- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And together we have are the famous
physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Brad, we just did a video on how to get
the knots outta your shoulders.
Now we're gonna show you how to get
the knots outta your back.
- Great.
- And we're gonna use the same technique.
We're gonna use a tennis ball.
Now, these knots again are what we,
what the professionals call trigger points.
- Sure.
- And they're little hardened nodules.
They're a area of hyper irritability.
- Mhmm.
- But really people don't know what they are.
Scientists don't really know what they are.
All we do know is, again, this kind of represents one.
How am I doing Lonnie? Am I fairly close?
Okay. It's kind of a hardened area.
And if you put pressure on that hardened area,
constant hardened pressure,
eventually the nodule dissipates.
It hurts like heck at first,
but eventually the pain goes away.
Like Brad said in the earlier video
"Hurts so good."
- Right.
- And it's like taking your thumb
and putting it on the ice cube.
Eventually it melts and goes away.
- Right.
- Now, let me make this clear, Bob, so that they understand.
These nodules, or these hard points, are actually
part of the muscle belly.
They're in the muscle itself.
You're not gonna find it on the bone or in a nerve
- Right.
- It's, it's a muscle belly itself. And,
- In the back in fact, where we generally like to,
where you gonna want to put the ten,
we're use a tennis ball to get rid of these.
What you're gonna do.
And this is Napoleon bone-apart.
And anyway, you wanna look above the iliac crest here,
the pelvis, and below the ribs.
So this spot right in here.
And which muscles do we got in there, Brad?
- Well, we've got the Multifidus, and we got the
Quadratus Lumborum. Just to mention two of 'em,
there's other ones, of course.
- Right. So we're just gonna put the tennis ball,
gimme a tennis ball, Brad.
And you're gonna put it right in this area.
Find one of those knots, and then you're gonna lay on it.
- Sure.
- And you're gonna want to do this on the floor.
I'm gonna do it on a mat right now.
Just to make it easier to show how to do it, Brad.
- You mean on this table?
- Yeah.
- This, this is too soft.
If you see how soft this is like a bed.
- Yeah.
- It will not be very effective.
- Right. But I'm just gonna show you technique.
- Right. - So you can't do it on a bed,
but you're gonna lay onto the floor.
You're gonna roll onto your side like this,
and then roll onto your back.
And then you're gonna find the spot.
You can use your thumb to even find the spot again.
I'm above the pelvis, below the ribs,
and there's a spot right there.
I'm gonna take the tennis ball.
I'm gonna put it right in that spot.
And then I'm gonna lean onto it.
Roll onto it like this.
- [Brad] Not now, these spots are gonna be where,
kind of where the pain is.
- Right.
- [Brad] And you will know when you find them.
You're gonna feel it as far as it's gonna be
a little bit of a lump, and it's gonna be very tender.
- And the pressure you're gonna need to put on there,
It's gonna need to last at least 20 to 30 seconds.
And then all the way up to a couple minutes, it may take.
Now, to put more pressure on there,
what I'm gonna do is cross my leg over
and even lift my butt up a little bit, Brad.
- Sure.
- And now I'm putting more pressure on that knot,
and I can lean over onto it.
Now I got it.
Now I'm right in there.
Ay, Ay, Ay. Ay caramba.
- [Brad] Yeah.
- So, but this, like I said, Brad said,
"It hurts so good."
And now it's starting to release already.
I can feel that it's giving way.
- [Brad] Right.
- Now, you can hit that spot,
and then you can go ahead and hit another spot if you want.
- [Brad] Right.
One big warning though, if you go on that spot
and the pain after 30 seconds or more, maybe a minute,
it continues to get worse and worse.
It's not the right thing to do.
- Right. I would back off then.
It's just not, it's not, it's not doing its thing.
Now another aggressive technique that we've used,
is we've actually taken two balls.
- [Brad] Yes.
- And let me get up from this.
- Should we use Bone-apart?
- Yeah. Let's use Bone-apart.
I want to show Brad
- Okay - Those two Balls to go.
- So you're gonna have
the erector spinae muscle group on here.
And I'm not gonna go through and mention each muscle name
because I can't remember 'em off the top of my head.
It's not important, but you're gonna put a,
a balls here and on each side.
- [Bob] Two balls and a sock.
- Right. And they're just gonna hold it.
That's the only reason you're using the sock.
And that's about the right distance to go
through that muscly area.
And where, wherever the, the pain or the tightness is,
is where you're gonna work.
So this works well just to maintain that gap.
- I'm gonna have you show that Brad, but before I do
let me just be, when you, before going back
to where we were, the ball was in place like this.
- [Brad] Yeah.
- Well, after the muscle has released,
roll away, away from the area and then get up.
Okay? Don't roll back onto it and then get up.
It just, it's just a good way to,
the muscle's already calmed down.
You don't wanna fire it back up so.
- [Brad] Right.
So help maintain once you've got your success.
- All right, Brad.
- Okay. So, you've got your two tennis balls,
this, any old sock?
- On you, Brad, just real quick,
I could show where I would, you know, if you go here,
it would be on each side of the spine
here is where.
- oh, I see, yeah.
- Give 'em a good show of where it would be.
It would be on each side of his, of his spine.
We still got those little,
- Oh yeah. Get my trigger points off.
- Trigger points off ya.
- Our models.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
- People are waiting, Bob.
- All right, go, go, go.
- Okay. So I've got that laid right there.
Now this is, works pretty good.
You will be able to tell if the balls are in the right spot.
If you're over your spine, it will not feel comfortable.
And I can tell, I really, I need to move this way,
and the balls are too close together.
So I'm gonna move it apart a little bit,
get it into that muscle part of the back.
- [Bob] You know, Brad, I have found
that this has worked well for the mid back.
- Yeah.
- [Bob] I don't like this on the low back as much
as I like it on more of the thoracic area of the mid back.
- Right. And now I'm getting down into that lumbar spine.
The balls are right in here.
You can't see it, but that's where they are.
But I agree.
I mean, that may work for certain people.
- [Bob] Yeah. - Go ahead and try it.
But when we get up in here.
Oh yeah, there we go.
- [Bob] Yeah. This is a,
and this is a very aggressive technique.
Some people may not like this.
- Mhmm.
- [Bob] So I, I generally find people fall in two camps.
One, they absolutely love it.
Or two, they absolutely hate it.
- Sure.
- [Bob] So you, you gotta figure out which one you are,
but it does, it does...
Yeah. And he's rolling off of it.
- I'm gonna fall off the table, Bob.
- All right, I'll pull it out.
- Okay.
- [Bob] So...
- Very good.
Just another helpful hit by famous PT, Bob and Brad.
And remember to subscribe to us,
and try and catch a double ball in a sock.
- Yeah.