♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
(clapping)
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Yeah, and we're the most famous
physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today, we're gonna go over the absolute best exercise
for pinched nerve, nerve pain, it's a McKenzie technique.
- Right. - And it's updated.
We did this video before.
We're gonna do it better
because the sound was terrible on the other one.
- Right, we got it arranged a little bit better.
I think it's easier to follow,
and there's gonna be some really good results with this.
- Yeah, what's amazing about this is if you follow this,
80 per cent of the people that do this tend to get decent,
really good progress.
- Right. - If it's done right.
- Yeah, there was a study on this.
- There was a study that showed that 80 per cent
of the people got good results from this.
- So we're gonna get right into it but before that,
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Right now, we're giving away, do you wanna show
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- We're giving away a couple of booyah sticks.
Oh, you can, I don't know how you can live your life
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- Oh yeah, we use it for stretches,
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- There you go! - 60 seconds.
- Sounds like you said that before, Bob.
- Yeah, a couple times.
- Yep, all right so, let's talk about this.
We've talked about McKenzie, Robert McKenzie,
well-known therapist, world wide.
- Yeah. - He's not alive anymore,
but he started a whole system,
and we've both taken all of his classes.
- It's in 34 to 36 countries,
38. - Right.
- But this is his book, "Treat Your Own Neck".
I would highly recommend it,
'cause it's written for the lay person.
- Right.
- And it'll go over everything we talked
about today and additional stuff.
- Right, and then we show our little
tricks that'll be helpful. - Yeah, these are
like 10 bucks, I mean. - Yeah, they're quite--
- Really reasonable,
really terrific books. - Really cheap.
Okay. - All right.
- Let's go on, Bob.
- Oh you wanna show referral patterns, right?
- Yes we do.
Now, when we're talking about a pinched nerve in the neck,
often times the pain that you feel is not in the neck.
But why don't you get up, and we'll show.
We have patients come in a lot, now Bob has yellow tape.
This isn't anything that his wife put on this morning
to make him look silly.
(laughing)
I would've known about it.
- I do that well enough on my own.
- Right, so the pain origin is here
but often times, the pain refers into the shoulder blade,
in the shoulder here, often times if that nerve is pinched,
because a nerve actually comes right down the arm.
You'll feel pain, numbness, tingling, all those symptoms
on these yellow tracks right into the hand.
So what we're doing with the system
that we're gonna show you, we're gonna treat the neck,
and the first thing you wanna have,
if you do have pain or symptoms down the arm,
is that they start to get relieved or be abolished,
go away from the hand up to the elbow first.
So if we do the exercises and the pain here goes away
but it still hurts up here, the patient said,
well this feels better, but it still hurts here.
That's a good thing.
- Yeah, so this could be your starting point too.
Maybe it doesn't go down as far.
- Right. - Maybe it only starts here.
- Yep.
- In this case, you want this part,
this section to start getting better first.
- Right, so if you continue the exercises
we're gonna show you and the pain goes away there,
and it's just here, that's called centralization.
We're getting the pain centralized up to the starting point.
And then, we finally get rid of this by doing the
proper exercises, and then once the pain
is centralized to here, you're gold, you know,
things are looking really good - Right.
- For a complete instant recovery.
- And sometimes it's real subtle.
You can't tell it's getting better,
like you might have tingling in your hand
- Yep.
- And the tingling goes away.
- Right.
- Good sign. - Exactly.
- Any of the symptoms.
- Exactly right. - You want them
to get improved.
- Those pitch nerves, you know.
- It's bad pain.
- Right, it's not fun.
- That's about some of the worst pain you're gonna get.
- Yeah, it gnaws at your life.
- Right.
- So the first thing that you really need to address
is posture. - Yes.
- So, in other words--
- Because if you do these exercises,
and you're not correcting your posture,
- Yep. - It's just gonna keep,
it's gonna stay there.
- Right, exactly. - We have a problem.
- So you know, particularly if you have a job that's seated
or car driving a lot-- - Right.
- Throughout today, you may not be aware
of head forward, slouched posture.
A lot of times, you have to look in the mirror
- Right. - Or have someone else
say, well, you know--
- Yeah, your posture's bad.
- Your wife did that too, right?
- Yeah she did.
(laughing)
She pointed it out at my desk,
and she took great pleasure in it, by the way, too.
- Yes, well it helped you out, though didn't it?
- It did help me, yes.
- So first thing we're gonna do, shoulders back, head up,
and tuck that chin in, and--
- It helps to even do some
shoulder squeezes. - Yeah.
- Throughout the day - Exactly.
- To make sure you're lined up correctly.
- Right.
- You know, the ears try to be almost lined up
along with the shoulder,
- Right. - If you do a
straight line down.
- Exactly, now this isn't the exercise,
or one of the exercises,
but you have to be in good posture to execute them.
And then maintain that throughout the day.
The first exercise we're gonna show are chin tucks.
- Right.
- We talk about these all the time--
- All the time.
- But, I'll have people with pain here and I'll say,
can you do a chin tuck?
And they'll do that, and usually it's uncomfortable,
it'll hurt, and if they'll say it hurts more here
than over here, that's pretty much a good sign.
If you do five of 'em and things aren't getting better
each time, then we need to stop that
and then go onto the next step.
- Oh, try a supine you mean?
- Well we can do that too,
yep. - Yeah.
So if that's not working, lay down,
now you could lay in your bed but this is much better
on a carpeted or a firmer surface, not hard,
but firm with a cushion like a carpet.
- And it sometimes helps to have a towel there, Brad.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, like that.
And now, it's easier for me to do the chin tuck.
- [Brad] Right.
- I'm trying to, again I'm not bending down.
I'm not bending up like this,
I'm just bringing my neck back like this.
And sometimes people's necks are really sensitive
and really painful, this is the way to start.
- Right.
I always say, if you can lay like this and try
and touch the back of your neck to the floor,
that'll give you the proper motion.
- You probably won't be able to, but--
- No, no.
- That's what you wanna think about.
- Exactly.
Now, I've had people just with this exercise,
take care a good part of the problem, although not usually.
- Right.
- But it's still, sometimes we have to jump
to step number two here and this is,
you wanna sit in your chair--
- Yep, yep, I shall do that.
- Here, I'll give you your towel.
- Yep.
- We're gonna do extension.
And we're gonna do it different ways here.
- Right.
- Now typically, people who have
a pinched nerve in their neck,
if I ask them, can you look up towards the ceiling,
they'll start and get about here,
- Yep. - Oh, it hurts,
and it's not comfortable. - That's what you see
all the time. - Sometimes it gets worse
down the arm, and then, you know,
you know the problem's from the neck.
- Yeah, we're trying to always make the pain better.
- Right.
- It's not something, it'll get better through
working through it, you have to eliminate it.
- Right.
So what we're trying to do eventually is get this normal
range of motion back and when you get this back,
chances are you're gonna have the problem solved.
- That's where the magic happens, they say.
When you start getting the neck fully extended.
Now, Brad, do you mind if I just jump in?
- Yes.
- I mean you can start off with
just doing short archs like this,
- Yep, yep.
- But eventually, at some point, if that's not working,
then you're gonna go to a towel.
- Yeah, and I find--
- The towel quite often--
- Majority of the time, people are much more comfortable,
roll up a towel, you got two different methods.
- Yep.
- I'll show you this way first.
Especially if it's bad,
I'll start with a nice, cushiony towel roll,
and I'll have the person lean back into the chair,
office chair works really nice,
but the chair cannot be a high one.
It has to be low, at the shoulder blades or lower,
so that you can lean back into it.
And then you just bump back into the tightness of the pain,
don't push it, and you can do 10 repetitions maximum
to start with, and hopefully by the 10th one, it loosens up,
and you can go back farther and less pain.
- And when you do these, you can actually do 'em
throughout the day. - Right.
- We recommend like five to eight times.
- Yep. - I mean like,
every hour. - Exactly.
- And if you say, well I don't have time for that,
well then you have time for pain
because your pain's gonna continue.
- Right, again, after a few repetitions it loosens up,
you get more range of motion, the pain centralizing,
you really need to get after, like Bob said,
five to eight times a day.
- Brad, what I tell people sometimes too,
let's say Brad has pain down his right arm,
- Yep.
I'll have him grab it just with the left arm,
grab the towel.
- I thought you wanted to shake my hand.
- No, no. - Oh, like this.
- Yeah, like that, just because the arm is sore,
I don't want him pulling down on it,
you know what I mean? - Yep, exactly.
- Exactly.
This is a little different one.
To be honest with you Brad,
I've been using yours more often now, lately.
But this one, you can kinda get different
levels of the neck easier. - Yes.
- You're using the salvage. - Someone will comment.
- Salvage, salvage.
- Someone will comment and correct it.
- The little-- - The edge of the towel.
- The edge of the towel, and by pulling back like this,
and I usually pull up to my eyes.
- Yeah.
- I'm not pulling down like this, I'm pulling up to my eyes.
And then I try to go back like this.
Again, the advantage of this one,
you can hit different levels of the neck,
and sometimes that feels better then.
- I'll have patients start at lower, higher,
and then I say, go down. - Yep.
- About an inch each time,
and you'll notice when you hit the right spot,
all of a sudden, oh, you can go back farther, less pain,
and then you know you got the magic.
- Absolutely, and generally, I liked a longer towel,
'cause I'd even do it with one hand too.
- Yeah, that towel is short. - Just a little bit short.
- Yeah, yeah.
We've got an issue with big towels.
- Yeah they don't have, that's a whole different story.
- That's another story, he's right.
So-- - Same guideline.
- Yep, the chin tucks, seated or laying.
- Yep. - Then go to the towels
with one of these options.
And the other option, Bob?
- Well, side bending?
- Yes.
Right, so this is not as common,
but Bob's had patients specifically,
as well as himself. - And me, yes.
- Yeah. - This is the one
I need to do, 'cause I'll do these all day long,
and my neck is still hurting.
I don't get it too far down the arm.
- Sure. - But it'll go down
to the trapezius. - Yep.
- You know, to the area.
And so what I do is I do the chin tuck,
and then I side bend to the painful side.
- Right.
- And Brad, what he's mentioned is I had this dentist,
he was getting pain all the way down the arm.
- Yep. - And he,
when he worked on patients, would turn his head this way.
- Just a habitual posture.
- Yeah, a habit posture, and so what we had him do,
the pain was going down this arm, he'd chin tuck,
and go to this side, chin tuck, and go to this side
And it just works wonders with me,
'cause when I'm working at a desk, I tend to go like this.
- Yep.
- That's the Forrest Gump posture.
- Yep, that's right.
Forrest Gump at the end of the movie,
where he and his child. - If you watched the movie,
you know what I'm talking about.
- Yeah.
So chin tuck, go to the right, or chin tuck, go to the left,
if the pain is on the left side.
- Yep, right.
- And you're looking for the same things.
Is it improving?
The pain at distill, I guess you'd say.
- Is the yellow tape coming off?
- Yeah, yellow tape coming off.
Try some of these, and you could be amazed at,
you know, 80 per cent of you should be amazed
at how it helps. - Right.
- And if it doesn't, then I would seek out
a McKenzie trained therapist, go to their website,
McKenzie MDT, M-C-K-E-N-Z-I-E. - I-E, yes.
- Mdt.org. - Right.
- And actually, they have a therapist locator.
- Right.
- If there's a therapist in your area with this ability,
they'll help you find it. - Sure.
Very good!
(laughing)
- Remember, Brad and I can fix just about anything.
- Except for - A broken heart.
- But we're working at it Bob, we're working.
- All right, we'll do it.