♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ the two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists ♪
♪ on the internet. ♪
- Hi folks,
I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Okay, we are the most famous physical therapist
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Why are you saying no?
Okay, Brad, today, we're going to talk about
the 10 best exercises and tips
for sponda-
You say it.
- Spondylolisthesis.
- Thesis, and Brad has it.
- Right, grade two.
- So we're taking,
we're talking out to you people in the Spondy Nation here.
- Exactly, exactly. - Spondys.
Brad is going to talk about the way
he lives his life, basically.
- Sure.
- Things that you do and don't do.
- Right, exactly.
- In order to stay out of problems.
- Yeah, I'd say it was eight years ago.
Kept on having this back pain.
Wasn't able to treat it anymore
and went and got x-rays and found out,
sure enough, no wonder why my back's been bothering me.
It had a big shift in the last,
I really don't know exactly when it happened,
but one way or another,
let's talk about exactly what it is, Bob.
Real briefly.
If you look at the back from the side view,
you're going to find it's,
it can be in the neck,
but normally it's in the lower back;
usually L4, or five,
Five on S1 - S1.
- Which the pelvis is in the way here.
So we're going to look at these two and actually these,
if I put my hand here,
can you hold Bone Apart's hand there?
- Yeah.
- And I grab here, I'm going to pull this vertebrae
and all the vertebrae up above as a column
and shift it this way so that this vertebrae
is going to be hanging off the edge,
and it's mechanically and anatomically incorrect.
It's not the way your body's supposed to be.
If we look at this,
representing L4
and this one, L4 and L5,
this vertebra shifts forward like this,
when they should be lined up.
As a matter of fact, I'm going to come up closer
and show you my x-rays,
which these are from 2013.
And I highlighted the vertebrae,
you can see L4 and L5. - (indistinct)
- Can you, is that clear?
Right here, we got a significant shift
and actually I have zero,
absolutely no disc in there.
As a matter of fact, the x-ray shows
that it looks like the bone is starting to fuse together,
which is a good thing, okay?
I have a feeling this shifted
and I have a feeling it happened a few years
before these x-rays,
when I had a backache for two years long.
Anyways, now things are improving significantly.
I was not running for a while.
Used to be a runner.
I took a few years off running.
I'm back to running much more.
I'm still not doing a marathon,
but I can three to five miles now, which is a big progress.
- Brad's very diligent on doing his exercise.
- Right.
- And you're very dedicated.
And you know what things to avoid.
- Right. That's the next thing I want to talk about.
If you want to have success with your spondy,
you need to avoid this motion,
or laying on the ground in this position,
or doing these press-ups like a lot of people
with sciatica may do.
So. - That'll make things worse.
- Exactly.
Overhead work.
You may not be thinking about this,
but if you're washing the ceiling,
or if you're washing up high, doing some chores at home,
that is going to give you a backache.
People with spondy, oftentimes complain about,
like with me, if I go shopping
and I'm just standing around watching my wife
do the shopping,
oh, it gets, you know, I'm bored anyways.
And my back will start to hurt.
So standing, sometimes for some people with spondy,
walking, long distance walking is going to create pain.
And of mine, I know I've got some stenosis involved
because I used to walk, and after 3/4 of a mile,
I'd get pain and numb this down one leg,
after 3/4 of a mile, very consistent.
That has gone away now with the exercises
and some of the things I'm going to show you.
- Why don't you show what you do
with standing with sometimes, Brad?
Don't you put the knee up and and stretch?
- Right, yeah, that's a good point, Bob.
This always, either I sit down,
which always feels good with spondy people.
- Which helps. Right.
- I shouldn't say always, but usually.
But I'll do this simple stretch right here
and I'll stretch in deep like this,
or like this on which other, whichever leg feels better.
Usually it's my right leg.
Pretty consistently that way.
You're going to find certain things
that feel better for the individual.
Not every spondy is the same.
Would it, would it help just to do this Brad?
Or not?
- Normally that-
- That does not help.
- It helps a little bit, but if I sit on one side
and I put all my weight onto my right ischial tuberosity,
the pain goes way better too.
- It does.
- That's going to be different from person to person.
- So yeah, it might be,
you might sit and try shifting one way, or the other
to see which one makes a difference.
- Exactly.
So as far as strengthening exercises,
we want to work on core strengthening
in the anterior region.
Not so much important for the back muscles,
but for the muscles here.
Because when you pull forward
that's going to keep them vertebra
from shifting further than they are.
It's going to help stabilize the whole area.
- If we have time at the end of the video, Brad,
why don't we go ahead and, and,
and show that.
- Right.
- We'll show some of those exercises.
- Excellent.
- By the way, if you are new to our channel,
- Good point, Bob.
- And haven't already,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We have the subscribe button over here.
We provide videos on how to stay healthy, fit, pain free.
And we upload every day.
- There you go. - So.
- One thing I do suggest,
is that you get x-rays.
Now I got mine printed off
because I want to have a history of this,
in case I go to a different doctor, a different hospital.
And I want to see if I have a shift in here,
so I can compare 2013 to-
- Yeah, you want to see if it shifted more, right?
- Right, if they maybe-
- Or is it stabilized. - Right, exactly.
For someone, if you don't have insurance,
because when I went to the hospital,
I just wanted this as a therapist.
I wasn't concerned about having a radiologist read it.
I just wanted to look at the gross anatomy of it.
They would not do it, they had to have a radiologist.
Cost me a couple 100 dollars.
Right now, the next thing I'm going to go is
to a chiropractor that does it for about $50.
And I can get the same information that I'm looking for.
- Sure.
- You may not feel comfortable with that.
So then, you know, do whatever you feel comfortable.
- Right.
- But get a history and keep track of it.
Okay. - Sounds good.
- Yeah.
Another thing that really helps me out is swimming.
I can get great exercise.
I'm working my core and it's not like that impact,
or the walking, you know, that's advantage of swimming.
So swimming,
I still, if my back is flared up,
swimming still irritates it a little bit,
so then I have to back off.
One thing you will not want to do if you're a swimmer
and you probably will know this, is the butterfly.
The butterfly puts a lot of extension on your back.
I tried this, just, I was at a lesson,
and the teach, the instructor said,
"Let's do some butterflies."
It's like, "Okay, I'll try."
You know, everyone else is doing it.
I have to do it. - Right. (Brad chuckles)
- I did it, but I can't do it very well anyways.
And I had a backache for the next day and a half.
- So what stroke do you do for your back?
- I just crawl.
- Okay.
- The breaststroke I'll do for warmup for my shoulders.
- That works out okay?
- No - It doesn't work either?
- I'll do it to warm up my shoulders,
but the breaststroke also
will extend your back. - Make it worse.
- Yeah, so avoid the breaststroke as well.
- What's the one, you go on your back?
- The backstroke? Yeah.
- That would not be good either, right?
- Actually that doesn't bother.
You know, I let my legs, I don't kick a lot when I swim.
This is on an individual basis with the swimmers.
Well, if you're a swimmer, you'll know what to do, okay?
- Sure, you'll know what strokes do.
- But it's a great way to do it.
Now bicycling,
oftentimes bad for people's back.
- Right.
- Because you're bent forward
in this hunch forward position,
where you put some more at risk for herniated disc.
For a spondy person, it's usually more comfortable.
- Right.
It would be great for a spondy person, I would assume.
- Exactly, I'm going to take a minute.
I used to be uncomfortable biking,
15 years ago, hunched forward.
And then all of a sudden it felt good to go forward,
but it it hurt to go backwards.
And that's about the time I think when I had that shift.
- Sure.
- So it was about 10 years ago when I realized
that with my biking, things change.
So, you know, you might notice that in your own selves.
Because I know when I was in my twenties,
my back was very healthy and everything was lined up.
Because I had x-rays from a chiropractor,
when I used to go to the chiropractor.
- Sure.
- Now I take care of myself.
- Oh, I do want to talk about back braces.
You know, we get people talking about back braces.
It's a controversial subject.
Wouldn't you say, Bob?
- Somewhat, although they have found that quite often,
it really works for acute situations.
Like if your back pain just came on,
they work out really well for that.
Help to dampen down the pain.
- Sure. - Now, Chronic use of them,
I know that, that might be a little more questionable,
but there's some people I think they are appropriate for.
- Right.
The argument is, well, if you got a back brace on
it's doing the work for your core, then your core gets weak.
When your back braces off you're more vulnerable
to a back injury. - Right.
- But that's not how I like to use it.
And I don't instruct my patients to use them,
as they leave it on all day long and keep it tight.
So you have to have a good brace for it.
And I've got one,
I've used a number of them and this is a nice brace.
If you want-
- This was given to us by, by the way, BraceAbility.
I'll put the link down below in the in a description
and also put it on the screen here.
They have some excellent braces.
They're probably our favorite brace place.
- Right. - For back braces.
- And I'll demonstrate why I like it so much.
I'm going to put it on first.
Now you can get these elastic back braces,
which I have one as well.
And you put it on here, so it's loose, right?
Now, it's loose.
It's not doing anything.
It's just hanging there.
But when I decide, I'm going to like,
if I'm out and doing yard work
and all of a sudden I got to move this wood
from this pile to here for for 20 minutes of hard work,
working my back.
That's when I want to tighten this up
and really support the back.
- So really then you are,
your muscles are doing the work right now.
- Right. - When, right.
And then when you need to just protect it,
you can tighten it up.
So it really is the best of both worlds here, Brad.
- Exactly.
So when you're working it hard,
or let's say if you are in the gym;
you keep it loose while you're working your core,
but if you're going to do some squats, or some dead lift.
- Where you need the protection.
- Yep.
Now, now watch this.
Why don't you go and see if they got a good view of this?
- Yeah.
- This system works really good.
- Oh, yeah.
You can see this come together.
- And it I'm not pulling real hard here.
- You're a little bit off center here, but that's all right.
- Yep, we can adjust. Yeah, so you're a little more,
there you go. - Right there.
- Right about, right there.
- And then we just, - Oh, cool.
- tighten it up.
- Nice brace.
- And it's. - Yeah.
- It really works well.
Now there is another style of brace that have elastic
tighteners, where you go here
and you can pull one up and tighten.
And I like those as well.
But this works a little bit better.
It has a more positive grip.
- This is called the Spine Sport.
- Spine sport, yep.
- Yep and it's,
it's again, BraceAbility.
It also has auto back on there.
Doesn't it? - Yep.
- But...
- Now, if I'm gonna lift something up,
I'm going to lift properly.
Because this has reminded me and it's physically supporting,
and keeping my back where it needs to be.
Now let's say I get done moving my wood at home
because that's what I do on when I have free time.
I like to do yard work.
I'm one of those kind of people.
I'm going to go like this,
loosen it up again and then go about my other chores.
- What I like is that's a very thin brace too.
- Yeah, that's the idea.
- Yeah.
- If it's a, that's the sport part about it.
Allows you mobility with the support.
- Right.
Gives the support in the area,
but it's not so much that you can't even move.
- Exactly.
I won't, I wouldn't,
I won't promote a product unless I really like it.
- Yeah. - And I like this one.
All right, thanks to BraceAbility
for providing us with this brace and a-
- And remember spondys, we got to stick together.
So just send me a comment
and I'll help you out anyway I can.
All right.
Thanks for watching.