- All right, Brad, we have three exercises
for beginners and seniors,
to help them perform squats correctly.
- Squats are one of the best exercises
to get large muscle groups.
- It may be the best.
- As a matter of fact, there's a study
that doing squats off of a chair
is one of the best exercises to prevent falls with seniors.
- You heard that?
- Yeah, well, of course,
they can hear it. - Stick around.
♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists on the internet ♪
All right, the first thing, Brad,
we really wanna make sure when you squat
the movement is coming from the hips, not the back.
- Sure.
- I don't wanna see this, rounding out.
And you quite often do.
- Oh, yeah, a lot of my patients
they'll do that, yeah. - What you wanna see is this.
This is like it's in a cast, or it's fixated.
It can't be moved.
So we recommend you start with posh squats.
- So what do we got these red things for?
- Right, you can use a dowel or a broomstick
or a Booyah Stik.
- Anything about five feet long, 4 1/2 feet long.
Oh, over here, yeah.
- Yeah, we'll put 'em in place.
So palm out on the lower hand.
Palm in on the upper hand.
And you're gonna have three points of contact.
If you only have one, the back, you're doing it wrong.
But if I hit the head, the mid back,
and the low back or the pelvis,
and keep that in place, you can't help but do it correctly.
- [Brad] Right.
- I don't worry about how deep you're going, Brad, now yet.
I'm just worried about keeping correct form.
And then once you are real comfortable with that,
you can then do it without the pole.
And you'll remember, your body will remember,
you' have muscle memory on how to do it correctly.
- I've had people with back injuries do this.
- Right.
- Specifically for biomechanics,
so they might remember how to do it
and protect their back as well as get stronger.
- Right.
And we can say, booyah! - booyah!
(stick taps)
What's number two are we gonna wait?
- All right, once you've learned to squat correctly
with the back straight,
I wanna have you squat deeper, deeper.
You know, you might start off like this.
- Yes.
- But for many of you
it's gonna help to have the support of a door frame.
Can you picture that, Brad?
- Yeah, you had a pointed top, though.
- So, you can put hands inside.
- Or you could use handrails like this too.
- Handrails would work too.
It'll allow you to really go down.
Still try to keep your back straight.
- Bob, can I introduce this idea?
- Yep.
- That the option of maybe putting a chair there.
- Oh, sure.
- Do it again.
You go down.
The nice thing about a chair
is you know how far you go when you touch it.
And if you can't back up 'cause you went too far,
you can just sit on the chair.
- Now, if you have a pain in the knee
while you're doing this,
only go to the spot where it doesn't hurt yet.
So if it feels good to here, start only here.
- Right.
- But if you can go down,
this will help your knees eventually.
- Right.
And it might take a a couple weeks
to get lower and lower
without knee pain. - Right, absolutely.
All right, Mr. Brad,
the third exercise is actually air bench.
- Air bench?
- Meaning there's no bench there.
(Brad laughing)
But you're gonna pretend there is
by leaning against the wall and actually go down.
Now again, if you have knee pain,
only go to the point where you can tolerate it.
It actually feels good.
- So the the distance
that you bring your feet away from the wall is critical.
- Right, I want you to be safe.
I don't want you to collapse down.
- Right.
- But you can actually do this
to the point where you could actually go to 90/90,
and you could try to stay here for a minute.
- Right.
- I don't think I could make a minute Brad.
- And another real critical point is you cannot do this
with socks on.
- Right.
- You have to have some shoes with some-
- Grippy shoes.
- Grippy shoes, so they grip to the carpet
or the floor, especially.
- I'm startin' to pale, Brad.
- Yeah.
- I'm shaking a little bit.
- Yeah.
You could have a cane or a stick to hold on
and that'll help you push up a little bit too.
You can push with that hand.
- Right, when you get stuck.
- Yeah. Are you stuck, Bob?
- No.
(Brad laughing)
But I'm almost there.
I mean, I got what? 30 seconds left.
- Yeah, he's doing an isometric chair,
we used to call them.
But make sure you don't go into this right away.
You have to progress.
- Yeah, we gotta work up to it,
but it's really good for strengthening.
You'll get mostly quads,
but it's gonna help you squat in the end.
- Yep.
- Will he make it, Brad?
- Are you waitin' for the 30?
- I think so. I think it was 30.
- Are you sure
where you started? - I might be there already.
- I don't know. (chuckles)
Five seconds.
- It's an analog clocking,
and he doesn't know- - Three-
how to read those anymore. - two, one.
Oh! (Brad laughing)
Ah!
- Yeah, do not do this- - I'll be sore for weeks now.
- Yeah, don't do this the first time,
that'll take a few weeks to get into.
Be careful and have fun with stronger legs.
(bright music)