♪ Bob and Brad, the two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists on the internet ♪
- Hi, folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And we're the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion of course, Bob.
- And today we also consider ourselves
ergonomic experts, and that's what the
title of today's program.
Ergonognic, ergonomic expert (Brad laughs)
explains how to set up home office to prevent pain.
Obviously, a lot of you are working from home now.
- Right. - Brad and I are working
from home, Mike's doin' work at home.
And you need to set up your home office
and you're gonna find out very quickly
if you set ut up incorrectly,
pain is gonna start developing in multiple areas.
- And then you end up
the work isn't, you're not near as productive.
- Yeah, you end up suffering. - You get ornery.
It's no good.
- So we're gonna show ya the proper way.
Brad and I have had training in this.
I've actually had a friend that wrote an entire book on it.
- Right. - And I reviewed it for him
years ago, so we got a lot of expertise in this area.
By the way, if you're new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos on how to stay healthy,
fit, pain-free, and we upload every day.
Also, if you go to bobandbrad.com,
go to the giveaway section.
We're always doin' a contest, givin' away somethin'.
Oh, where are the--
- Behind ya.
- Oh, there. - There it is.
- We're givin' away a Thermotex Far Infared Heating System.
Really cool because this heat penetrates
2.46 inches--
- Three six.
- Three six inches, (Brad laughs)
versus regular heat which just penetrates
a couple millimeters.
- Skin-deep, yeah.
All right, you will find the contest also on Facebook,
it'll be pinned to the top of the page.
Go to TikTok, Twitter, or Instagram
if you want a 60-second version of our program.
Okay, we got a lot to cover today, so let's start off.
The first thing you wanna look at is your chair.
You don't wanna have one of those chairs
with kind of a flex back.
You want a solid-back chair.
We're gonna show you a chair, the office chair
that's fairly reasonable at the end of the video.
Right now I'm just gonna assume
you're gonna find a chair in your house.
- Sure.
- And what you're gonna wanna do is,
like I said, have a pretty good, solid back.
And, ideally, you wanna have it so that
your knees are just slightly higher than your hips.
Now in my case, if you're as tall as I am,
what are they, how are they lookin' Brad?
- I would say you're a little higher.
- Yeah.
- You like the knees taller than the hips?
- Slightly higher. - Slightly.
- That's if you wanna be perfectly right,
a right angle's probably pretty good, too.
- Sure.
- Now, for a lot of you, if you're shorter
and you're getting pressure underneath your thigh like this,
- Right. - cut-off pressure,
you wanna go ahead and use a little bit of a
somethin' to place your foot on.
You can use a mat or something.
The wider ones and the deeper ones are better
because they give you plenty of room to move your feet.
- Right, if you feel your feet swingin',
you know, you're too short and you can't adjust your chair,
I've had people just come up with
like a piece of plywood with some two-by-fours underneath.
Had a worker that her husband made it for her at work
and it worked out really well.
- Yup, this is nice because it's very comfortable.
Next thing, I do think for a lot of you,
you're gonna probably wanna get some back support.
This is actually the support that Brad uses
in your car, right?
- I use it in my car, I use it on my lawn mower,
and in my recliner.
- Yep, and I don't like this one in my car,
but I actually do like it in my office chair.
Because I push it up like this, it's got straps on it,
and it hits me right in the spot I want it to hit.
Every once in a while I can just lean back and take a rest.
- It happens to be a memory foam and it really works well.
I found it to be one of the best back supports I've used.
It's a Kibota?
- Kibota.
I think you'll find out as
if you're a slimmer person, as I consider myself,
you have less curves, so you may not want as much curves.
If you're a little larger person with a little bit
more ample buttocks,
- Yeah. - You might have more
of a curve and you may wanna use more of a back support.
- Sure.
- It's a very personal thing.
You may take a rolled towel to start out with
- Yep. - and just strap it
around the chair.
But, eventually you can, you know
discover what you're gonna need
- Right. - if you work on it.
So that's basically the chair.
We got the footrest, we got the
we talk about on some chairs they have a teardrop front.
- Yeah, that's kinda nice to have that edge rounded there.
- Right, 'cause that's uncomfortable.
My wife actually, we set her up.
We actually, she sits on one of these cushions too.
- Those are nice cushions. - These are nice cushions.
They're very, that's very comfortable.
- It is, it is.
I use one outside on my lawn chair in the cool,
while it's cool now.
'Cause it's really comfortable, and it's warm.
- Yep.
So, it covers a lot of areas there.
Next thing, we're gonna look at the keyboard.
Now--
- Well, Bob, you've got this up so high.
- I know. (laughs)
I know.
- So this is not set up for that chair.
- No, but I can actually,
I have a couple things goin' on here.
- Okay.
Wow!
- Normally, if you just have a desk,
you're gonna want your keyboard,
how am I doin' here?
Am I gettin' close to--
- Yeah, you're pretty darn close right there, Bob.
- Right there?
So you're gonna have the keyboard at a right,
you want your elbow at basically a right angle.
This part, this upper bone,
the humerus, - Humerus.
- is actually gonna be vertical.
This is gonna be almost horizontal,
but maybe a little bit, slightly slanted up
or a little slightly slanted down.
- Right, exactly.
- So you don't wanna have it so that you're like this,
and you definitely don't wanna be like this.
You're workin' on the shoulder all day long, then.
It's a lot of stress on it, so.
That's kind of a critical part here
because when you're working with the keyboard a lot,
or the mouse, which we also don't wanna have to reach for.
That should be right next to it
- Right. - again, at the right angle.
Over time, it starts to get overuse injuries.
- This is nice to have the option where the keyboard
is set lower, on a lower surface,
than what your computer's on.
We've got more to talk about the computer screen yet,
so this isn't exactly where we want it, but.
- Even when you're pickin' a desk, Brad,
you gotta watch out that you don't pick one of those desks
that real thick with drawers.
- Oh, sure.
- Because you're gonna hit your knees on it.
- Right.
- You know, you gotta have the keyboard down low enough
so you can see, a center desk like this works a lot better.
- Right, right.
- But again, this is kind of a weird situation here.
We've got, actually, this is a desk that goes up and down,
but we also have a desk riser on top of it.
So this is actually what I use in my house.
This isn't the one, but this is one that I use,
and it's really nice 'cause you just,
you can go, you can sit or you can stand.
- Sure.
- And I do a variety of it based on the time of the day.
- Right.
- But it works really well, and it's got,
like I said, the keyboard down lower
and then the screen up higher.
- And the option to sit or stand while you're working.
You can sit for 20 minutes, raise it up,
stand for 10, 15, or 20 minutes.
Depending on what's the comfort level for you.
- And try to get some movement in there along with it.
Walking is really important - Right.
- somewhat during the day.
Now, so we got the keyboard set, we got the mouse set.
Now you're gonna wanna make sure the screen,
this is where a lot of people make a mistake.
Especially, as you see, this is actually my computer.
I have it hooked up on arms, basically.
So I have two screens, I have this and another screen,
and they're raised up on arms so that they're actually,
this should be up high enough
- I'll hold it for you, Bob. - yeah, that my eyes
hit probably almost the top of the screen.
- Sure.
Did you, like have your wife hold this for a while?
- Yeah, that's what you wanna do.
I have her hold it, and then she gets tired,
and then we have to get somebody else to come in,
a substitute.
But we do have, we had some boxes here, didn't we?
- Oh, yeah. - Yeah.
- [Brad] And you know, you can buy nice adjusters
for your screen, if you want.
- Right, and that's what you're gonna wanna do.
You're not gonna--
- You can just use boxes, it works.
- Well if you guys aren't as tall as me
you can probably just use a couple books, too.
- Sure, right.
- So this shows you, look what a difference this is,
but look at what posture in.
I'm not like this, hunched over.
The other thing that was huge for me, Brad,
is I have bifocals.
- Yes.
- And I was like this.
No matter where I put it, I was still like this.
- So he's leaning forward,
he's got his head tilted back.
These occipital muscles and the nerves back there
are gonna get stressed and headaches.
- And that's what was happening.
I was getting headaches
here. - Yeah.
- So I just bought some glasses,
and the eye doctor knew right away what I needed.
He said "this is gonna be set for 40 inches."
- 'Mkay.
- And so I put this on, it's just reading glasses
for 40 inches.
- Yeah, versus having to get close.
- So I'm like this, it's just beautiful.
I just, you know, I use these all the time.
- Look at the camera so they can...
- They're not good lookin', but you know.
- Well the glasses look nice, but what they're, you know
we won't go there.
- What they're perched on is not good.
So, these are both FlexiSpot desks, by the way.
- Right.
This is the box.
- This is a FlexiSpot, and this is a,
this is a desk riser.
These are fairly
reasonable priced,
and these have come down, too.
- Right.
- So we'll put a link below.
- If this is somethin' you're gonna work on
on a regular basis and it's gonna save you back pain.
As a matter of fact, we had a person,
she was working, back pain consistently
in a seated position, she got a desk like this,
I don't know if it was a FlexiSpot,
but she went to a standing position,
back pain gone.
- Yeah.
I've seen that more than once
'cause you sit for so long,
you're in that kind of slumped and rounded out position,
and if you can stand up, and even your neck, too,
you often get in better postures.
- The whole works.
- Also, I got my clock here, Brad.
- Oh, yes.
- This is kind of a neat little clock.
What you do is, I try to stay focused for like
30 minutes on something.
- [Brad] Yeah.
- All I do is flip it like this,
and it sets a timer then for 30 minutes.
- [Brad] What's this got to do with the desk?
- [Bob] Nothin', I'm just telling you how I have
my desk set up at home. (Brad laughs)
And I have my sign.
Focus. - Oh, yes!
- Stay focused. - Yes, good.
So he's workin' on his comfort
as well as efficiency here.
Bob, what about standing?
We didn't really go through,
'Cause do you sit all the time or do you actually?
- No, again, I use the stand,
I just use the desk riser, and I lift up.
- But that's really not tall enough for ya.
- Well it isn't set now, enough.
The desk I'm on, it is.
- Well, you could raise this desk up now.
- Yeah, I could raise
this desk up. - Show 'em.
The combination is kinda nice to have for...
- And, Brad, you,
what you like to have with this is a stool, right?
- I do like a stool.
As a matter of fact, I'm gonna grab
this adjustable one, Bob.
- Oh, sure.
I like the color of it better anyways.
Remember, we gotta leave a little time
to go over this chair too, Brad.
- Oh, yeah.
So we'll adjust that.
- What's nice about a stool is
you're kinda halfway in between sitting and standing,
so it's a lot easier on your back.
- Yep.
- Brad and I know this from workin'
with people in the factories.
A lot of them had this where they were on machinery,
and they could get a rest off their feet
but still work. - But still work.
I mean, I could still function here
and sit for a little bit.
I'd adjust it here.
This is for Bob, but I would have this
adjusted so it would be good here
and I could stand and easily go up
a few inches with it.
Stand, I like to stand more than I sit,
but after I stand for a while,
with my spondylolisthesis that hurts a little bit,
so I sit.
Makes a big difference.
Oh, feels good.
And then go back and forth.
- All right, Brad.
You wanna talk about-- - Oh, yes.
- This is the Tribesigns T18.
This is a fairly reasonably priced chair,
and we were sent one of these quite a while back,
and my staff really like this.
I mean, they all kind of
have adapted to it.
So, it actually, yeah, it'll go up and down.
It actually does have an adjustment.
You can flip back and forth a little bit.
Yep.
Brad, that's gotta be--
- There we go!
We can lock it back there.
We would never suggest you work this way,
but if you wanna take a break and just relax, you know,
for a few minutes just to unwind or whatever.
- [Bob] It's got the adjustable arms.
- Oh, yeah.
- [Bob] It's got the headrest
that kinda goes up and down a little bit.
And it's actually got an adjustable lumbar support, too.
- [Brad] Can we go up with it, Bob?
- [Bob] Yeah, we can go up.
- All right, there's a little lever here,
we pull it forward, and--
- [Bob] Push back and then it comes forward.
- There we go, yup.
It's got a nice lumbar support that is adjustable.
I really like that. - And that goes up and down.
You can actually reach back with your arms
and it does go back and up in it, so.
A decent chair for the price.
I mean, if you wanna spend a little money
and it's comfortable, and it has good support, so.
- Right.
- Anything else you wanna add, Brad?
- No, no.
(Bob laughs) I'm pretty much exhausted here, Bob.
- Yeah, we covered a lot of areas, sorry about that,
but it's all important.
Thanks for watching.