Hi, folks I'm Bob Schrupp physical therapist
Brad Heineck physical therapist, together we are the most famous physical therapists on the internet, well in our opinion of course Bob
How to eliminate your neck and back pain using a
Plain old bath towel, bathroom towel right you know I really think some people think therapists have
Special towels because we do use towels a lot for a lot of different stretches don't we but they're not
They're just white, boring white because that's clinical you can use colored ones if you want to yeah
but anyways
I've got some samples here, an assortment
How we get towels to work so effectively, how to cure those pains in your neck and back
Whether it's your mid-back or low-back, some of them worked really well actually
Some of them really are the answer, and the best thing about it is they work well
and they're really inexpensive, you don't have to go out and buy a $30 device
So before we go any further Brad if you are 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
Also go over to Facebook, and like us because Brad and I we're not above begging
We will beg you to like us that's all yeah, well i'm not getting on my knees yet, Bob but we're close, okay
What we gonna start with Brad? We're gonna start with
the neck, okay, okay, and
So we're gonna start with the upper and go down to the lower
Yep, the upper spine, work down the middle and then the lumbar spine
So cervical thoracic lumbar
Do we want to get technical Bob? High back mid-back low back, well there you go, okay
So if you take a towel roll like
About this size and you take it and you put it in your pillow if you're having some neck problems or shoulder problems sleeping
You're going to put it right in here now
You can see the bump is right there, Bob you want to lay down?
So this is going to fill in the gap here, no matter which way I lie
We're going to have some English majors give us a little lesson, it's which way I lie
You lay something down and you lie on your back, let's get to the neck, so I'm on my side here
It's filling in the gap
You know now let's say I turn, and I'm gonna lie on my back, it's still filling in the gaps
It actually feels pretty nice, okay, now what's nice about this is you can try it
If your neck feels worse you don't do it if it feels better you keep doing it right so you know they make
Rolls like this, may cost again
$25 or so, if this works well you don't need to buy one of these
And nobody sees this
Yeah, if you find out it works and you decide you want to go that route go ahead, they're a little more comfortable,
Uh-oh our timer's going off
We're not done yet though, we're gonna keep going, we don't worry about those kind of things
Okay, next thing we're gonna talk about is
Seated, okay all right and all we got to do for this is I got to take these glasses off Bob
Oh you're gonna do the stretch with the towel, yeah now we're gonna use the stretch and
So we're still on the neck, you can do this standing but seated works good so if you're having neck pain
Pain in that upper mid-back
Oftentimes you could take a towel roll, you're gonna spin it like this
Get it low on the neck typically and we're gonna do a stretch backwards
Like this now there's a couple ways you can do it, you can do it with your hands down like this with a roll
Typically low on the neck we're gonna stretch backwards and if you do it each time you do it
It should feel a little bit better and go a little bit easier, if for some reason it creates pain sharp pain or
Gets you dizzy or nauseous
Then you should not do it at all
Don't even attempt it again
Should be nothing but feeling good, if you can go a
Short distance without pain go ahead and work that way for awhile
And then hopefully eventually it'll be able to go further,
Pain you wouldn't stop if you're
Having pain or you stop only if all of it causes pain, if it continues to improve every time you do a
Little stretch then it's good if it doesn't or it gets worse then you're gonna stop
Now you can actually do turns with these too,
So this is a little more complicated you're gonna take your towel and you're gonna flip it up
Like this and now I'm using the selfridge, the edge of the towel
Someone's gonna comment on that again
They do a nice job on correcting our grammar, so I got the towel right below my ears like this
So I'm gonna work on my rotations
So i'm gonna drop this one down switch arms this one pulls straight down and i'm pulling over like this
I'm not moving this shoulder this shoulder doesn't come along with it i'm just moving the neck and this gives a little bit of push
Across the face here i'm going across the face i'm not going like this
that's hard to breathe and I can go the other direction too, so I'm like this
I'm gonna drop this one down, switch arms and this one comes up across the face up by the eye
I'm seeing this and this one's pulling straight down, great one for working on rotation, it's amazing how much
that support around the neck
Improves and makes you more relaxed and comfortable to improve that rotation
if you have one of those old cars that doesn't have the backup screen like I do
You want to make sure you can look behind you so you're not running over any
Neighbor kids when you leave
Another way you can use a towel, if you're having some neck pain or pain going down on the arm and you
Need a little traction, you can simply do some traction, same towel roll you're
Gonna get it kind of low on the neck, you got the oxbow boat here that kind of comes out
a little bit you're gonna come there, and i'm just gonna pull straight up and
When you pull up it should clearly feel good like a good stretch things are feeling, better if it creates pain, you're not gonna do it
Just leave it alone and ideally if you're having pain down one arm if you could try to do it with one arm
Yeah, like this let's say i'm having pain down that arm
That way you're not using the arm that's giving you pain and you're giving it a little traction
Yeah, we've got another video that we've done on this and I call it the 30 second stretch because
Usually your arms get tired after the 30 seconds, and you're limited by that
Let's go to the mid-back, all right sounds good okay, that same towel or this one?
Well actually, Bob I was gonna use that one
So you're gonna take a towel and roll it up tight, about a foot wide and we actually use some nice duct tape now
You don't have to use that but you need something to hold it tight so duct tape is a great tool for that
And you're gonna do this on a carpeted floor on the bed will probably be too soft
We're gonna do it here just so that it's easier to film now
Bob why don't you show the two options, we can put it in line with the spine, lengthwise
Like this or you can go across the spine usually probably more about the mid spine with that,
So I'm going to start going up and down the spine and this is a really nice
Postural exercise and it helps get things lined up, oh I already cavitated Bob I cracked my back
If this is new to you you might need a pillow or two to start of with
You might need two pillows to start cuz that's pretty aggressive but it gives a really good stretch, it really opens me up
I'm already breathing
More free than I was when I was standing, it's nice it feels good, so if you go the other way, Brad
Like this, this is almost like a foam roller now
Maybe we should show them the foam roller
Yeah, the advantage of you know if you try to roll on the towel it rolls okay but not as good as the roller
I do these every morning, the foam roller on my mid back
The softer one's actually a nice one, I got a harder one at home and I was using it with
My wife and it was too hard for her, she needed the soft, what were you doing with
Your wife with a foam roller? Bob this is a family show. You always have to talk about, well you said! I don't know what you're doing
Let's get on with the program, okay next one Brad.
Now, we do a stretch for the mid-back?
That towel right there, well we can use either
Oh, sure now we've got a towel, one thing you can do with the towel is roll it up
So it's about 2 or 3 inches wide and the full length of the towel
Yeah, be careful, Bob this is you know, stay on task, it's always a problem
And we're gonna take it like that or you can do what Bob did
That little snaparoo roll technique now we're gonna bring this not in the low back
We're gonna come up kinda under the armpits a little bit
The force is directional up up toward the ceiling
Hands would be going that way
This is actually a nice stretch and you can vary the
Level at which you have the towels
So you can go up higher or lower and you can get the different aspects of the thoracic spine now there's a product
That works a little better than this if you
If this works good but you're having a hard time gripping on to it and that's the stretch-out strap
I'll grab it
You gotta be tall to see it, oh yeah
This works out really nice for actually some of these stretches that we're doing with the towel, if the towel works good but
You can't grasp it, well you'll wanna get one of those because they really work better
And we're going on to the lumbar spine now Bob
The low spine right by the beltline, first thing you can do with a towel, is get a roll
About 2 or 3 inches in diameter and about that wide and simply a lumbar support and you can
Use that, what this is going to help maintain the arch in your low back, which is critical when
you're driving a lot or when you're seated a lot
It's gonna keep you from being in that slouched position, which is really bad for your back
And bad for your discs, it's gonna help prevent sciatica and if you're in the throes of sciatica it can help
eliminate it or decrease the pain, improve it, so yeah very critical and you can vary the lumbar roll
depending on you know
What is most comfortable for you, so the diameter you can roll it up thicker if you're a larger person or depending on
Whatever makes it feel better, you'll know it's very clear
Generally it's down by the beltline that you want to try it I mean even experiment with that, with how
High or low you have it, it varies for people, where it's comfortable right so
The next one for people the same situation if you're having problems at night sleeping with
Your low back you may need some support and you take that same towel roll, we wrapped up before
And you'll put it here and you
Could try and pin it here or you could tape it, you can
Use a rolled sheet too instead of a towel, it'll be a little bit longer,
As you can see here it helps give you support
When he's on his back and keeps you know the arch there but
Also, when he lays on his side we're not getting the sagging going on here in the lumbar spine
So the lumbar spine is staying straighter and it works out a lot better that way, and then we'll finish up Bob with
The same stretch that
We did the thoracic spine in the lower spine here and I do this quite a bit with people with
Sciatica and low back pain, and they go like this stretch backwards, but I've got a strict rule
When you do this it should feel, like, good relief, got a strict rule
That you need to feel better, right if you do that and it hurts or it makes the pain worse down the leg
You're not ready for it yet you need to work on some other things first so or
Maintenance if your pain free in your back I think this is a great stretch to do
You're just gonna hold it a few seconds then do about three repetitions you know, a few times a day
Is fine for maintenance and the final use of the towel is by the way is we're
Gonna use it to cry if you don't ever subscribe those so
We will, we're not above it, yeah be careful, thanks for watching.