the quadriceps.
Now, what he tells you is that if this is a problem area
for you, you may need to stay on there
as much as 10 minutes, Brad.
- [Brad] And you may have to build up to that a little bit.
- Right, you're gonna have to build up to that,
you probably can't tolerate that the first time.
But if you have one side that's tight, one side that's not,
work on the tight side, don't work on the-
- [Brad] Stay down there, Bob, I just wanted to mention
one thing I don't think that was mentioned,
you see how Bob has his shoulders up higher than his hips,
so that's actually putting a little stretch
on those hip flexors.
- Good point, because if I was down like this,
it's not stretching the hip flexors while I'm doing it.
And you can start off down like this
if that's what you prefer.
So again, his three rules were one, go across the fibers,
two, stay on the tissue until it makes a change,
it can be up to 10 minutes.
And three, use a ball or device to help move it along,
to work, you might even try a foam roller
but you have to go across that way,
so it's a little more awkward.
- Well we've had videos on that, and we always got comments.
- Did we?
- Yeah.
- Bad ones?
- We won't go there.
- All right, I'm gonna show you one stretch
down on here Brad, I'm gonna show you one stretch
to do with the hip flexors too.
This is my favorite hip flexor stretch.
- [Brad] Oh yes.
- So I'm gonna stretch this side,
and so what I do is I put that knee down
and I bring this leg up, and now as you can see
I'm bending forward, I'm keeping good posture,
and leaning forward.
Now you can actually take your hand and push
even a little bit further here,
to get a little more of a mobilization there.
- Look at his back posture, up and down vertical.
- Yeah, and finally you can also take your foot
and move it out that way.
- Towards the camera.
- Yeah, towards the camera, if it was the other side,
I'd move it away from the camera, if it was this leg.
And you're internally rotating the hip a little bit,
you're just stretching the hip flexors a little bit more.
- Yep, that's one of those little secrets.
- Yep, I mean I'm one of these people that I do
what I advise, so I do this stretch every morning,
and I also foam roller this area,
because I am susceptible to problems on my right hip,
and it's gotten to the point at times
where I wasn't able to run,
and now it feels like I'm a young kid again, Brad.
- Really?
- Yeah, how do I look?
- Well, I was gonna say we got to do something
about your appearance yet.
Just kidding, just kidding.
- What a nice guy, so wow I'm almost falling over.
(both laugh)
- It happens.
- All right, so give those a try,
we want your comments below
and quit laughing Mike.
So thanks everybody for watching.
- Take care.