♪ Bob and Brad ♪
the two most famous physical therapists on the internet.
- Hi folks,
I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together, we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today we are talking about back braces, Brad.
- Back braces.
- By braceability.
- Braceability.
- They supplied us with a whole bunch of them
and we've been putting 'em to the test
and a couple patients of ours have been using them.
- Yep, and we've got some good information
on how to use 'em,
how to use 'em properly,
and some other things that will help you
out and we'll go right down the line,
should we get right at it, Bob?
- Let's start, Brad.
- To start with, I wanna start
with the SI belt,
Sacroiliac belt.
- Right.
- And more specifically, they make one
for if when you're pregnant and
that SI can get loose with the hormonal changes and whatnot,
and you need that tightness to hold that pelvis together.
And this is one of their models.
This is their,
I personally would call it more than plain Jane,
It's just elastic.
And the nice thing about it is,
cuz we've had one of our employees who was pregnant.
- Pregnant, and she tried it.
- Right,
and she likes this one for in bed because it's soft.
When you roll around in bed,
it doesn't get in the way.
- You said bed and sitting too, right?
- In sitting as well because in the seated position-
- We don't have a chair.
- Why are our chairs gone?
Anyways,
when you sit down and the back rest is here,
the other ones,
which I'll get to,
turn around Bob,
the other one has a design similar to this.
The plastic devices made for cinching downwards work really
well by the way,
but they do get in the way a little bit with sitting
and while she was at work it was a problem,
or at home.
- The negative part about this one is it
didn't cinch up as tight as she'd like it.
- It does not have that good control.
- It has some ability to do so, but not like,
cuz I mean,
when you have an SI problem,
you really want that pelvis held together.
- Exactly.
- It seems to really help.
- In this one, as you can see,
it's all elastic, you go here like this,
and then to cinch it down even more
there's a secondary strips.
Now, the Velcro on this is really good.
As a matter of fact,
too good in some ways.
But here you can see where I can pull here
and get extra cinching power.
And this one too, right here.
- We're gonna be doing a video on the SI right this week.
So you'll see some of the things we'll talk about,
why that cinching is so important.
- Exactly.
You don't have to worry about the Velcro coming loose,
that's for sure.
All right?
- I see a couple new people out there, Brad.
- Oh yes.
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- Absolutely.
- Let's keep moving, Brad.
- Right!
Now, the other SI belt that we have is actually
with a patient we started with last week
and she liked it so much
she still has it and she wanted to keep using it,
we couldn't get it back until next week.
So anyways, but they're very, very similar to this,
It's just a little narrower.
Why don't you turn around, Bob?
And let's use the cinching device
that really puts the pressure,
watch this.
Can you get right in on this, Ronnie?
- Got it?
Yep, go in.
Can you see how that's tightening down?
Is that pretty clear, Ronnie?
- I loosen,
I tighten.
- Yep.
- This is a fantastic mechanism.
- It's smooth,
It's controllable,
and it really puts some torque on that.
- And you know, when I tested her, Brad,
I actually walked around behind her
and I was squeezing her pelvis together.
- Right.
- Right away,
it relieved her pain.
And the same with this thing,
that belt just worked out great.
Just thinner than this one, right?
- Right, It's thinner than this,
the concept is the same on how it works.
It looks very similar too,
it's just narrower.
I want you to turn away,
there we go.
Now, I'm gonna show you how you put this on.
- Why don't you show it just real quick
in this manner, Brad.
So they can see what it looks like.
- Yeah.
Cause this concept works in a number of their belts,
It's not just these two.
Can you pull on the bottom, Bob?
- Sure.
Okay, so when you pull this, go ahead,
no, keep pressure down there.
See how that works.
- Yep.
- It's beautiful.
It's very smooth.
Well designed.
- Genius science here.
- Absolutely.
Now, make sure you get the right size when
you order these, you know, get your girth and look at,
these now have measurements just to pitch from 36 to
40 something of that nature,
so make sure you get the proper belt.
Make sure you put it on right,
I like using this little tag here,
it says ottobock.
Make sure that's up so you can read it.
- Up and on the outside.
- Yep, up and on the outside.
And make sure you have it adjusted so that it's wide apart.
It makes it much easier to adjust,
as opposed to starting it with it here,
cause then you have no adjustment.
- Well, that's in the way then, too.
- Yep, exactly.
- I was just trying to, you know.
- There we go.
- It's really gotta be spread all the way apart
when you're gonna start and right down here,
otherwise it gets in the way of
latching it together.
- Yeah, because right now,
if this is over here.
- Right.
- Gets in the way, yep.
So get it back
where you're gonna need it.
And there we go.
- And these are all at braceability,
I'll put the,
I'll have you running the website
down below.
And there's a lot of braces,
so you know, you know,
you're gonna have to take a look and see what you need.
- Exactly.
Now, the one Bob had on,
that was the spine,
or the sports spine, they call it.
This one is called the spine brace.
- You like that one, right?
- I like 'em both.
And the reason I like this a little bit better,
and the reason they call it the sports spine,
the same thing,
It's a little bit narrower.
You see?
It's about three inches here,
compared to this one,
It's about five inches.
So this one offers more support
across the lumbar spine and throughout the trunk.
But the-
- This one allows more movement.
- Right.
- Yeah.
- So that's why it's called the sports spine,
because it's more, you know, for athletes.
- You were gonna use this with your bike or?
- I use this on my bike so far in the train
in the winter,
I'm kind of anxious,
this has been bad weather,
but I'm gonna use my bike outside to help my,
my core with my spondylolisthesis.
- Right.
- Also, I'm gonna use it in my riding lawnmower.
It's a little bumpy.
- Oh cool, that's why you had said that.
- Yep, and that's gonna be my next test with this one.
- Okay.
- So again, these two are similar, just the width,
but the same type of nice support there.
As a matter of fact, I'm gonna leave this.
My wife was using one of these last night.
She left it on for about a couple hours
with things around the house
and it was very comfortable for her.
- It's like someone giving you a hug.
- It kind of is, you know, a strong hug.
All right.
- All right,
this is kind of a run of the mill brace.
Isn't it Brad?
- Well, I wouldn't say that,
I would say this is more for the workplace
or if you're doing work and you want to try to avoid,
you wanna maintain good posture while getting some support.
And that's what these shoulder braces are for.
A lot of people don't really realize it.
And this one does not have the feature
with the strings that pull up real tight.
- Right, this one does not.
- This one is strictly elastic.
- Wanna put it on?
- I'll put it right on over the top.
- Sure.
- Here we go.
So this one has a similar feature,
kinda like the white SI belt,
where it is just here.
This one you're not gonna put tight,
you're just gonna put around your waist
in a manner that it's snug,
but not tight,
so it feels comfortable.
You could work with this.
Bob is adjusting the shoulder braces right now,
because you do want these snug a little bit,
but not tight at all.
How's it going, Bob?
- Are you okay?
- Yeah, a little tighter if you can get 'em,
but they're okay.
The key with these shoulder braces that I really,
not braces, shoulder straps,
and look at that,
we've got some nice adjustments here in the front.
There we go.
- Oh yeah!
Front adjustments there.
- There.
- Yeah, you look fashionable.
- Yeah, what do you think?
(Bob laughing)
- Actually, when you bend forward,
say I'm gonna lift,
I'm gonna have 20 minutes of lifting some salt.
- Right.
- That's gonna go for my hot salt water softener,
got 10 bags that I'm gonna put in the garage,
I know I'm gonna be working my back.
Then, you take these secondary straps
and then you tighten them up over like this,
this one over to here,
and that cinches the back.
Now it's tight,
I'm not gonna be walking around all day like this.
- Right.
- It's too tight.
- To me, again, the concept here was that
you tighten it when you need it,
otherwise, these kind of hold it in place,
and you can keep it loose,
you know, the concern always with braces was that
you're weakening your core.
- Right.
- If you have it, you know,
on tight all the time.
So this,
this kind of gives you the best of both worlds.
- Right.
But, there's one thing,
and you brought up a good point,
people think that this holds the belt up,
but that's not what they're for.
- Oh, it isn't?
- Nope.
When you bend forward with these on,
you can feel that pull on your shoulders
and it reminds you.
- Ah, so it keeps you in good posture?
- Right, right.
So they're a little reminder to keep you in good posture.
So these-
- You think the inventor had that in mind?
- You know, I don't know,
I think so.
They're stretchy.
- Sure.
So, you know, they're not gonna hold too much up,
but when,
when you pull and go forward like this-
- If you lift wrong,
you can feel it.
- It changes how they feel,
and it's like, oh yeah,
I gotta keep those where they need to belong,
keep 'em tight.
- And as a reminder,
we've showed this many times, but Brad,
when Brad's bending-
- Oh yeah.
- He's supposed to keep everything right in line like this.
You know, three points of contact,
head, midback, low back.
- Right, cause even with a back belt.
- Yeah, if you go like that.
now there's only one point of contact.
- And if you bend like this,
a back belt is gonna help a little bit,
but not the way, you know,
it's not a miracle thing.
- All right,
we better move on, Brad.
- All right.
- Got a couple more to talk about here.
- This is relatively comfortable to wear all day long too.
And you know, that's why I think people,
in the workplace,
you'll see wear this style,
eight to 10 hours a day.
Now, I better take this one off.
- Sure.
- Back belts over back belts.
This one's near and dear to me, Bob, do you know why?
- Because it's for spondy?
- Spondylolisthesis, yes.
And this one has some nice options
I do wanna go through.
- Do you know what this is called?
- Yeah, this one is called-
- The spondy brace?
- Just wait a second, yeah.
- It says ottobock on it.
- Right, well, they're all called ottobock.
All right, so we're gonna put that on there,
get everything adjusted right,
and I'm gonna do the same concept-
- It's got the tightening thing again,
you can't see it on this one,
cause it's covered up by the pad there.
- Right.
It's the exact same, you know, mechanism.
- So again, it all came together again like that,
with the squeeze.
- Now with this one,
the thing about it is,
I've gotta adjust it back here.
All right.
Now I can tighten it up and you can see this
one's even wider yet.
- Sure.
Each brace we're doing is more supportive.
Not only is it wider here, but there's some
plastic supports right up in here that I cannot bend.
- Oh really?
- Yeah, so it prevents me from flexing.
- Oh, sure.
- In the front,
as well as in the back,
there's a plastic.
- So that's really stabilizing your core.
- Right.
- I mean, yeah,
this is something for after surgery maybe even.
- Yeah,
or if you're flared up, you know?
- For sure.
- Right, If you're really flared up and it's like,
boy, I've gotta go do some things
and if I keep my back in a good position,
I'll be, you know,
I'll be stable and, you know, healthy
relatively speaking.
So you need that reminder, that extra support.
- So yeah,
that's a heavy duty plastic back there
that's really keeping you
in the little bit arched position there.
- Yep,
means that it maintains that posture.
But wait Bob, there's more.
- Okay!
Let's see what the additional benefits here are.
- When this, when you're back gets out
of that flare up stage
and you're feeling better,
but you still want some support,
but you don't need that much,
you don't have to go get yourself another belt.
What you do is you just go in here
and easily remove the plastic support
in the front.
- Oh, in the front.
- Yep,
and that gives you,
it's more comfortable,
cause you know, that holds in your stomach a little bit,
and that's not as, you know, that's not comfortable.
- But now you can bend forward easier.
- It's more comfortable,
you can bend forward if you're sitting down,
it flexes more along with your stomach
and, but wait, there's more.
- Is there a pad in the back too you can take off?
- Yep,
then you can take the one back here
and it slides right off.
- Oh wow.
- And this one also has-
- Oh, this one's solid.
- Yeah, this one has a real solid back support.
Yeah, It's hard to get that one on,
It's Velcro'd in pretty tight.
- Yeah, this thing does not bend.
So this thing really is fiction.
- Right, yep.
And then you can go back
and then what we have is basically-
- Almost a sports spine or a wider one.
- It's efforts wider,
we've got the same basic nice back belt that,
you know, you could see that.
- So I can take you all the way
from needing a lot of support
down to needing lesser support.
- Exactly.
- Nice options.
- Actually, they even make a back belt
that offers more support than this one.
Although, you're not gonna be doing too much
movement with it.
It's for like right after a surgery
or if you really want to stabilize.
- This one?
- Exactly, Bob.
this one, they call it for the herniated disc,
or degenerative disc disease.
Yep.
But I'm thinking that this one is-
when you really wanna, like,
if you've got a situation where you got a
compression fracture,
yep,
or you really wanna stabilize the spine,
this one does not have that nice mechanism where you pull
and it tightens in real snug,
but it does have a very wide,
right here's the plastic support here.
It's bigger, wider,
and it's thicker.
And, for when you're in that flare up,
ta-da.
- Oh, an ice pack.
- Cool pack.
- Could you heat that?
Oh, I can heat it too.
- You can heat it as well.
- Ooh, It's cold right now.
- Oh yeah.
- Ooh.
- Put that back in there.
And I, you know, if your back has flared up,
I'm gonna say put a cold back on it.
You might be a person that does well with heat,
but, I think most people do well-
- Oh nice,
you have a portable,
you can walk around with it.
- Yeah, and pull it outta the freezer,
put it in there,
and look, on the front, Bob.
This is just not a strap,
It actually comes off.
- Oh it is, so here's a big pad too.
- Right, It's not, It's a plastic support.
- And can it keep your whole core stabilized?
- Exactly,
now these will not fit across.
Well, that has to be in there,
put that there.
And then, pull that in there, Bob.
- That option is not there, is it?
To take this out eventually?
- Nope.
- This is-
- That's there,
that's part of the belt.
- Okay.
- Yeah, the nice thing about this-
- Oh, look at that.
- Yeah, look at that, got the little lines there,
you can get your thumb in there and you can pull it up snug.
This is nice.
- Yeah.
- You know, you're not dealing
with trying to,
like I was before,
with those Velcros.
These have a little finger tabs on here,
cuz you're gonna snug this up.
Oh yeah.
Oh, this is,
it really feels good.
- And then you can go another line.
- Oh yeah.
- Plus it has the double set,
so here it could go over to there, over to there.
- So yeah,
this is gonna be,
it should keep you out of trouble.
- Yeah.
So there you can see that,
allow me to demonstrate.
- Why don't you bend one, Brad, with this on.
Just to-
- So, if we're gonna bend, you know,
I can do this,
but it's keeping my back straight.
- Yeah, It's keeping your back straight.
And of course, if you have this on,
we really want to be doing this type of bending.
Let's go towards you guys.
- All right, well, we ran way over our time limit.
- Oh really?
Oh my God.
- We wanna thank all of you for watching.
And again, braceability,
great braces.
- Take care!
- Thanks a lot.