(instrumental music)
- Hi, 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.
- Brad today we're gonna talk about exercises
for shoulder arthritis.
- Okay.
- And this brings us to the topic, which by the way,
is the theme of our channel, by the way.
So if you wanna subscribe to us
Nancy always puts this little hand thing up there
because we're gonna provide you ways to stay healthy
and fit well into your fifties and beyond.
Forties and fifties and beyond.
- You bet.
So this is really, if you want to stay, you know
have a high quality of life.
Well, as you age.
- Right.
- This is the channel for you.
And this is a good example right here.
We're gonna show you
if you start getting some shoulder arthritis
these are four exercises you may want to try.
I wouldn't do all four, try each one
and see which one works the best for you.
- Right.
It would be an individual.
- Oh, we should have the shoulder model.
- Sure.
So with this, Bob,
how do you know if you have shoulder arthritis
do you have to go get diagnosed?
Is there some symptoms that really
if you're having a hard time reaching
up into the cupboard and you're getting pain with that
some of these might be helpful.
- They might be helpful, right.
Yeah, these are ones that
it wouldn't have to necessarily be arthritis
but they're definitely designed for people with arthritis.
- Right.
- You could try these
even if you're having a rotator cuff tear
or something along that line.
And again, if it doesn't increase your pain
and maybe it helps increase your motion
then these would be for you.
Some of the signs of arthritis,
one, if you feel that grinding, that crepitus.
What we call crepitus, grinding,
what's another layperson term?
- Rice Krispies.
- You know that (crunching noise)
and your grinds when there's...
- The other thing is definitely,
usually starts seeing a lack of motion.
And there's certain patterns that what we see
with arthritis, going out into this direction
tends to get more limited.
And also what they call internal rotation.
Oh no, it's external rotation isn't it, with arthritis?
- The internal, you mean coming back like this?
- Yeah.
So, but also if you can't reach up
and touch the higher part of your back anymore
then you're definitely losing some motion.
- Hard to tuck your shirt in the belt in.
- Right.
So that's some of the signs of arthritis
that grinding, the noise, and then plus loss of motion.
And when you lose the motion,
it starts to make the arthritis even worse.
Because rather than this
isn't actually gonna work very well.
You have a ball and socket with your shoulder,
rather than spreading out the forces
throughout the whole movement.
You're just working a little area now because it's tight.
- Yeah.
- So it'll make the arthritis even worse.
I'm gonna, we're spending too much time on this.
Let's talk about the exercises.
- Yeah.
- You wanna talk about the pendulum first?
- Sure.
Pendulum exercise.
I don't like the chair.
I wanna do it here Bob.
- We have a whole video on this.
- Let's say my left shoulders painful side.
- Pendulum or Codmans?
- Codmans.
You're just gonna lean forward, like this,
relax that shoulder and work it back and forth like this.
Now I'm not doing this.
I'm moving it with my whole body.
Just like my tie moves forward and backwards.
The arm moves because my body's moving.
This one's kind of hard to do.
You really have to concentrate and relax the arm.
- We don't want you doing this.
- Right.
- Let the arm relax.
- Yep.
This doesn't count.
And you can go forward and backwards.
See how my body's getting to move right to left.
And you can make circles as well.
That takes a little more talent.
- One direction and the other direction.
- Yep.
You're gonna do this
for about 15 to 30 seconds each direction.
It should feel good.
It should feel like
your arms a little more loose afterwards.
If it increases your pain or you get sharp pain with it.
Stop.
- As I said, in our other video
when we did just the codman's, when you do this
it's a sneaky way of getting motion.
Cause if I were to stop right here
if I were to stand up, look how high my arm is.
- Right.
- So if you are starting to lose motion
you can only go this high or lift this high.
This is a good one to start getting some increased motion.
- Sure.
- Second one, overhead pulleys.
This is gonna involve a little bit
of using up your moola, moola, money, money.
You're gonna have to buy some
or we have a video on how to make one too.
- Right.
- But either way, you're gonna need to.
- Well they work the same, if you've got it.
Now, this you can either put into if you got a place
where you can put a screw or a nail in
and you hook it on that.
People that have an open basement
with their joints showing that works out well.
Otherwise you get usually fit
in the door like this, put it over.
If you got arthritis in your shoulder
you may not be able to reach this high.
- [Bob] So have someone else put it up there for you.
- Yep, lock it in and simply work the pulley at a slow
gentle range of motion.
You're not gonna force it and go into a lot of sharp pain.
You're gonna fire.
- I have a lot of people sit down and do 'em.
You do too Brad.
- Yeah, I do.
- Cause they can watch TV.
- Yeah.
- I have them face away.
Do you have them face the door?
- Actually, I'll go, whatever feels better
because it's in the door.
I find that this sometimes works better than,
it's all individual basis, but yeah.
This way they can watch TV.
- Right.
- It changes the angle.
- Yeah.
- You know, if you can get it up into your ceiling
then it's a little different story,
and you can work out to the side.
- So if you have one shoulder that is bad
and one shoulder that's good,
the good shoulder can help the bad shoulder.
And say this is the bad one.
- Sure.
- This one can help pull it up.
You know, so if you're weak
it can actually do some of the work for it.
This one was the bad one.
- This is the bad one.
- Oh, okay.
The right one is the bad one.
I'll take the bad one.
Now sometimes I'll say
just put your hand in there like that.
- Sure.
- So that it kind of reminds them to relax that arm.
And then this hand is, is doing the work.
- I mean, you don't have to do that.
- Just those little things.
- So you may work this for what, five minutes.
- You can go up to five minutes again
go into a range that feels comfortable.
Don't be making things worse.
- I just talked to a patient today.
He said, boy those pulleys
really did good on my arthritic shoulder.
He said first, and literally he was only going this far
when he started.
He said, what good is this gonna do?
And after he worked with him
he started going more and more.
And he still doesn't have a lot of range
but the pain went down, his range of motion increased.
So you gotta give it a chance.
- Yeah, I'm always surprised when they,
I used to know this weather man.
He used to do, and that's how he'd do the show.
You go into the camera and you go like this.
I'm always surprised how much the pulleys do help.
I mean, sometimes I give, that's the only thing
I give people the first time they go home
and they come back and
a lot of times it's improved significantly.
- Sure.
- Just from that.
Towel exercise, this is one
especially if you've lost motion in reaching back.
If you're a woman, you know, trying to unhook your bra.
- Sure.
- Man, I don't know.
Trying to scratch your back.
- Yeah, tuck your shirt in.
- Tuck your shirt in.
- Get your wallet out of your pocket.
- And I literally, in fact I have a friend right now
who's having trouble with his shoulder
and he can only go up to about his belt.
- Sure.
- And on the other one, he can go up this high.
- Yeah.
- So very simple exercise on how to improve it.
You just get a towel, roll it up, flip it over like this
this is gonna be my bad arm.
I'm gonna grab onto it.
And then you can grab it
with the other arm and you're gonna pull
up and just give a little stretches here.
Gentle stretches.
- Kinda like you're scratching your back.
- Yeah.
And maybe give it little angle, but again
I don't want you to go into the pain
or you can bump up against the pain, you know,
just don't go into the pain really.
And eventually hopefully you can start moving
up further and further.
- Right.
And very, very cautious on this one.
- Yeah.
- Cause you're kind of vulnerable.
- You're really vulnerable.
Yeah, the other thing is you'll find is
that not only will it improve that motion
it usually improves the other motions.
- Yeah, they work opposite.
That's really neat.
- Yeah.
It is really kind of wild how that works.
Why don't we, we can do it on the table.
We could do our, our last one is called a table stretch.
Very simple.
What you're gonna do is you're gonna put your hand
on the table and keep your arm straight.
And I'm kind of pushing down a little bit.
I'm trying to get the, what we call the head
of the shoulder to sink down into the socket.
- Right?
- So I'm pushing down and while I'm doing that
I'm walking away from it.
And this is, this just often feels real good
for some people, but it also helps.
I've done this one when I've had shoulder pain
just to help push that socket back down.
- Adrenal humerus joint.
- Right. - Right.
- The head of the humerus
is down into the glenohumeral joint.
It just feels good.
And I walk my way away like this.
- So if I get you right, Bob
I'm gonna put my hand in here
and I'm gonna kind of my pressure's going with the arm.
- I'm thinking about trying to push the arm
the shoulder down this way.
- Oh, down this way.
- Yeah, that way.
Arrows and Nancy wants to put arrows there.
- Down there.
If I'm pushing in this direction and I'm going to icy.
- Yeah.
- You know, actually this is one I haven't used before.
So this isn't something I gotta work with.
It actually is a good.
One of my assistants that works for me
has trouble with her shoulder.
And she actually said, what she does is
she goes like this and goes like this and does it like this.
- And she's pulling down.
- She's pulling down while she's doing it.
And it works really well for her when she does it.
- And again that should feel good
while you're doing it.
- Should feel good while you're doing it.
Maybe you feel better afterwards.
- Right.
- You're doing.
- And that goes true with all of them.
They should not create pain.
They should increase range and decrease the pain
if they don't.
- Exactly, be careful with.
- Take it off, and you might only get one of 'em
that works for you but that's much better than nothing.
- So gives you an answer.
- All right.
So once again, we got all of this, but there's
one thing we really have a hard time fixing right Bob?
- We can't fix a broken heart.
Take care.