♪ Bob and Brad, the two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists on the internet ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Today we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet
- In our opinion of course, Bob.
- Today, we're gonna talk about seven exercises
for seniors to prevent falls and improve balance.
Plus, we're doing a giveaway, Brad.
- Ah, yes.
- Let's talk about it.
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BobandBrad isn't it?
- It's at the top of the corner or somewhere--
- It'll be pinned to the top of the page.
Go to Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, and eventually Zynn
I guess we're working with Zynn.
(Brad mumbles)
- We have a podcast too.
- So Pete's choice is giveaway today.
These are cushions and they can be used for balance
which we'll show you later in the video
but they're also, Brad, you use these.
I use these for multiple things.
- I use them for sitting down.
I put my feet on it, the computer chairs--
- I put my feet on it.
- I've taken it hunting.
So I have something warm to sit on.
They're wonderful.
- Well, we used it with painting.
- Oh.
- I was getting up on a counter--
- You paint them?
- No, I had to get up on a countertop
and I had to kneel down.
- Oh, yeah, when you kneel yeah.
- Yeah, it's really good for bleachers.
- Oh, yeah.
Good old Pete.
Anyways let's get on with the program.
- All right, let's go.
So falls are the number one cause of injuries
and deaths from injuries among older Americans.
So I mean, you and I work with the elderly a lot
and we saw that falls were very, very common.
- And don't get it wrong,
it's not so often that they fall and die from the fall,
fall, break a hip, they're bedridden, then things take over.
And then you die from that or possibly.
- It's a downward spiral.
- A head injury that turns into something worse and worse.
So anyways, yeah, we wanna prevent falls at all costs.
- So we've got seven exercises to do here.
Then we'll go over the advanced ones with the cushion.
- Oh yeah.
- So let's start off with number one, Brad.
So these are foot taps.
Now I'm gonna go ahead
cause if you need some extra balance, you might want to hang
on to a Booyah Stik or something lower, chair.
And you can do toe taps.
Now this is a good one to do on the stairs.
Cause you could hold onto the railing.
- Right, good solid railing.
- You just gonna touch the toe to the top and tap it
back and down, 15 times.
- So you may take the first step or like Brad is doing,
go to the second, whatever your level of balance is.
It's a great hip exercise.
- Hopefully, eventually you can do it without any support.
All right.
Then you're gonna have to do the other side too.
- Oh, right, yeah.
- I mean you gotta even it out.
- How many repetitions, Bob?
- 15 times.
- 15.
- Yup, and I want you to do them in a roll.
I don't want you to go one side and then the other side.
- Okay, yeah, so not like this.
- Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- Think about your breathing, relax while you do this.
- Now this one's gonna seem minor
but while you're standing, I want you to...
Brad's having trouble with his neck today,
so I'm gonna do this one.
You gonna move your head side to side,
while you're standing.
And again, if you're worried, cause this does throw you off
as you get older,
I actually have people do this while they're walking,
eventually, like with a cane or something,
because this throws people off like you wouldn't believe.
- It can throw your balance off
and your vision-- - Vestibular system.
Yeah, those two, vision, vestibular
make a big difference on your balance.
- I also want you to go up and down.
So go side to side, up and down.
Side to side, up and down.
So you can do that for 30 seconds
and then you repeat it for another 30 seconds.
- 30 seconds will be a long time--
- It'll be a long time
but it'll give you a little motion in your neck,
and then plus you're working on your vestibular system.
My mom, this is how she fell.
While she was walking towards church and she had a walker.
But someone called her out, she went like this
and down she went.
Yeah, so it's really easy to do.
- So you can have a chair to hold on to,
a solid chair, you'd need it.
- All right, standing marches or you can use a countertop.
- Sure, yeah countertop.
- You just gonna standing march, going back and forth,
and I would probably do 15 times on each side.
So you do 30 total--
- So this one, you do want to alternate.
- Yes, you do want to alternate, standing marches.
- Again have a counter...
Now a countertop on this one,
sometimes your knees bump into it so--
- You have to go to the side, like this.
All right, next one is gonna be some strengthening
which we've,
have advocated many times these two
and it's just sit-to-stands.
And there's a whole progression you can do.
You can start off by using your arms.
You know you can...
Progress to maybe pushing off your thighs.
- I always liked that.
Make sure you stand all the way tall.
I've had patients, they'll kind of just get up--
- And go up halfway.
- And you wanna get all the way up.
- Yeah. Again, a good set of 15 of these.
Eventually, you may not be able to do that to start off.
Brad and I often talk about this,
like people that own, those electric stand-up chairs.
A lot of times they become very weak
because they no longer have to stand up on their own.
- They let the chair do the work.
Now, if you can't get up on your own,
I still recommend you use a chair, but only go like halfway.
So, figure out how far you need to...
Sometimes you only need an inch and you get up.
All right, next progression is actually maybe one hand.
- Yes. Okay.
Then you could actually use either a cushion
either a pillow, a cushion like this.
- Great point!
- If you can't get up without that, that makes--
(Brad and Bob) A big difference.
I mean, I can.
- One inch makes a big difference,
two and a half inches there.
So then eventually,
you wanna progress to having your hands out
and not even using anything at all,
if you wanna make it really tough
then you go hands over head.
Cause you're doing a good posture moves in too.
Okay Brad, now a hip abduction.
So we're gonna grab behind the chair
or the Booyah Stik.
- Make sure you've got...
You can do this on a countertop too
or a good solid piece of furniture like...
We finally got some good chairs.
- We're strengthening the muscles on the side of our hip
which are very important with balance.
- And look at what our feet are doing.
They aren't going out like this.
- Yeah, they're going straight forward.
The toes are standing straight forward.
- And we're not doing this,
you gotta keep your trunk upright.
- After you do 15 of those,
15 is the magic number today, Brad.
- Yeah. Well, you can't go wrong with 15.
- 15, after you do 15 of those, you'll start to feel it.
- Oh!
- I mean--
- You'll probably feel it at 10,
if you haven't done it before.
- All right, then you're gonna try single leg stands,
10 to 15 seconds.
So, I'm not the best at these, I'm getting better.
- Again, they can hold--
- Yeah sure, you can put fingertips if you need to.
- I have people start with all 10 fingertips
and then go to one hand with fingertips
then four, two fingertips, one fingertip.
- Yep, that's the progression--
- It makes a difference
if you have shoes or you don't have shoes
you'll find out typically with shoes
people have a little better balance.
- Now the last one is,
again you may need a gait aid if you have trouble with this
but you're actually gonna do what we call,
Over-the-Shoulder walks.
So you do five steps turning and looking to the left,
five steps looking to the right.
Again, the same thing. It can throw you off.
- If you don't feel comfortable
if you have a walker or a cane, but no matter what,
if you feel uncomfortable doing this
don't do it by yourself.
You may have to have...
And we do this a lot in therapy with the patient.
We'll walk along the side. - We'll walk on the side.
- With a hand on and a belt around them.
- Now the cushion, this is a whole different world.
This is gonna be a lot more difficult,
like if you wanted toe taps.
- This is a little more advanced.
- You're gonna probably have to hold onto something.
So Brad's got a good balance.
He probably could do these, but--
- Oh, I thought you were tryna kick somebody Bob.
I see, okay. So you're in the stairway.
- Yeah.
- If you want to look at these cushions
you can see they're, squishy
and they're really...
You get a good cushion, you can clean them off.
They'll last a long time.
- Then standing marches,
which again you may wanna hold on to something.
- Yeah. Yeah.
That stick, a cane, a chair,
but it's amazing the different set of cushion.
- Oh, I missed head rotations to do with (Bob mumbles) here.
- My neck is on--
- You wanna do that.
- Go on.
- And up and down.
Okay, then Sit-to-Stands of hip abduction,
You wouldn't do on here,
but you could do the Single-leg stand-up.
- If you're doing this, you're pretty advanced.
You're not walking with a cane, you're not using a walker.
You're feeling pretty confident.
- And you can do Over-the-Shoulders
without walking on this thing
because that kinda throws you off a little bit.
So. All right.
So yeah, that's it, Brad.
We did it in nine minutes and 52 seconds.
(Brad giggles)
- We get better every time.
- We get better all the time. We didn't ramble as much.
- People shouldn't be talking
about our babbling on this one.
- By the way, if you are...
You want a short version of us, we have a whole channel
where we do 60 second versions of these video.
Like this one would be done in 60 seconds, eventually.
- We talked really fast.
- Yeah. Just kidding. Thanks for watching.
(Brad laughing) (logo popping)