♪ 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.
- Today, we're gonna talk about three best
beginner balance exercises at home.
Restore your confidence and no equipment.
- Right.
- And we emphasize "beginner", here.
- Right.
- These are going to be fairly simple to do.
These are, you know, like Brad has in the title,
restore your confidence.
- Right.
- So these are people who might be losing their balance.
And we're going to try to keep safety in mind, right?
- Exactly, something you can do at home
and by yourself safely.
- Yeah.
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'cause we're always giving something away.
- Right. - Go to the giveaway section.
We're giving away the suspension straps,
the ones that you can use for exercise.
- Actually, we have balanced exercise with those,
but that's another video.
- Right.
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Go to Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok
and you'll find a 60 second version of our program.
- Excellent job, Bob.
- All right, thank you.
- There you go!
Well, what now? - Let's go to work.
- Oh, we got the balance program!
Okay, seriously.
As a therapist looking at balance,
we know that muscle strength is a pretty big part of it.
- Right.
- And that's what this covers.
Three different muscle groups.
We've got core, we got leg and hips, okay?
- Mm-hmm.
- And ankle strength, very critical.
- Yeah, very critical.
Especially, I think, the hips and the ankles.
- Right.
- Well, core too, I mean they all play an equal role.
- So we're going to start with the hips.
- Sure.
- Hips and the leg strength. - All right.
- Now, you can do all three of these exercises.
Once you get used to them, you'll be able to do them
in you know, between one and two minutes, at the most.
- That's right, that's what's nice about these.
They don't take much time, but yet they cover all areas.
- Now, first thing, is do sitting.
It's a simple functional exercise.
Not only do you get strength,
but it helps you on a daily basis.
It's simply a sit-to-stand,
and then sit again, obviously with good control.
Now, if you are a little wobbly,
because this is where a lot of people do have falls,
is getting out of a chair.
You could put another chair in front of you,
if you're by yourself, particularly,
and then you can use that for balance.
If you're a little wobbly.
- Brad, I have seen this so many times over our careers,
that people they come in and their strength is not very good
and their balance is poor.
And then we find out
they have one of those chairs that sit-to-stand for you.
- Right.
- And I understand why you get these for people,
especially if they ever become so weak
they can't even get out of their chair.
But even then, they should only go up as high
as they need to go, and then work on it.
Because this is something you,
if you don't want to lose this,
you should do them repeatedly.
- Right, you need to exercise it.
Unfortunately I don't have armrests on this chair,
and in our new area we don't have one yet, but it'll come.
So you could push off the armrest to do that, to get help.
You can gently grab the chair in front.
Obviously you're not going to pull on it,
but sometimes just something there makes a big difference.
Or you can push off of your legs
if you're not able to do it, you know, like this.
Because once you can do 10 of them
pushing off with both hands,
then you go to one armrest, push off.
When that gets easier and you can do 10 of them.
It's a progression.
You know, then maybe you could do this.
And the last one is either putting your arms up like this,
or like this,
and see if you can get up without anything and good control.
When you get to that point, that's pretty advanced.
- Show is an incorrect way, Brad,
that we see a lot of people.
They get out here and they lean way forward,
because they're weak. - Yeah, right, yup.
- So if you're doing that,
that means already there's a sign
you're not as strong as you should be.
- That's a good point.
As a matter of fact, my mother just had a fall doing this
- She did. - in the last two weeks.
I drove in, the ambulance is there.
And it's like, number of apartments
there's like 50 people that live there.
It happened to be my mother, yeah.
She was getting off, and with this COVID thing,
she's not exercising like she should or can.
And down she went.
- And the thing is,
if you're having to lean that far forward,
these exercises are for you. - Right, yup.
- And you're so weak
that you're not able to get out of the chair.
- You should be able to do 10 of those.
- And again... - May take time.
- Right, progress, it may take a few weeks.
- Don't expect it to happen in one week.
- Right.
And then, do 'em daily, take one day off a week.
Next one, this one's a really interesting one.
I really like it.
Now posture has a great deal with your balance.
If you're like, oftentimes as people age,
they get this flex forward pasture.
Not only is it hard on your back and what not,
but your balance becomes...
- Yeah, when you walk, you're starting to go,
and you'll want to tip forward.
- Yeah, this is going to make your balance notably worse
as opposed to this.
So this exercise, just go up to any wall in the house.
You may need to put a chair in front of you,
just for a little.
If you have a walker, you could use a walker.
Put your butt up against the wall and your shoulders
and then good, good posture.
Now, if you could touch your head up against the wall,
that's great, that's perfect posture.
- If you can touch your head against the wall
without tipping back like this.
You want to go back like this,
you don't want to be like this.
- Right, right.
Now, a lot of people as we age, our necks get stiff
and you may not be able to touch the wall with your head,
- Right. - and that's okay.
Just go as far as you can.
Now, here's how the balance part works.
Get your feet a comfortable distance from the wall.
Not very far, start out close, and then lean forward,
with your shoulders leaving the wall first,
and then see if you can straighten up,
that's where you may need to hold something.
Now, this looks very easy, I have a feeling.
But if you try it,
you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
Shoulders first, and see if you can get forward.
- Especially as you get older. - Exactly.
And then reverse the order.
Bring your hips away from the wall first,
and then come forward.
You'll feel your stomach muscles
really going to town to do that.
- That one I had to give myself a little boost.
- Yeah.
- I had to give myself a little rocket ship, there.
- If it's too hard,
that means your feet are too far away from the wall.
Bring 'em in closer to the wall, and it will be easier.
So that's how you adjust that one.
So 10 times shoulders leaving first.
(chuckles)
Bob's practicing! - Yup.
- You're going to be amazed at how this works that balance.
Oh, and it works the core.
The core is a big part of balance, as well as posture.
So a wonderful exercise.
Number three, should we carry on into number three, Bob?
- Sure, let's do number three.
- Now I just worked with this, with one of my patients.
He's about 60 years old.
And I call this the Ziggy Zaggy.
And I work with this with younger people,
for ankle strength, - Right.
- for lateral strength, which is important.
- [Bob] Were are you going to do the heel to toe,
up and down?
- [Brad] Yeah, should we do that one first?
- [Bob] I would say. - [Brad] It's easier.
- [Bob] The easier one, show 'em the easier one, first.
- [Brad] I apologize, I jumped the gun.
You have your chair for balance.
You know, you could do this at the cupboard, right?
- Right.
- If you got a, you know, a good solid cupboard,
especially with a sink, as you can put your fingers
over the sink to have some solid.
- [Bob] Yeah.
- And can you focus on my socks, feet?
I got these nice sock guys.
(Bob exhales)
I was pretty proud of them.
- [Bob] You got a sock fetish.
- [Brad] Anyways, you push up with your toes and then
come down and then see if you can lift your heels up.
Now this is a part you have to be careful for,
because when you lift your heels up,
the tendency is you could fall backwards.
- [Bob] Right, and that's where it's nice
to be holding on to the sink.
- [Brad] Exactly.
So don't get too aggressive on lifting your toes up.
And both of these exercises when people age,
when you get up in your 60's or 70's, wouldn't you say Bob?
You see a lot of weakness in the ankles.
- [Bob] Oh, absolutely.
Yes, absolutely.
And the ankle, if you don't have good ankle strength,
you have poor balance.
- Right.
- That's where it all tumbles down.
- It goes hand in hand.
- It's the foundation!
- Sure, exactly right, Bob.
- Look at that, exactly.
(laughing)
- Always get a kick out of that.
So we're going to go up.
Now, you may not get up this high.
You may only get up an inch or so, at first.
- Right. - And same with this way,
but you're still working those muscles
that need to be worked.
- [Bob] And can do these with shoes on, too.
- [Brad] Yeah, actually,
it probably works better with shoes.
- [Bob] Yeah.
- [Brad] And you can do 10 of these.
One, two, and about that fast,
you don't have to go real slow,
but don't go real fast either.
A good pace, okay?
So that works the anterior
and the posterior muscle groups.
Now we want to work the side muscle groups,
which is really helpful.
And that's where we get into the... ?
- Ziggy Zaggy.
- We call it the Ziggy Zaggy.
All right, so I'll show you the idea with it, first.
If you got a history of dancing the Charleston,
or something like that, you'll know this.
- [Bob] Sure.
- [Brad] So you're going to go toes over first.
Oh, I was telling you the gentlemen,
he was 60 years old and I said, "Well, just do this."
And you know, 'cause he was up and about
and doing fairly well.
And he, he started doing it,
and really had a difficult time.
So I realized that there's going to be a number of people.
- [Bob] It's not as easy as you think.
- [Brad] Yeah, I'm used to doing it
because you know, therapists do weird things a lot of times.
Toes together first and then...
And this probably is going to be best with your shoes on.
- [Bob] Yeah.
- [Brad] 'Cause your shoes offer some resistance,
which make the muscles work more.
And like that.
So just take your time.
You're holding onto a chair or to the cupboard.
The cupboard is actually a good place to do this one.
- [Bob] Right, you can go right along it.
- [Brad] Yup, and once you get more comfortable with it,
so you don't have to think so much, and you know,
some people may have this motor memory down
and they don't have to practice too much.
Then you're going to feel your ankles get tired differently
than when you do the one previous to this one.
- [Bob] Mm-hmm.
- [Brad] And the really critical muscle groups that do.
So you're just going to go the length of the cupboard.
And I can feel my muscles working already,
and I have the socks and it's so slippery here.
It's going to work out well.
Wow, Bob, what do you say? - Awesome.
Well, I'm gonna throw one more in there.
- Absolutely, a bonus! - Yeah, a bonus one.
It's just the one behind the chair.
I like to get the hip abductors, too.
- Oh yeah, yeah.
- So just bringing the feet out, toe straight forward,
don't go out this way. - Right.
- But you know, just stand up behind a chair
and work on these.
These are good strengthening muscles also for your balance.
- Especially if you have that gait where you kind of waddle?
- Yeah, do some of these in, I'd say a set of 10.
Also work up to 10 anyway. - Right, very good.
- I hope I didn't hijack your program.
- No, Bob, it's okay, I'm used to it.
(chuckles)
No, actually it's a good bonus, it is a really good point.
- So these are great beginner ones, Brad.
This is where we start with anybody
who has kind of questionable balance.
But yet you can maintain the safety
by following the safety rules here.
- Absolutely, Bob.
- No falls on our watch, right?
- Yeah, and you know,
if you're younger and you want to show your parents
or your grandparents, or anybody recovering from an injury.
I would use these on stroke people, you know?
- People who've had a stroke, not "stroke people".
- Yeah, well I was just talking to Liz about this.
We had a person who really chimed in,
she was obviously English major,
and she was not only talking about lie and lay,
but our complex sentences have issues.
(chuckles)
Probably mostly mine.
- Oh, I've got issues too.
- Yeah, well, we appreciate any help we can get.
- We'll take the help.
- We're going have to hire an English major
for part of our staff.
- We can fix just about anything...
- Except for?
- A broken heart! - There ya go.
- And our language. (laughs)
Thanks for watching. - Take care.