♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together we're the most famous
physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course Bob.
- So today, we're gonna show you
how to decompress your full back,
not full spine, because we're not gonna do the neck.
- No, the back.
- The back and it's gonna be instant relief
and there's no awkward positioning.
- Right?
- So pretty much mostly everybody will be able to do this.
- Yes, yep, but you'll see other videos
where people are making you hang off the edge of the bed
over furniture, embarrassing things.
It's anyways, this is straight forward.
- Yeah, if your spouse came in the room
and you were doing this to some furniture, she'd be like.
- We've got a family show here, anyways.
We'd better continue on.
- If you're new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos, how to stay healthy,
fit, pain-free, and we upload every day.
Also go to bobandbrad.com,
go to the giveaway section, this week,
if you're having back pain,
we're actually giving away a TENS unit.
- Oh, yes, here we go, right there.
- Yeah, TENS unit, it's a small battery device
that'll help decrease pain.
- Yep, help you manage pain if you've got-
- Using electricity.
- If you're on pain medication, you can help decrease it.
- Ease off it.
- Or passively get off it.
It depends on your situation.
- Right?
It'll be pinned on Facebook, the contest, go to that page.
You also can find us, a 60 second version of us,
on Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok.
- Or TikTok, and now Bob, as you know,
our podcasts are up and running, and we've got quite a few,
must have 30 or 40 of them at least.
- Now can listen to us even when you're driving.
- Yeah, and we have other people,
we have experts in the field. - Lot of interviews.
- Yep. - Lot of interviews.
- Anyways, so Bob, we do need to talk
about this decompression,
which is essentially traction on the back.
There's a lot of different ways that you can apply traction.
Traction is one of those things that if it works,
it works very good and very quickly, it's not like you do it
an hour later, you feel relief.
- Nah, it should be instant.
- Right, the other thing about it,
it doesn't work for everyone every time.
But these options that we're going to offer are very simple,
and it does decompress the thoracic spine
and the lumbar spine, so from the lower neck.
- When he says thoracic, he means mid-back.
- Yeah, stand up, I'll show Bob.
We got a tall drink of water here.
Look at this, he's got a full back
from here all the way down here.
It's about four feet worth. (Bob laughs)
Well, not quite, but anyways.
And this, will work on his as mine as well as anybody's.
Are you gonna stay standing Bob?
- I'm going to put this on.
- Okay, so go ahead, Bob, we can come over here.
But what we're going to use is gravity and body weight.
And we're essentially going to hang.
Now you can use a couple options, a pull-up bar.
If you have pull-up bar at home, that will work.
We use the hanging handles, and we used to use pull-up bars.
And we found out that if you use the wall
to aid yourself, it really is a big compliment to traction.
- Now, when you get the hanging handles,
you also get three of them.
- Three. - The supports.
- Yep, three anchors.
- Three anchors,
you wanna show the other one back there too?
- Yeah, over here.
- Yeah, so you can go wider if you want.
- Right, right, and you do whatever feels best.
For me, I always use the narrow lines myself.
- I do too.
- And I personally use traction like this
for maintenance on my back.
I don't have a, well,
sometimes I do with my spondylolisthesis,
but typically it's maintenance.
So I can be active on a daily basis.
- Maintenance and I also use it
to kind of wake me up when I'm working at the desk.
- It is amazing when you hang how it opens things up,
should we?
We better, we're babbling now. - Yeah get started.
- We always get hollered at for that.
So the first thing you do,
if you've got back pain in your low back
or your thoracic back, this is going to cover both.
You simply grab your pull-up bar or your hanging handles
or whatever you have that you can hang on.
Now with the back up against the wall,
the big benefit, it puts you in good posture, okay?
Now I'm gonna lower myself.
One thing you wouldn't have these too high.
If you had to jump up to get 'em or your pull-up bar,
you wanna be able to have full weight on your feet,
grab the bars and slowly go down.
- And that's what's nice about these.
You can set them where you want to have them.
- Yep, now I'm just gonna go down.
I've got about 50% weight bearing right now,
and you're probably gonna hold it.
Just kind of hang out there.
Now, if you have back pain and you get to here
and it's starting to feel good,
just hang out there for awhile.
And if you go a little more weight, it feels better.
That's okay, as long as it feels better.
And particularly if you have some sciatica involved
and your leg pain is improving,
boy, just hang out there, you know, for 30 seconds,
as long as you can, as long as that leg pain
and back pain is getting better.
Don't do it if it hurts, it's not the thing to do then.
- I would recommend too, Brad,
if you've never done any hanging
and you don't know if it's going to help you.
- Yep.
- Go ahead and maybe find a bar and you know what I mean?
Just to try it first.
- Right.
- And then if that works, then buy some hanging handles.
- Right, exactly.
- Because I don't want you buying them
and finding out, "Oh, this doesn't even work."
- We're gonna show a pseudo option at the end.
- Sure.
- With the Booyah Stik that you don't even need this.
You can just use a stick, it doesn't work as well.
But it puts you in that direction.
- It helps.
- We've got five options, that was the first option.
The second option is the same thing,
except for once you find out it's good,
and you've let go and you stood up and it feels good,
you may wanna go do full traction, full body weight.
- Sure.
- Just let the gravity take advantage.
Now my feet are off, can you see that?
Everyone can see that, Tanner?
And I'm gonna hang here.
The trick to this is to learn
to relax your core or stomach muscles
so that you get the full benefits of the traction.
Again, you're only gonna do that if it feels good.
It's like, oh...
- And the amount time is really up to you.
- Yep.
- I know they try to work up to larger amount of times.
- Like minutes.
- Yeah, but I get relief rather quickly,
I mean it cracks my back right away.
- Yeah, and your hands get tired.
- Right, right. (Brad laughs)
- This also happens to be real good.
- Really good for shoulders. - For your shoulders.
All right, the next one, if that's going well,
we can add rotation in.
This is something you need to do very gently.
So let's say I'm here.
You can keep some weight through your toes
to start with this.
If you can see my knees, got that in,
now you can add a little rotation to the right.
See how that goes, if it feels good,
you can keep working it.
You can also test it to the left.
If both ways feel good, you can alternate right and left.
Now you're gonna do this very slowly.
This is not anything you're gonna swing into.
It has to feel good while you're doing it.
And then test afterwards and you get up and walk around.
It should continue to feel good.
That's important to do.
- It's almost like your manipulating your back a little bit.
- Yep.
- When you do those little rotations.
It's almost like you're cracking your own back.
- Yep, and a big thing, I can't emphasize this enough Bob,
I think you agree is, be cautious with this.
- Right.
- Don't just go into hanging,
test it out gently and wait 'til the next day.
If you wanna go into a little more length,
or I wouldn't add the rotation right away,
the first day at any cost.
- Probably after a week.
- Yep, yep, and once, you know,
traction, full weight-bearing feels good
after a day or two of doing that,
or even like Bob said, maybe a week,
you can add your rotation.
- Yep.
- I don't rotate because I don't feel it's gonna be good
for my back. - Sure.
- I just hang, now one thing, if you have stenosis,
this is a really neat trick, and I do have lumbar stenosis,
and this does feel real good.
- Which makes sense.
- Yeah.
- It helps open up the framing.
- Right, we're flexing the spine.
And anytime you flex the lumbar spine with stenosis,
it typically...
- Especially with traction.
- Yeah, so this stool works good
because I'm gonna go down
and I go full weight bearing, it feels okay.
But when I put my feet up here and right now...
- [Bob] Owee!
- All the way, it's starting to feel good.
And for me, 'cause I've done this before,
this even feels better.
And I'm just gonna hang out here
until my hands get tired 'cause I'm feeling good right now.
And not that my back was really uncomfortable before,
but this is like a healthy stretch.
- It's an optimal position for you.
- Yep, yep, it's good.
Now, if you're doing this,
you have to have this particular technique,
really confident, good strength.
- Yeah, so you don't want to let go and fall onto your butt.
- If your like this and you let go,
you're gonna have a lot more problems in your back.
- Yep, exactly.
- So only do this. - Safety first.
- Yep, you're not gonna jump into this.
You're gonna do the hanging and feel very confident.
And I typically hang only for about 30 seconds,
then my hands are getting a little tired and might-
- You could even start that with one foot.
- Yep, yep, exactly.
- I mean it would help a little bit.
- Yep, exactly. - And reverse feet.
- Sure.
So you can see this all is based on gravity and hanging.
- Right. - And the wall helps.
- And the rotationals.
- Yep, exactly.
And there's one other option from hanging out.
You may benefit from going face to the wall.
Now, I can do this for a little bit,
but if I hang here for more than 20 seconds,
it bothers my back because of my stenosis,
and you can just hang there like that.
- Yeah, you're going into a little bit of back extension.
- Yes.
- Which maybe feels really good to some people
and somebody like you would not.
- Right, you know, I would stick with this first,
and after you feel real comfortable,
you've been hanging for a while and getting decompressed,
you could try that, but that wouldn't be the first day,
for sure, not even the first week.
- No, exactly.
- Now, if you don't have anything to hold on,
hanging handles, a pull-up bar, you know,
I talked to Tanner about if some people wanna hang on
to a door, you know, and they just.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, and then the hinges break off that's--
- It's always a little scary.
- Yeah, if you get a stick like this that's long enough,
I'll do it from the side, Bob, you can run forward.
It should be about four or five feet long, pretty sturdy.
We use a Booyah Stik 'cause it works really well.
But you just needs a stick piece,
of dolly and a piece of PBC.
- And I actually have to put it on the chair.
- Sure, yep. - 'Cause I'm taller.
- And I'm gonna go to the top of this with both hands
and it cannot slip on the floor.
That's when you need a rubber bottom.
- Or on the chair.
- Or a piece of carpet, whatever.
So it stays there and then you simply lean forward.
- And don't let the hands slide down.
- Right, don't do that.
And what that does is that creates a force.
And I don't know if you can see it,
but it's pulling through my back.
It's a cheating way of getting
some lumbar traction and you know.
- It works. - Yeah, it works.
It just doesn't have the intensity.
And again, the same rules with this.
You lean forward.
If it doesn't feel better, you don't do it.
The disadvantage to this is, is you're leaning forward,
flexing the spine.
If you have a herniated disc, the two don't.
- Really mix.
- Yep, so cautious with this one,
but it is something you can try.
- Felt good to me.
- Yeah, yeah I think, you know,
for a person with a reasonably healthy back,
it's just great for your shoulders, your posture, your back.
And it's become one of my favorite maintenance tools.
- Yeah, I know Tim Paris.
If you know who he is, he actually hangs every morning.
- Does he?
- Yeah, just same thing.
- Where did he learn from, from us?
- No.
- Oh really, someone else had it before us?
- Oh, they had it before us, yes.
(Brad laughs) We weren't the first ones.
- Anyways, all is good.
- Remember we can fix just about anything.
- Oh, except for-- - A broken heart.
- Right, and hanging I don't think is even gonna come close.
(electronic music)