♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet. ♪
- [Bob Schrupp] Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp,
Physical Therapist.
- [Brad Heineck] Brad Heineck, Physical Therapist.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Brad, today you wanna talk about how to
avoid muscle cramps, by using proper bed position
and stretches, and maybe some other, you know,
cues that we might-
- Exactly. You know, some diet issues,
things you're gonna consume,
that'll all affect muscle cramps.
This can be a big issue for people.
I mean, this can make people have a hard time
going to sleep at night.
- Well, yeah and staying asleep.
- Right! Well, they're afraid to go to sleep,
because in the middle of the night,
you get a cramp, it wakes you up, and is very painful,
and you've gotta do something to-
- Are we talking most about nightly cramps,
muscle cramps, or?
- Well, I think that's a big part of it.
You know, people that we're referring to,
but also you know, the athlete.
You know, they're getting cramps.
But you know, personally speaking,
when I was training real hard,
which is a a reason for cramps, is over training,
I used to get cramps in my calves at night,
and I'm telling you- - Oh, you did?
- Oh yeah, yeah.
It wasn't fun.
- So, then you didn't sleep well
and then your training went down.
- Right.
Exactly. We're gonna talk about all this,
but there's a few people out here though.
- Hi, thanks!
Thanks for joining us.
- We got three viewers out there, Bob.
- All right.
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- Yeah, it's a good deal.
- Yeah. All right.
- Cramps. So what is a cramp, Bob?
- I don't know. You're gonna tell me I hope.
- Well, I'm sure you had it like I did in school.
They talk about the muscle cramping up to a maximum.
They call it tetany, and it balls up,
and it just gets as tight as it possibly can-
- Yeah. Normally a muscle fiber,
gradually recruits more and more fibers.
And in this one, they're all firing at the same time, right?
- Right. - To some extent.
- At maximal amount. - At maximal amount.
- Becomes very painful.
You know, another name is Charley Horse.
- Sure.
- I don't know how that came-
- I don't know where that name came from.
- Yeah, Charley and horse.
I'm not really sure where, but anyway.
- You should look that up. - Yeah.
- Google spasm.
- Yep. Yeah, you know, I don't like that term, spasm.
I don't think that's very accurate,
but you know people call them spasms.
So, what causes them?
We talked about over usage.
If you're doing a lot of exercise,
and on the other hand,
one cause can be if you're doing a lot of sedentary,
or sitting in one spot.
- Oh really? - Yeah. Yeah.
I found- - I did not know that.
- Yeah, I just looked that up and I found that information.
Dehydration, if you're not getting enough fluids.
- Yeah, that's a big one. - Exactly.
- That's absolutely a big one.
You gotta keep hydrated.
- Exactly.
- That's where you see the athlete a lot.
- Right.
Prolonged contrac...
Let's say you're standing in one kind of awkward position
for a while, for whatever reason.
And that muscle that's-
- Has to fire for a long time without a rest.
- Right. It can get a cramp in it.
- Okay. - Okay.
I've gotten those in my toes.
- Have you really? - Yeah.
Toe cramps.
- That's ugly.
- Yeah. - His toes are ugly.
All right.
- Lack of potassium or-
- Calcium. - Potassium.
- Calcium and potassium. - Right.
What did I say?
- You said potassium and potassium.
- There you go, I'll double it up.
(Bob and Brad chuckle)
Okay, so those are some causes.
They're not really fully understood,
you know? - Right.
- As far as the details, otherwise it'd be a lot easier to-
- To treat them. - To treat them,
and get rid of them.
So, what we do know,
is that often, one of the more common muscles,
is the calf muscle right here.
- Right.
- Hamstrings are common.
Not so common, one of the more... quadriceps can be...
That's the three I'm gonna cover, today.
- Sure.
- There may be other ones, but the treatment's the same.
When you get a cramp, you wanna lengthen that muscle-
- Stretch it out.
- get it, stretch it out as soon as you possibly can.
But before it gets cramped,
I wanna talk about prevention a little bit, Bob.
- Sure.
- Okay?
So, dehydration, what are you gonna do?
- Drink water. - Hydrate.
- When I remember reading up on this, Brad, that was one
of the number one causes they felt like, was dehydration.
- Sure, yeah.
- I mean it was one of the biggest, so...
I know a lot of times, you know,
especially if you're an older gentleman,
and at night you don't like to drink too much water,
because you're gonna be up 10 times-
- There are other issues.
- But you're gonna have to find that balance.
- Exactly, right.
And the other thing is what are you drinking?
It can be water.
You can have something that has some electro-
- Oh, like more electrolytes in it, yeah.
- Right. You know, Gatorade or something that-
- That might help matters, yeah.
- Exactly.
- With less water in it.
- But then on with potassium, eat some bananas.
- Sure.
- You know, those kinds of foods.
Then other things that, I didn't think about this,
but take a warm bath, or a warm shower,
before you go to bed.
Get those muscles-
- I remember reading that, too.
- Yeah.
- The more you can get them... kind of prepare them,
and plus that's gonna help you sleep then, too.
- Right. You're gonna maximize the blood flow.
Blood flow in the muscle's gonna help prevent the cramps.
Okay? Now this is a nice one.
Get a massage.
So, you know, maybe you could have your wife
give you a massage before you go to bed.
- That's not gonna happen, - Okay.
- so what's the other option?
(Bob chuckles)
- We go to the second part, and get yourself a foam roller.
- You don't need a spouse, you can just get a foam roller.
- We don't need a masseuse, just get one of these.
One time cost, and they work, last forever.
If you have calf cramps right in here,
you're just gonna roll across like this.
And if you wanna get more aggressive,
you can see my bottom's in the air,
and my weight's through my hands.
You're gonna wanna do this on a carpeted floor.
Hard floor, the roller slips around a little bit.
So, carpeted floor works a lot better.
If you wanna get really into it, cross one leg over.
And that kind of hurts a little bit,
and it gets in deep into that muscle.
Again, make sure you do both legs,
otherwise you walk in circles, Bob.
You can, again, go to the hamstrings.
It's the same thing.
You can go on one leg and cross over.
Hammies usually take a little more pressure,
and you can get on it a little more aggressively.
And while you're there, you might as well get up
into your glute and your piriformis,
even though they may not be cramping,
because it's just a good, good massage.
Get that circulation going throughout the lay.
- You doing quads on that one-
- Sure! You bet.
Obviously, if you're gonna do the quads
you gotta switch positions.
- So, quadricep's at the front of the thigh.
- Right.
And roll back and forth on there.
You can go flat like this.
Quad's a big muscle,
so you may have to go in more quadrant,
than just in the Sagittal plane.
We're gonna get Lateral a little bit,
and then you're gonna have to want to angle to get the
inside of the quad on the VMO.
That's a little bit more challenging,
but you can work it out, work it out.
I'm not gonna get into...
you have to practice that one a little bit.
- Sure.
- Yep. Okay. Good.
- Well done.
- Next one.
Calf muscles.
We talked about the massage.
What about stretching before you go to bed?
- I would say Brad,
that probably is the most common muscle by far,
wouldn't you say? - Right, yep.
The calf muscle.
I'm gonna do... if you got your bed, or a wall, right here.
If I'm stretching down here, I'm stretching like this.
Or if you're gonna look at it,
you see, so this is the one getting stretched.
The heel has to go down.
- The heel has to stay down.
- Right.
And the toe should not point out to the side,
but straight ahead and then-
- Femur's down.
- Yep.
- And you can stretch it with the knee straight,
and you can also stretch it with the knee bent.
- Yep. Gets two different muscles,
and that's what you want is, be complete, get both muscles.
You're gonna hold this up to 30 seconds is a good time.
- I got some dust on your pants.
- Ope. Yeah will not have any of that issue.
Oh, now we're gonna have to wash them tonight.
Okay. So make sure you do that.
Get both legs.
This is even better, yet.
If you got an incline board,
this makes it much easier, more comfortable.
Overall, it's the best way I know
to stretch your calf muscles.
- Yeah, real easy to do.
- Yep.
- You can do it anywhere.
Sometimes you wanna hang on to something
while you're doing it, but yeah.
- Right, yeah. You could keep this right by your bed.
- Yep.
- Stretch those out before you go to bed.
And then hamstring stretch.
I really like to do this one.
You might as well do it right in bed.
Lay in bed, and you can stretch up like this.
Bob, you wanna hand me a couple of-
- Sure.
- devices to make this easier.
You know, if you have a cane, a hook cane,
or a cane like this,
simply go like this.
You can relax that leg.
Probably put the other leg down.
Knee must be straight.
Has to be straight to get the hamstrings,
and just stretch.
You can go pressure on, pressure off.
Do that 10 times or hold it for 30 seconds.
Whatever works best for you.
Again, do both legs.
A stretch out strap.
We really like this strap,
because it's handy. - Yeah from, optp.com.
- Yep. O-P-T-P.
- The big advantage of this,
is it's got handles throughout the whole length of it.
So, you can put your hand in there
if you don't have a good grip,
which a lot of people don't particularly, if you're older.
And you can stretch it out here,
and my fingers aren't doing anything.
It just catches onto the wrist.
Straight knee again.
Hold it 10 times.
Hold and relax, or a 30 second static stretch.
- The other thing you had mentioned, Brad,
is one of those rollers.
- Oh, rolling pin.
- Rolling pin.
I don't know why I keep forgetting that.
- Yeah.
- but you could take it-
- Make bread with it, or something like that.
- So, if you have a rolling pin that you're not
using right now.
- Sure.
- Because I don't think this should be a good idea to use it
on your calf, and then go make a pie with it.
- I might do that, but most people wouldn't.
- Yeah, but so, you could just go like this, right?
- Yep. You could use that rolling pin on the calf.
It works good on the quad.
- Yeah. Actually it is really good for that.
They do have these sticks that,
these rolling sticks you can buy, too that-
- Exactly.
- Do we have one?
- Yeah, Bob.
- Oh, here it is.
Look at that.
- Here you go.
- Ask and you shall receive.
Why don't you show a little bit, Brad.
- And these feel pretty good, you know?
You can go here.
You can roll this.
You know, you can roll lots of things.
- Have you given up cooking- - Yeah.
- and baking?
- You can use a rolling pin.
These work a little bit better, though, I think.
Now in the event that you get a cramp at night,
and you wake up,
here, Bob, let me...
I distinctly remember this.
- Sure.
- When you get up and you feel that cramp coming on,
so you get that calf cramp and it's hurting like crazy,
the first thing you wanna do, if you're able bodied enough,
is get up and put some weight through it,
and stretch it out.
It'll go away as soon as - That's right.
- you get that stretched out.
If you're not that able to get up and stretch it,
because of a fall issue if you're older,
or you have some weakness for whatever reason,
have your cane handy to get ahold of your toe,
and try and stretch it out.
Or if you got, you know, your spouse, or whoever's sittin
in the same room, see if they can give you a stretch.
- Would trying to massage it right away, too, help?
- Yep. You could certainly do that.
Get up, and try and massage it.
Pull that up and massage at the same time.
One way, or another, the sooner you get that to pull up,
the faster, the cramp's gonna go away.
- Toes towards your nose.
- Same with the hamstring.
Now, in bed positioning, we sleep like this,
and typically our toes are like this.
- Sure.
- The calf muscle's more likely to cramp when you're
in the planter flex position versus here.
So, if you got a lot of heavy covers on,
you should try and sleep with lighter covers,
so it doesn't push your toes down as much.
- If it did get radical, you would try a boot, or not?
- Yeah. I would try a boot like this.
If you're gettin them every night,
and you can't get any sleep, because you're getting cramps
in your ankle, you could go with one of these.
These are made for people with plantar fasciitis,
but they do work for this.
And if you, it'll keep your...
look at that.
- Yeah.
- It'll keep your foot in that neutral position.
Much less likely to get that cramp, which is gonna pull it
down this way. - Sure.
- If you get the hamstring cramp,
get it up, and try to stretch it out
as fast as you can.
Boy, those hamstring cramps, they just hurt.
- Yeah. They're not fun.
- They're not fun.
- Quadriceps cramp. - Quadriceps cramp.
- Cramp
And that's gonna make your leg go straight.
Then you're gonna have to try and pull it in this way,
and stretch it like this.
- Sure.
- You always go in the opposite direction,
to stretch it out.
And then of course, massage it.
After you get the cramp out, massage, massage.
You might wanna take a shower before you go to bed again.
Whatever it takes to get, you know...
everyone's got a different body
and how they respond to these things.
So, you'll learn that after a while,
and hopefully with what we've done here,
get these things to settle down,
so you can get a good night's sleep.
- Thanks everybody for watching.
- Okay!