♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
(quirky music)
- 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.
- Tripped a little bit over my words there, Brad.
Today we're gonna talk about three big lies
about your neck arthritis pain,
also known as cervical spondylosis.
We're gonna show you how to stop it too.
- Right, yeah.
The more you know about it, the better you feel.
- Right.
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Go to the giveaway section,
always giving something away.
- This week, a doozy.
- Yes! - We're giving away
a SleepOvation mattress.
I'll talk about that in a minute.
Go to Facebook.
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it'll be pinned to the top of the page.
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a 60 second version of our program.
- There you go.
- So yeah, this week's giveaway.
This is a sample of it.
It obviously comes in a larger size.
(Brad chuckling)
And it normally has the cover on there.
You can't even look at this part of the bed.
- Right, it's all enclosed, SleepOvation mattress.
- Yep, and it's got 700 individual mattresses,
and it's got air channels,
and it's, I would say,
the most comfortable mattress I've ever used by far.
It's very good for pain control.
Do you wanna take care of it?
- Oh, absolutely.
(Bob and Brad laughing)
- All right, let's first define cervical spondylosis.
So that's just really a general term
for age-related wear and tear
affecting the spinal disc mainly.
- Cervical is the neck.
- Yep, cervical is the neck.
And the discs are in between the bones.
Maybe you should show that Brad.
- Well, we're doing- - Do you wanna grab
that spine right there? - You bet, yeah.
This one's handy dandy,
but yeah,
we got seven vertebra in the cervical spine.
And between each vertebra there's a disc.
And then you've got facet joints,
so you can, allows it for motion,
and everything that,
it's amazing what the neck can do, considering-
- [Bob] Yeah, what happens is,
as these discs start to wear out,
and there's not as much space between the bones,
you're gonna start developing, like, bone spurs.
Where the nerves come out,
there might not be as much room
and you might get some pressure on the nerve.
- That'd be stenosis.
- Right and it kind of speeds up arthritis
too then because the joints are jamming together harder.
- Yeah, but there's things you can do to help prevent that,
that we're gonna talk about.
- Right. Right.
So let's talk about the big lies Brad.
I'm gonna give a scenario here.
You develop neck pain. You're 50 some years old or older.
And you go see a doctor and he orders, or she,
orders X-rays or scans
and you see bone spurs,
you see bulging discs,
you see (Brad laughing)
more bone on bone contact
and you're panicked.
You're like, "Oh my God," my neck is a mess.
- Right. I remember my brother went for one of these.
And he was, like, 60 years old.
And this doctor said, "Don't worry,
you're gonna have"-
- Things that- - "There's gonna be things
on the X-rays.
And the scans are, it's just a part a age.
Don't get too excited about it."
But that- - That was nice
of him to prepare 'cause some of 'em don't.
Some of them go,
"Oh, this is,"- - Well, yeah,
he is a nurse and he worked with him.
- Oh sure, that's why. (Brad laughing)
So but just to give you something
to calm down a little bit,
85% of people over 60 now,
this is over 60,
have cervical spondylosis.
It really is part of the aging process.
I'm sorry if you're getting older,
it's gonna happen.
- Right, it's like getting gray hair.
Well- - Right.
- If you get gray hair.
- Right. - I just talked
to one guy who's 70 years old,
and not a ounce of gray hair,
he doesn't dye it.
Anyways, let's go on. (chuckling)
- All right,
so if you get cervical spondylosis,
it doesn't mean that you're gonna have symptoms.
Most people are asymptomatic.
They don't even feel anything at all.
So don't, that's the big lie,
just because you see these things,
that's not necessary even the cause of your pain.
It might be shortened tissues and muscles.
- Sure.
- So number two is, the thought process is always,
it's just gonna get progressively worse,
the arthritis.
And that's not necessarily so.
One, it may stabilize,
kinda stay about the same.
It might even improve slightly.
They find sometimes arthritis does.
So that means,
and that certainly doesn't mean
your pain's gonna get worse for sure,
because you can do things,
and we're gonna show you that in just a minute,
range of motion, which keeps your neck moving correct.
And of course, posture.
It's always posture.
- Exactly, yeah. - You got that head forward.
It's gonna put stress on the neck
and in the muscles and you're gonna feel pain.
So the third big lie.
I need to rest my neck because if I move it,
it's gonna make it worse.
- Right, yeah.
If you don't move it,
it's gonna get worse. - It's gonna get worse, yep.
- Motion, for all this, the whole thing,
is keep your neck moving, as long as your whole body,
but here we're talking about the neck.
So if you keep your neck still,
arthritis-
- Gets worse.
- Always gets worse.
Tight muscles get tighter.
Everything just starts to-
- There's no blood flow.
There's no nutrients- - Circulation.
- Going in, and waste products going out.
It's all important.
- It is. It is.
And that's not always clearly informed to people, so.
- Right.
Get that neck moving in control and not painful.
- Right.
We're gonna show you some exercises that do exactly that.
- Well the first one we've showed 7 billion times,
and that's chin tucks. (Brad laughing)
So Brad, maybe- - Maybe 8 billion.
- Yeah maybe 8 billion. (Brad chuckling)
Look at our new chair here.
- Ah, that's beautiful. - It's a beauty.
- Yeah, it's got some nice armrests.
It's a firm chair.
You got good posture when you sit in it properly.
And we're talking about
this simple exercise. - Right.
We're not going up. We're not going down.
We're going back. - Straight back.
You gotta- - And you're stretching that,
more in the upper neck is what you're hitting.
- Yep, right up here. - It's what you're hitting.
- Right below the occipital bone.
And your gapping the facet joints.
And you may not understand that,
but it's separating the joint
for where there would be arthritis,
so you get some of that synovial fluid in there.
- So then we're gonna do some neck extension.
Now some of you may not be able to do this,
but you do a chin tuck
and then you start working back.
And again, let your neck decide how far you can go.
If you're having (Brad sighing)
way too much pain
when you get to a certain level,
back off and just work it in that micro range.
- Yeah.
If you just put your hands here for support,
it can be a big difference on it,
going farther with it.
- Well we often use a towel too-
- Yep, yep.
- For extension and that makes a huge difference.
So you just put a towel around your neck
and pull down and-
- Should I?
- Yeah, if you wanna grab it.
I'll show rotation while you...
So then we got rotations.
You're gonna, again,
always make sure you're in perfect posture.
Like your head is, your ears are right over your shoulder.
And you're gonna work on going left and right.
You can even give it a little over pressure
on the chin like this.
And over pressure on the chin.
I'm a little tight to the left Brad.
And again, if it hurts one direction,
just work the other direction.
And eventually, check it out again.
- And the over pressure is not aggressive.
- Yeah, very light.
- Just gentle.
Here, if you get a towel,
this is about as small as you wanna get,
but it'll work.
And, like, I grabbed kitty-corner and you roll it up.
You can use a belt too.
They make yoga straps. They'll stretch.
- Yoga straps, that could work too.
- So, but the idea is, just something here.
And that's why your hands can work sometimes as well.
I don't mind either way.
And that cushion really can make a big difference.
You can go up like this.
It feels better. You go further.
And then rotation.
You can use a towel
and get a little over pressure with more comfort.
- He switched his hands on that.
See that how he did that?
- Like, this is (chuckling) a little bit tricky.
- Yeah, it's too small, the towel.
- But, yeah, you can,
with your hand it works fairly decent with that.
- And the final one is side bending.
So again, good posture, chin tuck.
I like the chin tuck.
And then bend to the right.
You can take your fingertips,
grab the left side of your head,
give it a little stretch.
Chin tuck, bend to the left,
using my left hand.
I don't know if I said that right.
Did I say it right?
Right hand over left side? (Brad and Bob laughing)
- Do it how it looks.
- Yeah, do it how it looks.
Don't listen
to what I'm saying. (Brad laughing)
(both sighing)
All right. - There it is.
- So that's it.
Keep that neck moving and in good posture
and your pain levels will decrease.
- Right.
Think motion is lotion.
- There you go.
(Brad chuckling)
- Take care.
(quirky music)