♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists on the internet ♪
- (claps hands) Hi, folks,
I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet. - In our opinion,
of course, Bob.
- Don't we look comfortable here in our chairs?
Today we're gonna talk about
three best at home balance exercises.
You can walk gracefully, you can stop falls
and it's approved by Bob and Brad, we concur.
- Yes, right.
- By the way- - Oh!
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- Here, let me help you, Bob. - Handheld massager.
- There you go.
Be careful with that, Bob.
- You guys are gonna like this, because the price is right,
it's a very inexpensive massager.
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- That's right, Bob.
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and if you're so inclined, we do have a podcast now.
- Yeah, you can't go wrong with a podcast, Bob.
- No, you can't. - Exactly.
Now, Bob, before we get going,
we've got a special announcement here.
There's a gentleman, his name is Jim, he lives in Boston,
he goes by quote unquote, Jim from Boston.
- Hi, Jim from Boston.
- Jim, his daughter, Amy is the one who asked
that we would reach out and say hi.
Evidently he sits down and watches our show
and I think Amy watches it with him
and it's just Bob and Brad time.
- There we go.
- Yeah, we're kind of humbled by it.
- There we go. - Yeah, so, Jim,
I hope you're watching.
We are very happy you're watching us and not-
- Get the Boston accent, I can't even do it.
- What? - Boston. (laughing)
- I'm not even gonna try, we've got that Midwestern drawl.
- Midwestern drawl, yeah.
- So anyways, we always have fun.
So Bob, this one's for you, maybe-
- Jim.
- Jim. - This is for you.
- Sorry, Bob, I mean, Jim, I'm falling apart here.
Anyways, we're gonna go on.
Maybe some of these exercises will benefit you.
Amy may need to help, we'll see how it goes.
Maybe your walking is very steady, I don't know,
but we've got three different balance exercises
and they're gonna help your walking
and your gait quality as well,
prevent you from falling possibly.
If you want, you can get two yard sticks, okay.
I bought these down at- - Bernard's.
- Yeah, 98 cents apiece, I thought that is a deal.
- Yeah. - Can't go wrong.
So the first one, you can put them on top of each other
and put them in front.
You can just use one for this
and you're gonna stand up, keep the chair behind you
and these are balance exercises.
- Now if you have poor balance and you're worried,
you should have a belt around you
and somebody should be holding onto it.
- Right, so Jim, if you are a little wobbly with this,
once you start doing it, Amy should be there
to help you out. - Sure.
- So we're gonna use the yard stick.
You don't have to have it,
but it's a good visual motivation
and cues to let you know how far
or what we're gonna do is to reach out with your toe.
- [Bob] Now, shouldn't you start
with it even with your toes, Brad?
- Well, that's a good idea. - Yeah.
- Yeah, so you're consistent. - Yeah.
- Like that and I'm just gonna reach out
and comfortably angle it to 11
and then you're gonna see if it's the same on both sides.
You might find out with one leg,
you can go much farther than the other and that's okay.
I mean, they'd be nice to be even, but things happen.
- [Bob] Gives you something to work for.
- Exactly, so after you do this a few times, or a few days,
you might wanna start to try to reach out,
you have to bend this knee,
you're gonna strengthen this knee.
Have someone hold on.
If you have a cane or a walker
or even a chair to your side like this.
- Sure. - We got the boy stick here,
and then you're real steady too
and you know, I might go to fingertips
and do this about five times on each leg,
whatever you feel comfortable.
If you start to get tired, you simply sit down.
Now for the next one, to make it a little more interesting,
we're gonna make a V in front,
put your feet in the same location.
Again, have a chair behind you.
- [Bob] Or have someone hold onto you.
- Yep, let's say there's a chair there.
It might be helpful to have a chair, someone there,
whatever you need to feel safe, okay.
- Safety first.
- And then we're gonna reach out here, the same thing.
Keep an eye at where you're reaching to
and you may find when you first start doing this,
the first time, let's say you get to 15.
After a couple of weeks of doing this
three, four times a week, you know,
you're gonna notice yourself reaching out farther.
- And more stable. - Yeah.
So you know you're stronger,
your balance is better as a result
or maybe when you started, you needed to hold on both sides
and then when you're done, you feel comfortable
with only holding onto one stick or one chair.
There's a lot of different ways that can-
- You want it out to the side, Brad?
- Yep.
And now this is important because a lot of things happen,
you know, we step sideways with a cupboard in front of us
and we find as therapists over the years,
a reason for people fall is because they drag their feet.
- [Bob] Yeah.
- Or they don't just step far enough,
or you're not thinking and things change in the body.
So we're gonna do the same thing here
and reach out and see how far you can go each way.
- [Bob] And this is strengthening some crucial muscles too.
- Yeah. - A lot of people
do not strengthen the muscles on the side of their hip
and they're very helpful for balance.
- Yeah, exactly and you know, again,
the yard sticks give you a visual,
lets you know where you're at, if you're improving.
So it's a nice little thing to work with
and it doesn't cost much.
The next thing you need to do is
I was at a geriatric strengthening program.
This was a few years ago, but this was the exercise,
that the study showed to help minimize falls.
- I've seen it again and again.
- Yeah. - Again and again.
- And it's very simple, you just sit in a firm chair,
okay, like a kitchen chair that doesn't have wheels
or doesn't rock or anything, nice, firm chair
and alls you do is sit to stand
and go back down, good control motion
and you do 10 of these, okay.
If it's too easy.
- You can start going to hand out.
- Hands out, there you go.
- If it's too hard, you can actually put your hands
on your thigh, - Yeah.
- push up or you can raise the seat up a little bit
by putting a cushion on the chair or pillow on the chair.
- Done that many times. - Yes,
for people to start off with. - Exactly.
- If they have trouble getting out of the chair.
- And if you're really weak, you're just out of surgery
or maybe you had the flu for a while,
you may have to start with both hands pushing off
and that's okay, do whatever you need to do to be safe.
By the time you get to your 10th one,
you should feel tired, but not like you're gonna fall.
- Right, and you can progress to one hand?
- Yep, exactly right.
- And this is advanced,
when you start doing overhead like this.
- That is advanced, yeah, so if you're starting there,
you know you're already walking
probably pretty gracefully already.
- You're working on your posture then too.
So Brad, you do finish, you don't need those yet.
- I know, but I got one more here.
- Oh, you do, okay. - Yeah, here, hold that.
- I'll have that.
- The heel toe raise, - Oh, sure.
- For the ankle strength is critical.
So hold on to something in front of you,
you can use a stick or a cane, walker, a chair.
Go up on your toes and then go back,
if you can lift your heels up.
Now I think Bob, you'll agree with me over the years
of working with older people, the ankles weaken.
- Right. - The ankles get weak.
Your balance is not as good as a result of it
and this is a critical exercise.
- [Bob] Yeah, you want the hips strong
and you want the ankles strong.
It's really important with balance.
- Yeah, so you know, try and do 10 of those
and work with those.
And now the last one I referred before,
talking about- - Dragging their feet.
- Dragging your feet particularly when you sidestep
and that's a really good way to fall in the kitchen
or the bathroom are a common area for falls.
You're gonna take your sticks again,
put them down about this far apart.
Now when you do this,
it's nice to have a cupboard in front of you,
depending on your balance, I'm gonna do it this way.
Let's say here, this would be the edge of the cupboard
and you have your sticks there.
You may have someone holding onto your belt
and we're gonna step over the top of these
and a lot of times just having that visual cue there
and knowing that they're there, people will do that.
Otherwise if these aren't there,
I can't tell you how many times people will drag their feet
and they're not aware of it and if you do that here,
the stick moves and you're very clearly.
- Yeah, what's nice about using these flat sticks,
it's pretty hard to trip you up, it could.
- Right.
- But it's more likely just to push out of the way.
- Yeah, so you take your steps, go over to here.
You know, you could put three or four in a row,
if you really wanted to, but two is enough
and go like this and go back and forth five to 10 times
and you'll be amazed,
by the time you get done with this whole routine,
if you did it all on a roll,
you'll find that unless you're really active,
you'll feel those muscles
and you're gonna feel more steady as a result
and more aware of your body,
which is a big part of keeping upright.
- You know, Jim's probably watching this,
he's going, "I've got great balance, why'd you do this?"
- Yeah, I know, well, he probably is
one of the exceptional 85 years old.
He could be running yet, I don't know.
- Yeah, so my wife, this is years ago,
I'm gonna embarrass her now, but she's not watching anyway.
- Okay. (laughing)
- My Grandma, we were trying to get her
onto the pontoon boats, we went down the dock
and she's trying, you know, it was a little bit of a step
to get on the pontoon. - You didn't push them?
- My wife pushed her, like she pushes her to help her up
and she falls on her knees. - Oh.
- I mean, I've kidded her about this for years.
- She didn't get hurt? - She didn't get hurt,
but she's like, you pushed Grandma,
"Well, I was trying to help her up."
- Oh, sure.
- We were just dating at the time,
so I almost didn't survive that.
- Oh, that was a long time ago.
- That was a long time ago. - Alright.
- So remember, Brad and I can fix just about anything.
- Except for. - A broken heart
and also broken relationships,
because that's what I'm gonna have with my wife now.
(both laughing)
- Well, Jim, I hope we did something good for you.
We're happy you're watching. - Thanks, Jim,
thanks for watching. - Yeah,
and thanks for giving us the note, Amy.
(light melodic music)