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- Welcome my friends to the Bob and Brad podcast produced
by Bob and Brad, the two most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
I am Bob, exactly one-half of the Bob and Brad team.
And today, my partner in crime is actually...
- Mike Kienitz PT assistant.
- Right, yeah, no Brad.
We're gonna talk about, with Ross Clifford,
he is the author of the book, Mike, wanna say it?
- Build Your Own Bulletproof Body.
All body weight exercises or stretches
and foam rolling as well.
- You're gonna find this really interesting.
Here we go.
Welcome to the program, Ross Clifford.
So, big fan of the book Build Your Own Bulletproof Body.
We'll have the link below.
We're gonna go on to now, how to bulletproof your knees.
So what are some common knee problems
that these exercises are gonna help?
- Well, I think you touched on this
in an earlier episode Bob,
with the osteoarthritis.
One of the most common joints affected.
And, I would really say most of the exercises
in the section on the knee will help
with some degree of osteoarthritic change in the knee.
'Cause that's probably the major problem.
Then you have other things like strains
of the the ligaments, the cruciate ligaments in particular.
And as we age as well, the menisci, the sort
of soft cartilages that sit in the knee,
they can degenerate slightly as well.
So anything that's going to load those
in a controlled way, distribute that synovial fluid
and help nourish those soft
and harder articular cartilages will do a great job
in restoring function to the knee.
- So what are the goals of the body weight exercises
for the knees with this book?
- So similar to the other topics we've discussed,
it's about mobility first and foremost, I think.
It's range of motion.
- Sure.
- And then hopefully,
by restoring range of motion,
you can then layer on the strength and the stability.
But most people have lost some degree of range.
And one of the things that we find
when we see a lot of our patients
with an osteoarthritic knee,
they often can't quite straighten the knee.
They've lost that last bit of extension of the knee.
And also, bringing the heel towards the bottom
in knee flexion, they struggle with that as well.
So if you can restore those two movements
as much as possible, you will find
that you get less knee pain
and you should get more knee function.
- Seen it many times.
So first exercise, your beloved squat.
- Yes, well, as I say,
it's the gold standard, really.
If you can move towards the squat,
you've got two things going up
which I didn't mention before
about the squat was, you've got range of motion
but it's loaded.
It's not just laying on your back
and pulling your knee in towards you
and doing it that way.
You're actually doing it in a way
that eccentrically, is loading a lot of the muscles
as you go from standing into squatting.
And then whilst you're doing
that, you are also gently persuading
that knee to go into some degree of flexion or knee bend.
- Very good.
- The next stretch is the quadricep stretch.
You actually have it in a, lying on your stomach position
in the book, huh?
- Yeah, so I guess that's counterproductive
to a lot of what I've just mentioned.
I think more for safety reasons, the idea
of perhaps having some people stand
on one leg particularly,
you know, if they're of a certain age
or have a degree of immobility.
There is a risk of falls if you're standing
on one leg trying to balance.
This would be a classic example of a level-one exercise,
a real entry level.
Lay on your tummy, lay on your front, your abdomen.
You've also got that nice stretch of the lumbar spine
whilst you're laid there in prone on your front.
And then the idea is you can,
in a controlled way, you can bring the heel
towards the buttocks
and you can hold that knee flexion.
The other benefit to doing it as we've shown
in the book, is that you also get that stretch
at the front of the hip as well.
- Oh, sure.
- And sometimes, you'll see this
if you've ever asked anybody to do the stretch in standing.
- Yeah, I see it.
I know it, sure.
- They tend to bring their knee
and they're thigh forward.
So they cheat by releasing the hip
so they can get the stretch at the knee.
- You could also loop a belt around the ankle
and if you had trouble, reach back, so.
- Wow, that's a great addition.
Yeah, absolutely.
- Next one, gym ball, hamstring stretch
or hamstring curl, I'm sorry.
Hamstring curl.
- Yeah, no, that's okay.
So this is the only exercise
in the book where I make a cameo appearance.
So, all of the other exercises, is-
- I can't even tell (chuckles).
- Is Ashley showing his physical prowess.
But he allowed me to do one exercise.
- There we go!
- He felt I was physically capable to do this one.
So, and I was the only one who had a gym ball as well.
He didn't have one.
So this is one of those exercises
where you need a little bit of equipment.
But if you don't have a gym ball
you can use a dining chair
and you can put your heels up
onto the seat aspect of the chair.
And the idea is, you're just trying to raise the bottom.
- [Bob] Sure.
- Raise your buttocks off the ground.
And by doing that, you're activating the hamstrings.
The benefit of having a gym ball is,
you can raise the buttocks off the floor.
So you've activated the hamstrings at the hip
and then you can start to bend the knee
by curling the ball in towards the backside.
And then, you're now getting a dual action
on the hamstrings.
You're securing it at one end
and you are activating it at the other.
- For those listening, imagine a bridge
but your legs move towards you.
- Great description.
- The next one we're gonna talk
about is IT band foam rolling.
- Yeah so, ITB is the iliotibial band.
Very controversial, widely thought not
to be a stretchable entity.
- Right.
- So a lot of the stuff you read suggests
that you know, you could hang
off the ITB all day, every day, probably wouldn't budge.
It wouldn't give at all.
But the idea is
that, you know, you might get these lumps
of additional sort of scar tissue, collagen building.
- Right.
- And if you've ever done any work
around an iliotibial band,
whether it's, you know manual therapy
or even the foam rolling,
you'll know it's a very tender spot.
It's a very tender area.
So my advice, if you do the ITB,
iliotibial band foam rolling is, you take as much load
and much weight through your arms
and through your leg as you need
to, placing only enough stress
on the ITB as you feel comfortable with.
And again, the three out of 10 rule is what I advise.
So I mentioned this on an earlier episode.
So zero being nothing,
10 being the worst pain you can imagine.
Go for your own three out of 10,
because I hear a lot of people who will foam roll
until tears start to show in their eyes.
- Wow.
- And they really feel like they're not doing anything
unless it really hurts.
But, go slow and steady
with a foam roller, particularly around the ITB.
- So my understanding with the ITB is,
that can often adhese down
and the foam rolling will help that, so.
- Yeah, exactly.
- So next one is lunge.
- Ah, the lunge!
So you've got balance, you've got the coordination,
you'll be able to step one foot in front of the other.
Now, in some individuals who might be listening
to this, particularly if you know,
they're not particularly mobile,
they might find that just going
into that split stance is enough for them.
And that's where they need to work
and really work on their balance.
Particularly, if they're at risk of falls.
If they can go into that split-stretch,
that split stance and they're okay,
then the idea is then you start
to load the front knee
by just taking the back knee down towards the ground.
And so the idea is, you're getting multiple activation.
You're mobilizing the front knee,
you're mobilizing the rear knee,
you've got one hip that's going
into flexion, one hip that's going into extension
and you're working on your balance as well.
What more could you ask for?
- Exactly.
- I think we should mention that there's also more exercises
and stretches than the ones we're talking about in the book.
- Way more.
- Your book breaks down each section individually, too
for those wondering.
- Right.
- But do you-
- Yeah, I do sometimes wonder
if I've under undersold myself and Ashley
with this book because,
I'm sure some authors would probably have generated seven
or eight books out of the content
that we placed into one book.
We tried to make it sort of a catch-all reference book.
- Universal.
- For people who are just interested
in how to rehabilitate or pre-habilitate their own bodies,
all the way through
to perhaps, somebody who wants a quick reference
as a sports therapist,
massage therapist, physical therapist.
And we've got all these sections
on the shoulder, the hip, the knee,
the ankle, the foot, the wrist and the spine as well.
And we've condensed it all into one book.
- Thank you for taking the time
to demonstrate, I mean discuss all these exercises.
And again, we wanna mention the book.
Mike, you wanna?
- Do you have a website or anything
where people can reach you at?
Or social media?
- I wanna say yes but I don't know what it is.
Ashley would know but-
- We'll put it in the description box below,
if you just wanna email it to us.
- Yeah, we'll send you something to post-production.
- There we go.
- That sounds good.
- All right, any final thoughts you wanna give, Ross?
- I just wanna say thank you both, for your time.
It's been a pleasure to talk to you both.
And I really appreciate this platform
and this conversation we've had today.
So thank you very much.
- It's a terrific book, so I-
- Oh, thank you, very kind.
- [Bob] Everybody, get one.
Yeah, okay.
- You've got one already.
What more could you ask for?
- That's right.
- We need two, I'm just kidding.
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