- Hi, 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.
- Today we got top three advanced ways to
increase flexion of your knee, especially after surgery,
especially after like knee replacement or
maybe a quadriceps tear or something,
- Right.
- where you're trying to get the bend back in your knee.
- Right.
- All right. Let's go, Brad.
- Yeah. And I've just been working with some people,
usually it's total knee replacements,
but in the last few months I had two people,
quadriceps tore off the patella, the kneecap.
- Wow.
- Surgery back on and they started
out bending their knee only to 30 to 40 degrees.
- Sure.
- And then were using these techniques to help.
'em get along for passive range of motion
or pushing it so you can stretch those tissues.
One is, and this is for at home,
we don't do this in the clinic,
but if you're at home and you have carpet,
the idea is we want to, in a chair,
slide your knee back and forth like this.
Now your knee's probably gonna get to a certain point,
and at that point, it needs to have some extra force
on it to stretch the tissues. Okay?
If you have a smooth floor, you simply put
a towel down on the floor and then you can work it.
Now, I'm gonna show you on carpet, a nice little trick
- You wanna roll your pant leg up Brad,
- Yep. - So we know which knee
- Good idea. - you're working.
- So I'm gonna pull this up like here.
So this knee is real stiff.
It had surgery, or it had a quadriceps tear.
- It takes a cake pan?
- Yep, and that makes it slippery, that's the only reason,
you don't have to use a cake pan.
Anything you can put down to make it slippery
on your carpet.
Same thing with a towel on the hardwood floor.
And the reason I got this belt on here
is because I didn't know where else to put it.
No, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding.
You put that there.
And you're gonna need something to give some extra force.
And if you're doing this by yourself
- So he is sitting sideways on a chair.
- Yep, and this works good with a steel chair
that has steel frame, and rounded is good.
This one's square. It'll still work fine.
And I'm actually going to go like this.
And say it's as far as my knee go
I can push with this foot a little bit to stretch it.
And this isn't real fun, it's a little painful,
but that's part of the doctor and your therapist
will instruct you on this.
And you pull here to get that extra stretch
and then go back.
Now, I usually just work back and forth
with my patients as opposed to getting them to
this part that's really uncomfortable stretching
and holding it there 'cause it's painful.
So if you could just relax and another thing about this
I find is if the person is stretching themselves
versus someone else pushing
on the leg or pulling on this,
they're more relaxed, they have better results.
- Yeah, they like to be in control.
- Yeah. So you're gonna do this
for about three to five minutes.
And by that time you won't want to do it anymore
and you're gonna need to give your knee a break.
Maybe put some ice on it.
Stretch number two.
I like this next one.
A little better than this one.
Ah, let's get some of these items out of the way.
- Which way do you want the wheelchair facing, Brad?
- All right, you take that chair.
You're gonna need a wheelchair for this.
Doesn't matter if it's on carpet or on hard floor,
but it will be real easier.
It's better on hard floor, but you can do it either way.
Here's that same knee.
You're gonna sit in a wheelchair.
One that you can self-propel with your hands, okay?
Now you're gonna take the toe that you're
or the foot or the knee that you're gonna bend
and you need to stop.
You can put it up to a wall, but we don't have a wall here.
So we're going to take
this chair, put it right like that.
- I'm gonna sit in it.
- Bob's gonna sit on there and you put your toe there
and you can actually, you can butt it up against the carpet
or the floor if it doesn't slip.
But if it slips you need to have something
to get your toe up against.
Grab here
- An immobile force.
- You're right.
Here you go, Bob.
And you're gonna stretch like this.
And as you can push with a lot
of control and a lot of torque, a lot of good force.
Oh, you're gonna feel it.
And you're gonna come back.
- Yeah. That's a great advanced exercise.
- Yeah.
And I'll have people go two or three stretches
not real hard.
And then on the fourth or fifth one, I say give it a lot
and hold it for
- Give it the gas baby.
- Yeah. And they go, oh and relax.
You can rub that muscle a little bit between stretching
and go back at it.
But usually you can do this for about five minutes
and you've had enough.
Okay. Now the last one, this is probably
for the younger crowd, although I've done it with people
in their sixties and seventies is use the exercise ball.
- A ball appeared, Brad.
- Yeah.
There's a red ball.
All right, now.
- Again, a little more advanced.
Like you said, some people may not be able to do this one.
- And actually just yesterday I had a person
that he didn't want to get on at first,
but he was 71 years old actually.
- Probably want to have somebody
with you when you're doing this one.
- Yeah.
Make sure you're not gonna roll right off.
- Right.
So you hold the ball there.
After you work with this and you feel comfortable.
You can do this by yourself.
Let's say this is my sore knee, the one I wanna stretch.
You really should have something,
you have to have something to hold onto.
And this in the clinic, I use parallel bars.
But I've had people buy their own ball and do this at home
because they like it so much with total knee replacements.
This knee doesn't wanna bend,
so I'm holding here for stability.
It might take you a few minutes to feel comfortable
on the ball or a few different times, bouts.
But once you get comfortable with it
and you simply roll forward, the knee flexes, stretches
and then you come back and give it a break.
Stretch, give it a break.
- You know what those balls run, Brad, how much?
- They don't run, Bob, they roll.
(both laughing)
Now they're about 10 to $20, and up to $30.
- So if, especially, if you don't have a wheelchair
this might be a cheaper alternative then,
than using the wheelchair.
- Right.
- Yeah. You can do other things with it.
- Yeah, a wheelchair,
if you have one to rent or, you know, someone,
sometimes the Legion of the VFW where I live
will just give 'em out the people
in the community for small communities.
- Sure.
And the other nice thing about
the ball is you can stretch and then you can actually bounce
up and down, which gives a different angle.
- Sure, interesting.
- And you'll do that for about the same amount
of time, five, you know, five minutes or so.
And you probably have enough of it and it's time to,
and when you get off of all these stretches
no matter what you're doing, this is what's gonna happen.
You're gonna get up and it's gonna hurt and it's gonna hurt
and you're gonna walk like this
and you might need a cane or walker.
- Because it won't want to straighten out.
- Yeah, well, exactly.
- Because it's been sitting so long.
- And that's very normal.
You walk around about, you know, 50
to a hundred feet and it'll get back to normal.
And that's all part of the stretching game.
You can ice it outwards for 15 to 20 minutes.
And I'm thinking that people can continue to get good ideas
like this for home exercises from us, Bob.
And if they-
- Slap that, slap that subscribe button.
- Oh yeah, slap it, but don't wreck anything.
Just, you know, be, you know, in your mind slap, all right.
- All right, be cool.