♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists on the internet ♪
- Hi folks.
I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- We are the most famous physical
therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion,
of course, Bob.
- This is like Monday,
'cause it's the day after labor day.
- Right?
- Well, I worked labor day.
- It really is a Monday, except for it's Tuesday.
- Okay, stop stretching your hip flexors.
Here's why.
And we're going to do a test to decide
if your hip flexors are tight or loose.
- Right, it is very true.
A lot of times people do have tight hip flexors,
but it's a simple test to know for sure.
'Cause if you do not have 'em and you start stretching them,
that could lead to other problems.
So this is it.
- And we'll get into that.
By the way, if you are new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
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and we upload every day.
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Once again,
we are giving away something, Brad.
- Ah, yes!
- But we're actually giving it away on YouTube too.
So if you look for our video on the,
it would be the TENS unit?
- Right?
- TENS unit giveaway.
That's it?
- Yeah. - TENS unit giveaway.
- Yeah, it's like you're making
this up off the top of your head.
You know, it must be Monday.
- So five of them.
But anyway, Facebook,
Bob and Brad.
If you go there, it's pinned to the top of the page.
You can find it real quick.
- So a TENS unit is a great device for pain,
particularly chronic pain,
so you don't have to take those opioids and pain meds.
- Yeah, we really like this one by iReliev,
but we really are off on the tangent here now.
- Yeah, hips we go.
Let's do hips.
- Yeah, everybody's talking like,
that hip flexor?
You got it tight.
Unlock those hip lectures, you know?
And many people you do.
But if you have a loose joint,
you don't want to be stretching it.
- Right, yeah.
If the muscle's already loose and you just go to end range,
what the therapist call that,
and stretch a joint into end range over and over,
that can cause joint problems.
- Right, and for example,
if you're one of those people that
happens to be kinda loose all over?
I'm not talking about your sex life.
- Bob, Bob,
this is a family show!
- You go ahead, you can take your thumb,
this is one test,
and see how close you can get to your forearm.
If you're one of those people
that can put the thumb on the forearm,
you might be one of those people that are,
you know, loose all over,
and you may not need to stretch your hip flexor.
- Sure. - We'll show you how to test.
- Right, so are we gonna go do the test Bob?
- Yeah, why don't we do the test--
- People are waiting. - Okay, Brad.
- Larry's complaining about us not getting to the point.
- All right. - All right.
So this is a test that's been going on for many,
many decades in the therapy world.
- Yeah, we learned it when I was a student.
That was--
- You know it's old!
- 400 years ago.
- It's called the Thomas test,
and there's different ways to do it,
but I like to do it with two people.
'Cause if you try it by yourself,
particularly if you're not familiar with it,
it can give you a false reading.
So it's best to do it on a firm bed.
A bed may not work, you need something firm.
- Yeah, 'cause you,
if you get to the edge of the bed and it sinks down,
you're not gonna get a good reading.
- Right, and you cannot do it on the floor.
You have to do it, and you'll see why in a second.
Bob, can you take this leg,
pull it up.
So we're gonna flex this hip and hold it here,
and that's gonna lock the pelvis in, okay?
Now we're gonna take his other leg.
We're gonna let the knee bend.
Now my instructions are to Bob,
is just relax that leg,
relax that side of your body.
And then, now it's best to do this with a pair of shorts on,
or loose or stretchy pants.
If you have some tight jeans, it's not gonna be accurate.
- Also you gotta make sure, like,
this buttock almost has to be off the edge here.
- Right?
- If I'm up here, it's gonna stop here.
- Right, it hangs off.
- So it's gotta get off the edge of the bed here.
- Sure, it's a good point.
Now what we're looking for is we draw a line
from the shoulder to the hip,
and if we go straight out,
we're looking for the femur to drop
below about 10 to 15 degrees.
That's normal, okay?
Now there's a couple of muscles,
the rectus femoris, and the Sartorius muscle.
You don't need to know these.
But as a therapist, we know that if this knee is bent,
they're gonna interfere with the ilios,
iliopsoas muscle, which is all crosses the hip joint,
and we wanna look at that too.
So first we test it with the knee bent.
- Which it might be up like this then.
- Right.
Now can you relax, Bob?
Now, some people may not learn,
know how to relax,
but if they can relax and you see it drop down like this,
you know, I know Bob.
Right now, his rectus femoris is loose,
and his iliopsoas is both in a relaxed state.
- So let's show what it's look like if it was tight.
- Right?
- So basically he'd let go. I might be way up this far.
You know?
And even when I go like this, it would,
when I rock it, it would come up like that now.
And I've definitely seen that.
- So at this point,
you don't know which muscle group is tight, is responsible.
Is it the deep ones in the hip?
Or is it the ones that are bi articulate across both?
So what you'll do is straighten the knee out,
and that eliminates that rectus femoris and the sartorius.
Now, if you try this by yourself,
Bob can you hold your leg straight?
A lot of people are gonna tense up
and they're gonna hold it like this,
and you may not get an accurate reading.
So a second person is nice to hold a leg here,
and we're gonna drop it down so
they can keep muscles relaxed here,
and keep the thigh out of it,
and then drop down.
And again,
now if you bend the knee and it's up like this,
and you straighten the knee and it drops way down,
well, then you know it's not your deep hip flexors.
It's the superficial rectus femoris.
And then you're gonna stretch those
differently than the other group.
But if it's both,
this drops way down, this drops way down,
there's no need to stretch your hip flexors.
It may be actually damaging your hip joint,
because you're bouncing against the end of the range,
depending on which stretch you do.
- And conversely, if they're both tight.
This is tight and this is tight,
then you need to stretch both muscle groups.
- Right, exactly.
- And you know, Brad and I were just
talking before we filmed here.
I get a pain once in a while in
the front of my hip with running.
- Sure.
- And quite often it's just from
a sleeping posture I do where lay on my side.
I'm gonna do it on this side.
My Mic's here.
And I bring the hip way too far over,
and it's there all night long.
It kind of pinches my, I think in the acetabulum there,
and so all I do is put a pillow between my legs.
But that's a good example.
If you have a really loose joint,
you're gonna be more able to do such things like that,
and it's gonna give you more problems.
So you don't wanna stretch it.
- So should we show 'em the two basic stretches?
Now, if you happen to be tight both ways,
with the knee bent and straight,
you want to get the, let's,
can you just grab that pillow?
Show them now.
Yeah, we're gonna kneel.
- Oh, sure!
Yep.
- Not if you're on carpet,
you may not need to put a pillow down,
but you're only doing this for comfort.
And here we're gonna keep the posture up straight
and think about pushing the hip forward.
Now this one, my knee is bent,
and we may be getting a little bit of both,
but the further you go forward
the more it gets that Iliopsoas,
and less of the rectus femoris.
And so we're gonna do this.
You know, and Bob and I always kept good posture,
and I read an article,
and they talked about bending forward
and still getting that deep muscle.
I still think this is gonna be more aggressive on it.
But I think, you know,
for some reason if you were unable to do this,
and you go forward, it's more comfortable.
You're still gonna be getting at it--
- [Bob] Yeah, the other thing I'd throw in there too,
Brad, is I'd turn the foot out a little bit.
- [Brad] Oh, that's a good point!
- When I'm doing these,
I bring the foot out this way a little bit more.
It just hits, zeros in on that muscle a little more.
- Sure.
Now to zero in just on that rectus femoris,
I think the prawn position really does a nice job.
You wanna lay down, Bob?
So on your stomach,
and this bringing up the knee like this.
- You could just go like this and stretch.
- Right.
It's a little awkward,
it's not as nice as if you put a strap on,
which I'll do that for you here now.
- And it's got two loops here,
a loop so I can just go ahead and go like this.
And it's just a real easy stretch to apply.
Now, if this muscle's tight,
you'll feel it before we even get to this point.
'Cause Bob's pretty much at a normal range.
We know he is not tight.
But if it's tight,
and this, you'll probably be about to here,
and you'll feel that all the way from the kneecap
up to that ASI, as we called it,
to that pelvis bone.
All the way along there versus that deep stretch,
which is what you get on your knee.
- If you're fairly mobile, you can do it standing.
- Sure, right.
Like this?
Yep, yep.
- That's how I do it every morning.
I stretch 'em both.
- Do that.
- 'Cause mine do tend to get tight.
I mean, they do tend to get tight on a lot of people,
because when you're sitting the muscle shortens up.
- And then the other question is
that sometimes we forget to mention is frequency,
or how long to hold it.
Now there there's two different trains
of thought that are most popular.
And one is to hold a stretch for 30 seconds.
Which for me, I'm not a patient person.
I don't do it that long,
although I think it's not a bad idea.
I do the pressure on, pressure off,
and I'll hold it for maybe up to five seconds,
but I'll repeat it and try and be really relaxed,
and work on my breathing.
'Cause if you breathe really relaxed,
and let everything relax,
allow the muscle to stretch and don't force it,
you'll have much better success.
Bob, what say you?
- Well, the other thing I'm gonna say,
Brad, is you can stretch yourself in a chair.
- Oh sure!
- Or a stool.
But you need a chair without arms.
And you can actually go like this off to the side,
like this, and go like this,
and stretch.
- And it probably needs to be a little taller.
- Yeah.
Well, I'm doing it in a regular chair,
but it can't have arms.
- Oh sure. - I mean it works--
- You gotta get the room.
You know,
there's so many ways to do these stretches, Bob.
And once again,
we're just here to show you some good options that we like.
And I don't know what else to say, Bob.
- Let's just say thanks for watching,
and please come back again.