♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ the two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ on the internet ♪
- Howdy there, folks!
I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And 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 stop sciatica
with Dr. Stuart McGill's Modified Walking Program.
Who is Dr. Stuart McGill?
- Bob, he's one of the latest and utmost back authorities.
- Role of foremost
- Yeah
- back authorities.
- I would say he might be the guy.
- Yeah.
- He might be the number one.
- Right? He might be.
(laughs)
- I really like the guy.
He's put a ton of effort
and a lot of research into his,
- Lots of research.
he just doesn't make this stuff.
- Right.
- Right, right.
- So, what?
- So, like 80 studies or something that he did.
And he's wrote a couple of textbooks.
- Yeah, more than two.
He's got quite--
As a matter of fact,
the textbook we're referring to
is the one made for the
- [Both] Lay person.
- Right.
- Right here, it's called "Back Mechanic."
And it's written well, so you can understand.
And that's where we're getting--
- I bought a few of these for our family members already.
- Really? Did they read them?
- Yeah, they did.
- Excellent. Are they better?
- No.
(laughs)
- It was, it didn't end up being something they could treat.
- Right, right.
And that happens occasionally with back pain.
- It does.
- 'Cause it's a real, it can be a tough problem,
but this is an excellent option to try
- Right.
if you've got sciatica,
if you've got pain going down the leg,
particularly past the knee.
- Yeah.
And it's a bugger to treat.
- Right, right.
But as we've really promoted,
as well as Dr. McGill does,
- Right.
- Walking as a form of back treatment.
But particularly the sciatica,
you just don't get up and go for a walk.
You need to adjust your body properly
and find the proper posture.
And that's what we're going to start with.
So--
- Well you want your pain under control.
- Exactly, yup.
- Yeah.
So what the first step is,
we'll go step by step with this.
- Sure.
- Is you're going to actually lie down on your stomach.
You could do this on your bed.
A firm bed would be preferable.
If you can get down on the floor,
a carpeted floor is probably a little bit better.
So as Bob is demonstrating here,
lying prone or on your stomach.
- And what--
- Advanced would be going on to a fist.
- Yeah.
- And more advanced, be going on to two fists.
- And, you know, I personally think even more important
than seeing this advanced
is whatever position you can find
to make your leg symptoms decrease or go away is ideal.
That doesn't always happen.
- It might even be, I don't know if he advocates this,
but the prone prop.
- Right.
- When you get up on your elbows
and just try this.
- Once it happens,
it is probably going to take a minute or two
before you maximize your leg symptoms or reduce them.
Then you're going to carefully get up on your feet.
And then you're going to stay on
and then look at your pelvic position
and find a comfortable position
in regards to your back and leg pain,
so that it feels the best.
Once you find, and that may be done
by an anterior tilt or a posterior tilt,
a side to side.
But once you find the most comfortable--
- So I'm going to put the back--
- Yeah.
- Your position here.
- Yeah.
- So this is the anterior tilt.
- Yeah.
- So I'm tilting the pelvis forward.
- Sure.
- And this is the posterior tilt.
- Right.
- Now we want to find the magic spot,
- Right.
- where it feels the best.
- And that's going to be the spot where the pressure
is off the nerve, reducing the leg symptoms.
And then once you find that spot,
you tighten up your core muscles
and maintain that position before you start walking.
And then while you're walking,
we try to maintain that position.
- Yeah, it takes a little adjusting to
because you're tightening up your abdomen the entire time.
You don't have to go crazy like--
- No.
(laughs)
- But just enough that it gives you support.
- Right.
And this is something,
if you're not real familiar with working with your core
or your abdominal and core muscles,
that takes some practice.
You know, if you've been doing a lot of core exercises
for over the last couple of years,
you're more familiar with that.
But, so be patient with that.
- You know, where this was very revealing to me, Brad,
was I was shoveling my driveway.
And my back really hurts.
- Yeah.
- And I started tightening my core.
- Yup.
It went away.
I mean, just that protection made a difference.
- Yeah. So when you tighten them, core muscles,
it's just like putting them back belt on it,
puts pressure around the spine.
- Yeah.
The other example is I have patients
who can't get out of bed without pain,
but when they tighten their core
and then roll, get out of bed,
they don't have pain.
- There you go.
So you're going to get to that point
and then you're going to start to walk.
And you can start shifting side to side,
if that feels good.
Start walking.
And then with your arms, you're going to actually swing.
Make sure you're swinging from the shoulder
and that from the elbow
And then the speed of your walking,
often times if you pick up the speed
instead of taking real gentle, cautious walking.
- Right.
- Pick up the speed a little bit.
Now you're not race walking.
- Right.
- But you're picking up the speed
and that can reduce pressure on the back.
- People are often surprised,
like they'll come in and they're just limping
and there they look like they can barely make it
from the door to the mat.
- Mm-hmm.
- And then we have them walk faster
and, "Oh, it actually feels better."
- And I think part of it is when you do pick up your speed,
naturally your posture improves, which may be part of it.
But with Stuart McGill, once you start walking,
now you're going to monitor your sciatic pain.
- Right.
- If it starts coming back,
that's the point you want to stop walking.
And he gives two options.
- Specifically, talking about the pain in the leg, right?
- Yes. Right, exactly.
That pain starts going down the leg again.
- Worsening down the leg.
- Worsening, there you go.
Then this is the tricky part of this modified program.
- Right.
- Is you need a solid surface
about the size of a bench or chair or whatever it may be.
And you're going to do some decompression
through your spine.
And I'm going to demonstrate it on this chair,
which works good for me.
And I've done this before walking
and it has done wonders for me.
And I'll go like this.
And you put your weight through your arms
and taking the weight off of your legs,
which decompresses the spine.
And then you're looking for, you may have to lean, you know,
just modify the position of your body.
And if you get the sciatica to release as a result
and get better, your goal.
And you're going to hang out for not more than 60 seconds.
And then once you get better,
you can go start walking again.
- Try walking it.
So ideally, you want to be in a park
that has a lot of solid park benches.
(laughs)
- Right.
- The only other thing I'm thinking too, Brad,
is like you're walking along
and all of a sudden you see a park bench
and a couple of people are sitting on it.
You go behind them and you start doing that.
- This what Dr. McGill said, the doctor told me to do it.
- It's got some problems.
- Now I got my house,
I could just walk up and down my driveway.
- Sure.
- I got a hundred foot driveway.
At the early phases of this,
- Yeah, very good point.
- you know, you may only get to walk a hundred feet
and then I'm not too far from where I can--
- Right. You know, railing or countertop.
- Yeah, it's got to be something solid.
The other option which is easier to come about
is the wall walking.
- Sure.
- So--
- This really isn't decompression.
- No.
- But it's a different way to possibly take the pain
out of your leg.
- Right.
So you just go up to a wall, any wall,
you could actually go up to a tree.
And go like this,
and then just start walking your hands up.
And if that actually takes the pain out of your leg,
you know, this would probably be the easier option
- [Brad] Right.
- as opposed to the decompression on the bench.
And again, you're not going to hold this real long,
you know, but you get relief and come back down.
And if the relief maintains in your leg,
continue with your walk
until you start to feel of pain again.
Now to start out with, you're probably not going to,
you're only going to do this two or three times.
And then go on.
But then he says,
continue to increase the distance that you walk
and you know, monitored.
And as things go better,
then eventually you won't even have to do the decompression.
- Right.
- Or the wall walking.
You'll just do your walking with good posture.
- Walking is amazingly good for back pain.
It's getting more blood flow to the area
and more nutrients.
And even my nephew, who I sent this, his book, to.
- Right.
- And unfortunately did not get better, but he could walk.
- Sure.
- He would walk for hours.
- Oh really?
- Yeah. And it felt better when he did that.
- Right. Yeah, good form of treatment.
- Yeah.
- So--
- Helps mentally too.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- You deal with this pain,
it was just hard to deal with
and it gives you something to look forward to
during the day.
- Yeah, gives you a release, you're out,
you're just not trapped.
- Now he often recommends
like three or four times a day, right?
- Yes.
Yup. Yup.
And again, increasing the distance
- The time, the distance.
as tolerated, listening to that leg pain.
And eventually hopefully you can eliminate
and if you have no symptoms in the leg anymore
and just back pain,
continue to walk more, but that's a good sign.
- Yeah. Walk your way to a pain-free life.
And remember, Brad and I have no waiting room
at Bob and Brad, our channel.
We have no waiting room. You come right in.
You don't have to wait.
- Oh, I get it. Yeah.
You just got to--
- You get to exercise right away.
- Look at your phone or your computer or whatever
you know, (indistinct) on.
- You don't have to wait.
- You could, if you really want to see our big ugly faces,
go on a big screen TV and hook it up to YouTube.
(laugh)
That'll scare you.
- That'll scare little children.
(laughs)
- Take care.
- Thanks.
Oh yeah, we got to show this.
- Oh, right.
Oh yeah.
- By the way, if you're having back pain, we,
this is our giveaway this week.
- Oh that's right.
- This beautiful massage gun.
- This is a powerful massage gun.
- This is our most powerful gun.
And we just came out in the market with it
and it'll knock your socks off.
- You probably aren't going to use this on your back
for sciatica.
But you could use it on a lot of other sore muscles.
- Right.
- Tight muscles.
- Really made for maybe a little bulkier person
because a thinner person probably can get by
with one of our smaller guns.
- Right, right.
- But anyway, go to bobandbrad.com.
- Let me have that.
- Go to the giveaway section and we'll have it listed there.
We got a bunch of different heads that come with.
- Oh yeah!
I've got a hamstring thing going on.
And I got to use this before the weekend.
I've got a big event on bicycle.
There it is!
I've got the spot, Bob!
- He found it, yup.
And that's it, you know,
when you find the spot,
you work that spot 'til it gets better or it goes away.
- Yeah.
- You make it unrelenting.
- It's working, Bob!
It's feeling better.
Well, anyways.
- All right.
- Good luck with everything and be careful.
- Thanks for watching.
(gentle bouncy music)