♪ Bob and Brad, ♪
♪ the two most famous, ♪
♪ physical therapists on the internet. ♪
- Hi folk I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapists,
- Brad Heineck physical therapists.
- We are the most famous physical therapist on the internet.
- In our opinion of course, Bob
- Your such a winner now Brad you know it all.
- All right, you caught me off guard.
- All right, we're gonna talk about Massage Guns today.
Why they work and how to use them, Bob and Brad concur.
- That's right Bob, - Yeah.
there's no doubt about it.
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- That's right, Bob.
All right. Oh, let's...
We can put the Booyah Stiks up to the side.
All right. Massage Guns been very popular
you'll see 'em advertised
and people are buying 'em left and right,
including us, Bob, - Right.
a little history of our use of them.
And you know, is that about five years ago you'd say maybe,
as a therapist using our hands as manual therapist,
you would do massage,
you're gonna Cross Friction Massage.
But your fingers get real sore.
- Right.
- Right. So, and to get in deep muscles,
the Massage Gun works for both
and they're very expensive.
- Right. At that time, they were really expensive.
And that's why we actually rejected them.
Right? - Right.
People were asking us to show 'em on our channel.
We were using the massage,
the Handheld Massager y'all,
at the time.
- Right . This is the gun. - Yeah
I'm just gonna show,
this is the--
- I'm sorry, I'm kind of jumping ahead on you for that part.
- That's all right Bob,
it's still...
there's this style,
and then we started to use this--
- We started to use this.
- On ourselves as well as in the clinic with our patients.
- And what we found Brad is that...
what I found is that,
initially I thought all patients are gonna like it
because they're gonna want our hands on them,
and all the physical therapist assistant's hands on them.
I found out like 50% of them preferred the Wand,
Not the Wand, the Salter Handheld Massager.
(laughs)
- Don't get anybody mad.
- I don't wanna get anybody mad. Right?
So, that's when it started being sold.
But I knew that the Massage Gun was more powerful.
- Yeah. It gets in deeper considerably.
And actually the price on those came down
and we started using those,
and we found out,
man this really works well.
But let's talk a little about why the Massage Gun
or even any general massage,
you want to have that, - Sure.
As a therapy or as a health benefit,
and the whole goal really is it boils down
to muscle pliability. - Right.
In other words if you have a tight muscle,
a knotted up muscle,
a muscle that has has injury and it's healing,
they'll get scar tissue,
which creates this tightness as well.
Poor circulation, increased pain,
all those happen around tight muscles.
So, we wanna break them up,
that's the whole goal--
- Yeah. Tom Brady in his book,
the New England P...
Oh no, he's no longer in New England,
who is he playing for Mike now?
- Is it...
(all) Tampa Bay, - There you go.
- He actually is a big proponent of playability,
muscle mobility.
And he uses foam rollers and stuff
but he credits his long career to this
- Right, right.
- The fact that he's gonna-- - He talked about...
- His shoulder pain was very - Knee pain.
Chronic, - Yeah.
- And finally he started doing this pliability thing
with his trainer and this type of thing.
And he said, it just changed his whole playing level,
his ability to play better.
So, anyways,
I think we're sold them on that.
- Right. (both laugh)
- So, how do you use a Massager?
And if you want to get one,
or if you have one,
are you using it properly?
We're gonna show you--
- Some different ways that you can use it.
- Exactly. - So.
So, if you do...
if you're a person that's got a lot of muscle,
you're probably definitely gonna want to get the gun,
if you're gonna work on your hamstrings,
your calf muscles,
chest muscles, shoulders
that you just need more power.
- It's got more,
what would you call it?
Translation?
- I call it travel cause it travels back and forth.
I'm not sure what the engineers call it.
- You wanna show on the other one,
compared to this one, Brad?
just, I mean...
So, this goes back and forth very little
- Right.
- And this goes back and forth much more.
- Right. Now, I would recommend
if you're a smaller thin person,
don't have a lot of muscle mass,
perhaps older.
You're probably gonna want this one.
- You can get by with that one.
And I think that one's a lot more reasonable in price too,
and less. - it is.
So, comes with a lot of different heads too.
- Right. It does.
Now, we're going to focus on the gun
cause that's what the title is.
But we don't want to steer anybody wrong.
This gun comes with...
and this is pretty typical.
Five different heads.
The round one,
there's a pointy one, a flat one,
one to get--
- Over the spine.
- Yup.
And air cushion one which is very handy.
- Probably our favorite one to a logic stand.
- We're gonna put the round one on,
cause that is probably my second most used.
And when do you use a Massage Gun,
make sure you get it charged up
and typically it all have charging batteries.
You don't use batteries that you're putting in,
I don't know any that have batteries.
I'm going to show you on a large muscle group my calf.
It's just gonna be easier to show,
there we go.
- So, you're saying your calves are large.
- Well, they're larger than my fore arm.
(laughs) - Yeah.
- You know, it's typically got
a fair amount of muscle belly.
you can squeeze it,
and when I had calf problems,
and I'm doing self Cross Friction Massage,
my fingers get so tired.
- I had it to Brad and that was a that was a bugger.
It lasted almost a month and a half,
before I got back to running forth--
- That's a lot of massage when--
- That's a lot of massage
and I would just sit there while I was watching TV,
and just ideally do this. You know,
you wouldn't even think about it.
- So, when you have an injury in your calf,
you're gonna put it on a lower level.
This one has five different levels of intensity.
If you go too aggressive, it's gonna be painful.
Start out low,
and what I do is I work the muscle
until I can find the nod.
And typically it's still more painful.
If you're going over the nod of the painful spot,
it really hurts--
- The nod or micro tear.
- The micro, exactly.
Do not go over it and create a lot of pain.
You're gonna work...
Let's say this is the painful area,
I'm going to actually work around it,
If I can't go on it.
- To start.
- Right. You know, there's an exception,
if it hurts,
and after about 15 seconds the pain goes from,
say eight over 10 down to a three ever 10,
then you can keep working it.
You're breaking up scar tissue,
your body's responding appropriately.
One thing you can do to make it not so aggressive
is simply turn,
the gun sideways.
And that gives more of a Cross Friction
and it's not so intense.
You can do it that way,
you can do it this way.
Now I've been using this recently on my hamstrings
and it's been working very well.
And I have been able to find my...
I got a minor tear or a pull,
a strain actually,
that's working very well.
You gotta work it two to five minutes.
it's gonna be enough. - Now,
- And what I was doing Brad,
when I had a calf injury,
is I would do it before I worked out.
- Yup, exactly.
- And then later on I just did it during the day.
- Sure.
- So, I would hit it twice in a day.
- I will actually do my hamstrings now.
And then I'll do a stretch after,
after I do it to help get that muscle stretched out.
Not real aggressive though.
- So, basically,
again you're preparing the muscle for activity.
- Right. - And then--
Bob, I'm gonna let you,
- Sure
- ♪ Ooh Ooh Ooh. ♪
I was just adjusting the speed.
- Now, the same would be true on let's say a smaller muscle.
Let's say you got some tennis elbow,
lateral epicondylitis.
Now, quite often the pain is right up here.
Right here off the bone here.
Where the ligament,
or the tendon, - Connects.
attaches to the muscle.
Now, the same with this one,
you actually push it probably,
do you mind throwing a pillow over there Brad?
- Oh yeah. Good idea Bob.
- You always wanna have things
in a nice, comfortable position.
- Yup. Supported well so you can relax.
- But you...
Again rather than going right to the area,
work the muscle itself first.
- The belly up.
- Yeah, the belly-- - Of the beefy part.
If that becomes more pliable,
it's gonna pull on that area less.
- It's not gonna put as much stress.
But as Brad mentioned,
what's nice about the ball here
is as I get up near the bone now,
I can go across like this
and kind of do Cross-Fiber Massage,
which well you have found to be very effective
in issues like this.
Developed by series X.
- So, Bob show 'em that you're going on a probably,
that would be aggressive. - Yeah.
That would probably make you say ouch,
making it tender
- This tampers a little bit. - Yeah.
And what's nice is what Brad and I were talking
about earlier is that you can actually
get it right up to the bone
and even rub up against the bone a little bit.
- Yup. Yup.
- Cause the ligaments,
the tendon goes into the ball - Sure.
And I definitely had this
when I had my quadriceps tendonitis.
I found what finally made it better is I did massage
and I went right up to the kneecap.
- And the top of the kneecap,
and worked the attachments there.
- Yeah. You'll really...
You'll gonna a feel for it.
Again, if you're working over a tender muscle
that is injured,
only, don't get too aggressive with it.
That 30 seconds is what I use for rule.
If after 30 seconds it's not clearly feeling better,
you need to back off on it and work around it or--
- And work around it--
- Exactly.
- It's not ready for you yet.
It's not coming down enough.
- And I would do a daily.
You could do it a couple of times a day.
And then after you've finished with the treatment,
it should feel good.
You should feel like it's relaxed,
it's a kind of a tingling sensation.
And over the next few hours,
it should continue to feel good.
You know, again,
we can use first,
you stretch afterwards,
if it's healed up enough or you're starting to exercise,
do this, then do your--
- Progress into exercise.
Like I what I do is I walk, run,
and I even walk...
I ran on the treadmill,
holding onto the sides of the treadmill
this side one pretty much stress on the calf.
- Yup. That progressive intensity.
So, again, this gun,
you know, this one,
did we say we have our name on this one?
- No I don't think we did.
- We do, we have our name,
I see Bob and Brad.
We really liked this gun and that's why we promote it.
- We looked for a long time
to have find a supplier that we trust.
It took us years of relationships
and we found one.
- Yeah, one that has a good price and good quality.
Again, so any large muscle groups,
I use this on my glutes,
works great for me, hamstrings.
Bob's worked down his quadriceps,
with patients.
Whatever they need, just--
- Piriformis muscles is another one.
- Oh yeah.
- That muscle on your butt,
that's the one I always recommend.
I use it a Massage Gun,
My sister had it and I had her use a Massage Gun there.
- Sure. Yeah.
- You got that large muscle group you wanna get in there,
and loose some things up.
Great, great Bob.
So, good luck with your massage and I'm sure if--
- And remember, we can fix just about anything.
- Except for-
- A broken heart.
- I don't know this might work, Bob?
- In your mind I bet it does. (laughs)
- Yeah.
(upbeat music)