♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Howdy folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, Physical Therapist.
- And I am Brad Heineck, Physical Therapist.
- Together we are the most famous
physical therapists on the internet.
- Naturally in our opinion, Bob.
In our opinion, of course. - Right.
So today we're gonna talk about
how to massage a painful knee.
Quite a simple video, Brad, but very effective.
But before we go on. - Oh, take care of things.
- Yeah, if you're new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos on how to stay healthy, fit, pain-free,
and we upload every day.
Also go to bobandbrad.com, go to the giveaway section.
- That's right.
- We're giving away a Q2 Massage Gun.
- Q2.
- It's cutie.
- Not a not a Q-tip, but a Q2.
- Yeah.
Very powerful even though it's small, and very handy.
- Yeah
- Anything else you want to say about it?
- Well, it's one of my favorite ones. It really is.
- It is. It's my favorite one.
You can also go to Facebook,
and it'll be pinned to the top of the page.
- Right up there.
- Go to Twitter, Instagram or TikTok,
if you want a 60-second version of our program.
- That's right, now we have podcasts out there,
you can be entertained, educated, and really enjoy this-
- While you're driving your car or working out.
- Yeah, you don't have to look at us.
- Yeah.
All right. So, I'm gonna take the massage gun here.
Now, if you're having knee pain,
a lot of times it's right around the knee,
or maybe round the kneecap.
You don't take the massage gun
and go right on the joint like this.
- Yeah.
These guns are not made to go on, massage a bone.
- Right.
- You got skin and right underneath your skin it's bone,
we're not gonna massage that.
- Right.
So the whole thing about the knee,
the things that affect the knee
are things above the knee and below the knee.
So you want to affect those things.
So like we have the quadricep muscle.
- Yeah.
- That has, if it's tight,
it's putting a lot of pressure on the knee.
So I have a lot of friends, especially at my age now.
(Brad laughs)
I mean that my age, my friends are getting older too.
And they have tight quads and that's causing knee pain.
- So your friends are your age or you're older than them?
- I'm picking up some friends as I get older apparently.
(Brad laughs)
So one thing, very simple,
we want you to massage above the knee and below the knee,
and that'll affect the knee.
- Sure.
- So we're gonna start by above the knee, the quadricep.
You're gonna take it.
And actually, this is a good tip for it
'cause I'm actually gonna go over clothing.
And when you go over clothing,
it's nice to have this nice, smooth one.
- Yeah, 'cause it slips over the clothing.
Really it makes a big difference
versus this rubber air-filled one,
this sticks to the clothing. - Show that one too, Brad.
- Oh yeah, we've got this new camera, we're kind of excited.
- [Bob] Yeah. - Is that pretty good?
Yeah.
Now we're gonna get into the ball one too,
show some special things you can do with that.
Which one do you want, Bob?
- Well, I'll stick to smooth one first.
- All right.
- Now the thing about these different heads,
you can easily interchange them.
- That's right.
You don't have to screw them on, it's an interference fit,
and they work very well.
- You have to hold the button for three seconds
before it starts.
- Yeah.
- But then this slides right along pants and clothing.
- I can even feel the bench vibrate when you do it.
- Can you?
- Oh yeah.
- This works really well.
Now, I'm gonna go into a little different situation here.
I was having pain for a while,
which I thought was quadricep tendonitis.
So there's a tendon that goes
from the quadricep to the knee cap.
Right here, I was really tender,
especially when I did squats or especially split squats.
- Yeah.
So this tendon isn't like a bicep tendon
where it's real long, it's the junction
between the quadricep muscle and the kneecap,
so it kind of goes across this way
and it's a short, narrow one.
- And I tried everything to get rid of it.
I did Brad. I tried, you know, I tried-
- Did you try aspirin?
(Brad laughs) - Well,
you know I don't believe in that.
Not for the long-term.
So anyway, I used to try to massage. It would help somewhat.
- You mean by hand?
- By hand.
- Yeah, getting sore fingers.
- Yeah, and I would try eccentric strengthening,
and ice and all that.
Finally, I took the massage gun,
and I started working right up to the bone.
I'd get to it and then back off.
This dropped the pain levels down by 80%
within a couple of days.
- [Brad] And how long would you massage it?
For 20 seconds, or a minute?
- [Bob] Well, a couple of minutes.
- [Brad] A couple minutes, okay.
- [Bob] But the thing is now,
originally I thought it was quadricep tendonitis.
There's also what is called the suprapatellar pouch there.
And that can get adhered down, according to Kelly Starrett.
- Sure.
- And now I'm wondering if I had that, I don't know.
Either way, it's the same treatment.
- Right.
The pain gets better. - You can do a massage-
- We're breaking up tissue,
it got scarred down. - Scar tissue.
- Or adhered, whatever you want to call it.
And you know, it's just one of those things that,
and you can do it by hand,
it just takes a lot more finger power.
- Well, I found out it wasn't even effective here.
- Yeah.
- You know, with my hand. - Well,
it's 'cause your fingers aren't so strong.
- Yeah. Yeah, I'm a wimp.
- If you were a massage therapist-
- You probably could do it.
- That might be different.
I agree 'cause my fingers get tired and sore.
- Now, if you have pain over here, over the bursa,
that might be what we call the,
did I say it wrong last time?
Pes anserine?
- Yeah, I didn't look this one up, so you're probably right.
I don't know.
- Pes anserine bursa.
- But that's over a bony area.
- Right, but the muscles that attach to that are right here.
- Medial, yeah. - Yeah.
If they're tight, they're going to pull on that harder
and cause pain.
So we want to massage the muscles on the inner thigh.
And there Brad goes, black on black.
- Yeah. You can't see it well.
- Yeah, pull it up, pull up that, Brad.
- [Both] Show some leg.
- White skin there, I'm telling you,
I got to get out in the sun more.
- [Bob] Got a little bit of a tan.
- [Brad] I should do some of that.
I was out in the sun all weekend without a shirt.
Not all weekend, but I think I actually-
- I'm getting a little bit sick right now imagining that.
- Yeah well, I was out fishing,
so it was just kind of me and the Mother Nature, you know?
- Sure.
- Yeah, and I like to work it across like this, the fibers,
and you can work with the fibers, and you'll find a spot,
and you work on that one spot that's tight.
It's a little sore.
If it's really sore, work around it
and you can work below it, above it
and eventually work towards it, on the sides.
- You know, Brad, since you got the massager,
you want to put this one on?
This is the ball one now.
Oops.
- Oh well, we'll have to get another one.
- Go on, yeah.
- Yeah.
There's some really,
one unique thing that this does that no other head does.
- And that's what I wanted to do, show the quadricep.
I mean, tell it to them.
- Kit, is this good?
So the patella is here.
The tibia's here.
And there's a short tendon here,
and it's a really important part of the tendon
'cause it connects all four quadricep muscles
through that one tendon below the patella.
- [Bob] So you can get like jumper's knee
where you really irritate that tendon below.
And this will definitely help that.
- So we want to do a cross-friction massage.
You can certainly do it with your thumb like this.
- [Bob] That one, you could use your thumb.
- Yeah. But you're gonna get a tired thumb.
If you have one of these, you put the round one on,
and you don't go directly on it,
'cause that's going to beat it up pretty aggressively.
You go sideways and just work it across.
- [Bob] Works really good, wow.
Brad came up with this.
- [Brad] Well, I don't know if I did, but I thought of it,
I'm sure other people have already tried it.
- [Bob] Sure.
- [Brad] And this is something that I'll do
in other parts of my body too, even on my shoulder.
- Cross-fiber, like tendinitis on your elbow.
- Yeah exactly, work across. - Tennis elbow,
golfer's elbow, shoulder tendonitis,
you could go across too.
- Yeah, I've been using, my supra-
- Spinatus?
- (laughing) Supraspinatus.
I was gonna say something else.
What's going on?
- Yeah, what's going on here? - That's not important.
- So we haven't addressed the hamstring,
the hamstring's about three muscles,
they are cross the knee.
And you want to make sure those are nice and loose,
and not pulling on the knee.
So I don't know, what attachment?
Probably that one, if you had clothes on.
- Especially if you haven't used this,
I would start with the flatter one.
There are some more aggressive heads in there.
- Or the air filled one is-
- Yeah
- It's just not good for over clothes,
it kind of sticks to clothes.
- Yeah.
You can still do it if you're not sliding it,
if you're more stationary.
And these are these things that-
- You'll learn. I mean, you can experiment.
- I like to do that with my foot resting,
so the muscle is as relaxed as possible.
But you can figure that out as you-
- [Bob] And you can do
a little flossing numbness there, Brad.
- [Brad] Sure, yeah.
- [Bob] So, well, he's moving it while he's doing it.
- [Brad] I know it's hard to see it with my black pants,
and the black massage gun.
But we got this new camera,
you could probably zoom in there and really...
(cameraperson speaking indistinctly)
Cool.
(both laugh)
- So then you want to jump out to the outside, the IT band.
Now you cannot massage the IT band per se.
I mean, you're not gonna make it more supple.
It's a very thick, heavy band.
And it runs along pretty much where Brad has the stripes.
- Yeah.
- But you can, it might be adhesed down
to some of the soft tissues below.
- Right.
- So if it's not moving like it should,
you can actually massage the band
and it might help with that.
And that's that pain you get on the outside of the knee,
IT band syndrome.
- Yeah.
- And runners and bikers might get that.
And you can do the stretch along with the massage.
If you want to know how to do the stretch,
go to our website, I mean go to Bob and Brad on YouTube,
and type in IT band. - IT band stretch.
- Yeah.
- Just make sure that when it comes up to the hip bone here,
the trochanter. - Right.
- You're not gonna want to go over that,
in either way, because you got a bursa there,
you don't want to irritate that.
- You can massage like the tensor fasciae latae,
and the gluteus maximus,
'cause they all attach into IT band.
- Yeah.
(Brad stammering)
- Yeah, it's always surprising to me,
is how tender they are.
- Yeah.
- You know like-
- Whoa. Right there, my medial.
Yeah. Yeah.
- And a final one would be the calf muscle cell
because the gastrocnemius does cross over the knee.
And if you have a really tight calf muscle,
again, it could affect the knee.
And there you go.
(Brad groans)
I would say of all my body parts, Brad,
(both laugh)
and this is a dangerous situation.
- [Brad] Yeah.
- [Bob] I massage my calf muscles more than anything.
- [Brad] Do you?
- [Bob] Yeah, they just really get tender
and sore and tight.
- Well, you use them a lot.
I do have a tender spot right in here.
Ooh. Ooh.
So I'm gonna go around it,
'cause I can go really aggressive here,
and down here and here.
But right there, owwee.
I'm going to go sideways and then it's okay.
- Just a point of note, I have given away,
I think almost 40 of those massage guns,
with my own money, Brad.
I haven't gone to Bob and Brad money.
(Brad laughs)
So I really believe in them.
I really like to help family and friends.
- Well, I always tell my family and friends,
"You should buy Bob and Brad."
But I don't give them Bob and Brad.
- I do, because you know,
quite often they come to me for help
and I don't want to deal with them, so I just...
(both laugh)
- "Take the gun and get outta here."
- Yeah, they feel better.
- Well, they love it anyway.
- Yeah, they love it. That's right.
- They would rather have that.
(Brad laughs) - All right.
Thanks everybody for watching.
(electronic tones)