♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ the two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists ♪
♪ on the internet ♪
- Hi, folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And we're the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion of course, Bob.
- Today, we're gonna talk about six exercises
to kill chronic foot pain and plus we're doing a giveaway!
- That's something new, Bob.
- Yeah, that's really not
because we're always doing giveaways.
- That's right.
- If you're new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos on how to stay healthy, fit,
pain-free and we upload every day, and yes,
join us on our social media channels or outlets,
I don't know what you wanna call'em.
Bobandbrad.com, you can go to the giveaways section
and it'll show what we're givin' away today
and I'll mention it in just a minute.
Also Facebook, Bob and Brad.
We'll have it pinned to the top of the page.
- Pinned at the top, are we gonna show'em Bob?
- Yeah, right here, this is the RENPHO Foot Massager
and you know, this is like perfect timing, Brad.
Imagine that.
- [Brad] Right.
- Because we're talking about chronic foot pain.
This baby in itself,
you probably don't even have to watch the video,
this would probably take care of it.
Most of the people that we have tried this
absolutely love it, I mean--
- You put--
- We love it.
- Your foot right in there without your shoes on, of course.
It massages, it puts some gentle compression
on there to get the swelling out.
It's a nice unit.
- Yeah, it's got three settings to it
and it's got heat,
which doesn't really work that well, to be honest with you.
I don't think it works.
(Brad laughs) I mean, it doesn't.
You just don't feel that much heat,
but the massage alone is well worth it, so.
All right, so what are the six exercises, Brad?
- You're askin' me?
- Oh no, I'm gonna tell you.
So the first one that I think almost everybody should do
and this is especially if you have chronic foot pain.
So I'm gonna slip my shoe off here.
What you wanna do, a lot of people are having trouble
with the band on the bottom of their foot,
basically the fascia.
- Right, so the plantar fascia.
- The plantar fascia,
that's where plantar fasciitis comes from,
but even if you don't have that
a lot of times this band is tight.
So what I want you to do is
you're gonna go ahead and you're gonna grab
the band goes all the way up into the toes.
Would it be better with my sock off?
- [Brad] Maybe for the video but not for me (laughs).
- Yeah, not for you.
But so you see the band there,
you might even be able to catch a little bit of it there.
So that band goes right up into the toes,
so I want you to grab the toes and pull.
So you're gonna pull the ankle this way
and the toes this way and just give it a good stretch.
Good like 30 second stretch or you can do pressure on,
pressure off, pressure on, pressure off.
Do this throughout the day and this is gonna help,
especially with plantar fasciatus,
but even just pain on the bottom of the foot.
All right the second one I want you to do
is actually to stretch your heel cord.
- Oh sure.
- You wanna do that one Brad?
- So the heel cord is from the heel,
it's the muscle that goes up the calf muscle
all the way up to the knee.
There's two primary muscles there,
and we've got a couple devices that really work well.
- The gastrocnemius of the sole by the way, the muscles.
- Yep.
So with this particular one,
- Now we're gonna show you how to do it
without a device too but--
- [Bob] Right.
I really like this.
I use this every morning.
- [Brad] This one's got nice cam action.
It gives you a lot of mechanical leverage.
Plus, it's got a toe wedge which extends the toe.
Does the same thing Bob's does.
- That's why I like it.
It's a great stretch before running or walking.
And then it's just easy to rock on it.
- You can do the same.
Pressure on, pressure off.
10 times or hold it for 30 seconds.
If you want you can just get an incline board like this.
This one is in my name.
We have a video on how to make one
if you've got someone handy around the house
they're relatively simple.
Just solids of plywood.
Or you can buy these too.
And this works really well.
I like this.
I use this one at home.
Just because I have one.
- By the way, this is a called a ProStretch Plus.
A ProStretch Plus.
The plus is the extra toe thing.
You wanna show Brad how you can just do it?
You can do it without anything.
- Sure.
Can you zoom over this way?
- [Bob] He's gonna show it against the wall.
- Yeah and this works.
Not as well as a device but pretty good.
It works fine.
It works better when your shoe on.
Make sure your toes not pointed this way.
It should be straight towards the wall.
Heel down and lean in to the wall.
- So again, it's important to stretch
this whole complex here.
- Sure.
- They call it the posterior chain
when we talk about the hip and stuff.
It's the same down here.
This is all connected here.
And so the more stress you can take off
the less stress you're putting on the foot.
Next one, next two are going to be strengthening ones.
So the first one is just real simple.
I want you to use them to strengthen
both the gastrocnemius and the soleus
both the gastrocnemius and the soleus,
but you also gonna strengthen the bottom of the foot.
The little bit of the intrinsic.
- Sure.
- So basically I'm just going to have you raise up
on your toes and raise up on your heels.
Now you can do it next to a countertop
or a chair and you can do these throughout the day.
It's really great to do these just as a strengthening one.
So you don't take a lot of time out of your day,
even when talking to your spouse or your loved ones.
- It happens to be a great one for if your balance is off
or you're elderly.
We do use this one not just for pain but for balance.
It all fits together.
- Yeah, easy one to do throughout the day.
Next one Brad's gonna show the zig-zags.
- Oh yeah!
- Again, the muscles that are more lateral or more medial.
So I inside, outside.
It's gonna catch all of those.
- So when your ankle goes this way
that's normally the way you sprain it.
But this actually strengthens the muscle.
So this you need to have your shoes on.
Something a little grippy on a floor like this,
to offer some resistance.
And we go back and forth like this.
And you go about five or 10 feet one direction.
And then you go the other way.
And again we're not just strengthening
the ankles and the feet,
actually you're working some of the hip muscles as well.
If that's too easy, you simply go on one foot.
And if you have a cane or something
or a stick to hold on that works good for balance.
You may not need it.
- You like look quite the dancer there Brad.
- Oh yeah!
Well Fred Astaire was.
- [Bob] He taught a lot.
- Exactly right.
(laughs)
- Yeah this is one of his techniques he doesn't show me.
- That's right, he didn't show a lot.
All right, show we showed two exercises for stretching;
we showed two exercises for strengthening.
Now we're going to show two massages that you can do.
If you don't have the machine that is.
- Right.
- So the first one
is just you're going to do a circle massage.
That's easy just to take your thumbs.
I'm in a little bit of a bad position here
try to do it from the side.
Boy my foot is sensitive.
- [Brad] Boo!
- So I'm just taking my thumbs and making circles.
And you can work the whole foot this way.
It's a lot easier if I go like this.
You know.
But I'm trying to demonstrate at the same time so.
- [Brad] You can't get your wife to do this for you?
- [Bob] Oh no, that's not going to happen.
(laughs)
- She's not getting anywhere near my feet.
She just won't.
- [Brad] I don't blame her.
She's a smart woman.
- [Bob] She wants to keep her hands apparently.
Alright so that's the circle massage.
You can work through it.
And then you can do what I'm going to call
the splain massage.
So you put your thumbs together
and you pull them apart like this.
Thumbs together, pull them apart.
I'm putting pressure on.
Boy my feet are sensitive!
- [Brad] Well Bob I don't have to tell you about that.
- [Bob] I should be doing this more often.
- [Brad] Wash your hands.
- [Bob] Yeah I know!
- [Brad] Here we're seriously working at stretching
the tissues plus increasing circulation and that's all.
- [Bob] Yeah, good.
- [Brad] You can even go up into the heel,
but this is by far the most sensitive spot.
- Typically the plantar fasciitis is here.
- Right this is usually where the plantar fasciitis is.
- Pain presents itself.
- So your going to show an alternative.
- Well yeah actually you can take a tennis ball
or here's a lacrosse ball
and that can be good for a massage.
And you can just work it.
I'm going to work it.
And you work it wherever it feels good.
If you hit a spot that's really tender you can work at it.
But only continue after it starts to feel better
over the next 20 or 30 seconds.
So you don't want to irritate it.
Sometimes a sore spot
will work it's way out after that long,
and then you know you're good.
- [Bob] And sometimes we've kind of alluded
to the fact we should work around
the sore spot.
- There you go, yeah.
Now this is literally was at the grocery store, right?
Before your checkout?
- Oh sure.
- If you need this thing.
It's actually got nice spikes.
Little spiky things.
But it's soft.
And it actually lights up.
Oh yeah!
- [Bob] Which is a nice thing.
- But that really changes compared to the lacrosse ball
or the tennis ball.
The little knobbies on there helps it.
- [Bob] So it's not too much.
- This cost me two dollars!
- [Bob] No but I mean it's not too much
as far as the spikes?
- [Brad] No it's not too aggressive.
This one's not.
This is soft and it's a little squishy.
Just adds a little bit.
That sometimes can be helpful.
- [Bob] Can I see?
- Oh, yeah, be careful with it though.
- There goes my light.
- Oh you're right.
It is.
- Yeah.
I thought you know
some of the simplest things are so nice to use.
- So there you go!
Remember Brad and I can fix just about anything.
- Except for--
- A broken heart.
- Well we're workin' on it.
- We try to work on it when we got spare time.
- I don't know if this is gonna help
but it's still nice on your feet.
- Alright, thanks.