♪ Bob and Brad, the two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists on the internet ♪
- 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.
- Today we're going to show you how
to unlock hip flexor tightness and pain
in ninety seconds.
In bed.
And you know what, I am really excited to see this
'cause I don't know what Brad's gonna do,
this is new to me.
And I do have trouble with my hip flexors,
I've been foam rolling 'em, I've been massaging 'em,
so I'm really anxious to try this, Brad.
- Yeah, this is a different approach,
much easier, and it's been going on for decades, literally,
this whole technique-
- All right, I will watch it today and I will do it
and I will come back and report.
- Say no more, Bob.
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- Normal heat.
- It actually goes this far.
- Yeah.
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- Convection heat?
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- Right.
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This is actually mine, I have it attached
to a cushion, I put it in my chair and it gives me
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- Well it was nice of you to bring that down, Bob.
- Yeah.
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- Wow, that was good, Bob.
- Thanks.
- Okay, let's top about the hip flexor.
(metal clatters)
So the hip flexor flexes the hip.
And it's actually, I always tell my patients,
if you look where your pocket is,
where you put your hand in,
that's where the muscle is.
We're gonna show you actually a little more detail with Sam,
Sam I am, where the, you know, where this muscle is.
Now we call it a deep muscle because it literally is deep.
If you look at your stomach right here,
to get to it, you actually have to palpate
and push through your abdominal muscles
and then some viscerals, some of your internal organs
kinda can get in the way a little bit.
Your appendix is close to that.
So it's really a hard muscle to massage.
- [Bob] Sure.
- So if you've got a tight muscle
and you want to massage it,
some therapists do it, I personally have never done it.
- [Bob] I don't either.
- [Brad] It's really difficult but, you know,
some people are good at it.
As far as the layperson doing it, I do not recommend it,
even trying it.
It's just too deep.
But this technique, you don't need to.
That's the beautiful thing of it.
So here we have, the pink is the...uh...
Help me out, Bob, I've got-
- [Bob] The iliopsoas?
- [Brad] Yeah but there's the ilium, that's this one.
- [Bob] Yeah.
Iliacus.
- [Brad] And then the psoas is the red muscle.
- [Bob] Sure.
- [Brad] And the red muscle, the psoas, actually connects
to the lumbar spine.
And that's why back pain
can be associated with a tight psoas.
- [Bob] Yeah it's going to some of the lateral attachments
up the back-
- [Brad] Yeah.
- [Bob] So it can pull on the back.
- [Brad] Exactly.
And then this is on the pelvis, on the ilium or the pelvis-
- [Bob] Sure.
- [Brad] Like a layperson.
That connects up to the femur
the inside of the femur
and the location and the anatomy
and the biomechanics of this
is really critical to make this technique work.
- Okay you can see by the location of origin
of insertion here that you can see,
you can pull up the hip here-
- Exactly.
- And it can flex.
- Exactly.
All right, Sam, you're done.
- Thank you.
(Brad chuckles)
- All right so let's get on to the technique itself.
So you can do this on a carpeted floor,
you could do it in bed,
really it doesn't matter.
- Want some pillows, Brad?
- Yeah, probably just one I think.
There ya go.
Thank you.
All right, boy, it matches.
Okay, so what you're going to want to do is,
say my right hip is the painful, the tight hip.
I'm gonna sit, or lay down in what
I call a hook line position with your knees up.
- [Bob] Gonna lie down.
- Gonna lie down.
I want you to take note on how your hip felt prior
to the, the technique and then afterwards,
we're gonna compare it again.
So let's say it's tight, it's a little painful.
Let's say it's about a five over ten.
Ten being the worst pain you've ever experienced,
zero no pain.
So right in between there.
And it's feeling tight.
What you're gonna do is, first of all,
you need to relax and, now,
what they say to do as far as if you're a therapist,
we're gonna palpate it and find that sore spot,
the knot in that muscle,
again we're gonna skip that.
You're gonna slowly bring up your hip,
knee going to your chest,
and then as you do this,
you're gonna find the position of most comfort.
So typically, it's going to be as close
as you can get the knee to the chest.
It may be in towards the shoulder across you chest.
It may be over to the side.
Everyone is going to be a little bit different on this.
- [Bob] So Brad when you say this,
now, if it feels better out here,
that's not what you're talking about,
you're talking about the position of most comfort
once it's pulled toward you.
- Right.
Right.
- Okay, so-
- The whole goal of this positional comfort
is to shorten the muscle-
- Sure.
- 'Cause we're going to actually release the tension-
- Gotcha.
- Allowing blood flow into the muscle
which allows pain relief and healing.
- So yeah, right now the muscle is definitely shortening up.
- Short.
Exactly.
But sometimes there may be some,
it feels a little bit better
and again, you do what feels best.
Now, one thing that will, most people will find
is a little more comfortable is if you rotate the femur.
In other words, my foot,
you'll see is going to go towards that way.
- [Bob] Interesting.
- Yup.
So, 'cause you know the-
- [Bob] Right.
- The flexors are-
- [Bob] External rotators.
- Right, right, exactly, so we're gonna shorten it up.
Now that may or may not work for you.
If it does, you know,
definitely try if it feels better that way.
And for me, I do this a little bit,
but not too far over here, right about in here.
- [Bob] I said that wrong, Brad, didn't I?
It's an internal rotator.
Right?
- No, it's an external rotator.
- [Bob] I have to think too on that.
- That's, you know, that's therapist talk.
- [Bob] Sorry.
- You don't need to know that.
- [Bob] You can ignore that.
- Right, right.
- [Bob] Listen to him turn it in.
- And then you've got your pillow,
you're gonna take a breath, and you're not gonna start
the ninety second treatment until you find
that most comfortable position and you can relax.
I'm just gonna hang out here and-
- [Bob] So basically you're shortening up the muscle-
- Right.
- [Bob] To the shortest position-
- Yup.
- [Bob] That's comfortable and that,
that's the way it's gonna relax it
because the stress is all taken off.
- Right, right.
And that's the whole theory between the
Strain-Counter-Strain treatment or positional release.
- [Bob] Gotcha.
- Which has been studied thoroughly over the years.
You really need to look at your, you know,
get your cell phone out or look at a clock
with a, you need to go ninety seconds.
- [Bob] Ninety seconds.
- At minimum.
- [Bob] Yeah, sure, you can go longer.
- You can go longer, absolutely.
- [Bob] But don't go less.
- Right.
- [Bob] Gotcha.
- And then when you're done with that ninety seconds,
this is important, don't just let it drop down.
No.
Take your time and let it go down slow
and you're gonna keep relaxing and breathe.
Everything goes slow at this, if you wanna do some
gentle range of motion, you're gonna do that.
You know, you're gonna get off the couch or the bed
whatever you're on and just take your time.
Everything, it, you know you stand up,
you're not going to do any
aggressive hip flexor stretches,
we have videos on those too.
- [Bob] So-
- We're not gonna do that.
- [Bob] You wouldn't do that at this time.
- Right.
- [Bob] Would you do it at a different time, possibly, then?
- Right, yeah, right.
- [Bob] Okay.
- Right.
- [Bob] So this is done separately from that
and those aren't in conjunction at all.
- And I'm saying if you have good results with this
and it's feeling loose, you may not have to do-
- [Bob] To do the other ones.
- The hip stretches.
It's possible you're stretching too hard and irritating it.
- Oh, irritating it and it's responding.
- Exactly.
- It's spasming, almost.
- Right.
- So, what, how much time?
Do you mind if I try it once, Brad?
- Oh, Bob, yeah, absolutely.
- So, so, I'm gonna use a different pillow.
- [Brad] Yeah, pfft.
Yeah we don't wanna get those mixed up.
- Yeah.
- [Brad] Your's is the same color.
Wow.
- So, I'm gonna bring it up.
This, all the way down?
- [Brad] I would-
- Or up like this?
- [Brad] Whatever's most comfortable.
- Okay.
- [Brad] You're getting the position of maximum comfort.
- So I'm gonna bring it up.
So I can feel that now.
I can, I can feel pain already now.
- [Brad] Okay.
- So, now-
- [Brad] Now I would bring it over maybe.
- Well that's worse.
- Okay.
- And that's a little better.
- Okay. Now let me turn it.
Yeah rotate it a little bit.
- Oh that definitely feels better.
- [Brad] That does?
- Yeah.
- [Brad] See, that's, now you are...
- It's definitely better.
- [Brad] See, you don't have to be the therapist.
If a therapist is helping you,
they're gonna get feedback from you anyways.
- Sure.
- [Brad] You just don't go up there
and put it in a certain spot.
It's all feedback from the patient.
- Yeah, this is definitely the better position.
- [Brad] This feels good?
- Oh yeah.
- [Brad] Now hit the timer, right now.
- Well, I've been doing it for fifteen seconds already.
- [Brad] Bob, bob, you were talking.
This is video, it doesn't count.
We gotta hit the timer, but anyways, yeah
'cause you can go longer than 90 seconds.
- Sure.
- So that's okay, um.
- Well, I don't wanna have people watch
dead air here right now, so...
- Okay, time's done.
- I'm gonna get up.
- We'll pretend 90 seconds-
- So then I slowly take it down, right?
- Yup.
- And I can see that, 'cause I, it'll always
fire up if I let it down too fast.
- You may have to grab here.
- Yeah, yeah.
- You know that works for some people.
- I agree with that.
- Yup.
- I agree with that.
And then slowly,
and then you maybe bring it down
like you said and then a little bit of
rotation back and forth.
- Yeah, gently, everything's gentle, relaxed.
You're breathing is relaxed, everything.
It's just a wonderful way to treat-
- This is really interesting to me
because this is something I have to do
like on weekends-
- [Brad] Yeah.
- My wife and I go for a long walk
- [Brad] Right.
- and I do, normally now I do stretches before I do that.
- [Brad] Sure.
- And I'm gonna try this-
- [Brad] This, the change-
- And I'm gonna report back.
- This could change our lives, Bob,
and a lot of other people out there
working too hard to...
You feeling like a new man, aren't ya?
- Yeah!
- Mr. Bojangles.
- That's right.
- Yeah.
♪ He jumps so high. ♪
- Yeah, oh my, just-
- Jumps so high.
- I just listened, I asked Alexa to play
that song the other day.
But wait, Bob, there's more.
- Okay.
- We're gonna do another video, I'm excited.
How the hip flexor tightness can affect your hamstrings.
- Wow.
- That is going to be a good video.
It's gonna come up next-
- Stay tuned.
- In the next couple weeks.
- Stay tuned.
- Say no more, Bob.
- Thanks for watching.