- (upbeat music) Bob and Brad
the two most famous physical therapists on the internet.
- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapist
on the internet.
- In our opinion of course.
- Ah, you know, we can self promote ourselves.
Okay. Today we're talking about
about the five big lies about back pain or back ache.
And these are common things that we hear, Brad, when
we're discuss, you know, working with patients.
- Sure.
- And it's misinformation.
- Right, right.
- They're out there and, well, let's talk about them.
- Old miss.
So let's start off with number one.
Number one is that people think that
when they hurt their back
moving will make their back worse.
- Right?
- And the, the truth is you really want to
get some movement going as long
as it doesn't make the pain worse.
- If it does. Yeah. If it's irritating it, then you gotta
that's not the movement to do, but
- right.
- If you find movements that are
- Almost always is a movement you can do.
Do you wanna just do trunk rotations, Brad?
- Sure.
- Do you wanna throw a pillow over here?
Lonnie? Do you see right behind you?
So just one.
Yeah. We wanna make Brad comfortable.
- Yes, yes, yes.
- Yes. He's always a big baby about it.
- [Bob] Yes. So this is one most people can do.
Won't you say Brad?
- Right? Right.
If you're in a throes of severe back pain, you know
maybe not, but out
of that acute stage, you're just gonna lay and
- [Bob] Gentle trunk rotation.
Very limited to start off with if it hurts
but eventually you wanna start getting
you want to get some movement
in that spine, the blood flowing.
So the last time I hurt my back, I could do these.
- Could you?
- Yeah. The other one I could do is which you I'll do it.
- I'm gonna say one thing about this one.
All right, you can do this.
And if you find that only one direction it's pain free
and the other way it hurts.
Well, don't go the way it hurts. Just work.
- [Bob] That's right.
- Work the pain free direction.
The other direction will come with time.
- Why don't you stand up once Brad, I'm gonna go ahead.
The other one you can do is what we start doing is
extensions quite often.
- [Brad] Sure.
For a lot of people, it's just starting to
just gently get some movement into extension here.
And you might even just do the prop right up on your elbows
but again, just gently getting some movement.
And eventually you're gonna try to get way up in
here.
- Right
I've just been working with
I had two patients this week working
with very exercise and coaching them
on how to do that.
Don't go way up if it hurts, but go in the pain free range.
- Right, right. That's number one.
Number two, they, people believe I should avoid exercise
especially weight training.
And the fact is, especially later on, no, you can go ahead
and weight train just don't do the things that
could hurt your back, right.
Or make your back pain. worse.
Squats are a bad one, you know.
- Squats or dead lifts
- Right
or you doing these lifts that shouldn't be doing anyway.
- But I mean, you certainly can do curls.
You can do tricep.
You could do bench press.
- Right
I mean, those things are all fine for your back.
And that is gonna build up your core, right.
Somewhat and
and make you your back better in the, in the end.
- You just need to use good judgment.
- Right.
- If it irritates
And if it gives you that back pain
that you have makes it worse
- Right. Back off.
Exactly. Number three, the other big lie is a scan
will show me what's wrong.
So they wanna do a, a x-ray or MRI or, and in first case
only in 2% of the cases, do they find anything on it.
Did you know that?
- Really?
- I remember I had a radiology course.
It was only 2%
- Okay.
- Of the cases.
Do they find anything?
And the problem is often what they find isn't the problem.
So on a healthy person
especially elderly person, quite often
if you're like 55, 65, you're gonna have a bulging disc.
Brad and I might have bulging discs.
- Right
- And we don't know it.
And so they do the x-ray and you develop pain
because for some other reason, muscular or joint
and they see the bulging disc
and they go, there's your problem.
You have a bulging disc.
- Right.
- And that's what, and so, you know, I quite often, not
that the tests aren't needed, cause quite often
they may be later on if things aren't getting better.
- Right.
- But initially the scan's not gonna show you.
They might even show you the wrong thing.
- Right. We, I do get, you know
we get a lot of comments coming back
and people will give us their feedback.
Oh, this is a report from the scan.
- Right.
- And I try to narrow down and say, this is information
but for me, for the therapist, we oftentimes don't need it.
- We go by symptoms.
- Right.
- We go, we, is there a movement we can do
that helps decrease the symptoms.
- Right. The old saying, do you treat the patient
or treat the x-ray or the MRI?
We treat the patient.
- Right, That's right.
Aren't we something?
Okay. Number four, I must have lifted something wrong.
Everybody goes, I, you know, I hurt my back
I must have lifted something wrong and, and
and they may even done it while lifting, but actually
the problem quite often, Brad is sitting
- Right.
I mean, we're a sitting society now.
We just did a video on, on sitting as the new smoking.
- Right.
- But when you're sitting, especially if you're kind of
in a rounded out position like this, you know, on couches
or, or when you're in working
in the office that is putting a prolonged
- Typing
- Stress on the back all day long.
- Right.
- So then when you do try to lift something
the back's already weakened and in a bad position.
So sitting is more of the problem.
More often with back pain than lifting.
- Right.
- A lot of the guys that are lifting stuff all the time or
or staying active, they, they don't have back pain.
It's the ones that sit around all the time.
- That can be a very true.
- All right.
Number five.
I shouldn't lie on my stomach with back pain.
This is an old belief that cause when you lie
on your stomach you're, you're jamming the joints together.
There's a few instances in which, you know, it's not good.
Like Spondylolisthesis where, which Brad has or
- Stenosis
- Or stenosis.
But in most cases it's actually good to lay
on your stomach for back pain.
And you might even do some
of that bending up like what we were doing earlier.
- Yeah.
- Some of the press up.
- Sure.
- So those are the five big lies.
It kind, I hope it helps you kinda readjust your thinking
about back pain because that can hold you up.
- Right.
- I mean, you know when last time I heard my back, Brad
I was running the next day.
- Really?
- Yep. And cause I, I felt like it
didn't hurt when I ran and I actually felt better.
- Sure.
- I still couldn't bend forward
but it was getting a lot of blood flow
to the area and helping it heal and I, I healed quickly.
- It it's all back pain.
The big thing is the no pain, no gain is out
- Right, right.
- Is absolutely out, and you need to find movement
that makes it feel better or makes the pain
- That's the key.
- Right
- That's the, the key statement of the video.
Brad. Congratulations.
- Excellent.
- All right, thanks for watching.
- Sooner or later we'll, oh yeah, the broken heart Bob.
- Oh yeah.
- Some of our viewers are actually catching up on that.
They're watching our videos to the end.
- Oh really?
- Yeah (laughs)
- All right well we can fix just about anything,
but we can't fix
- that broken heart.
- All right.
Do you wanna do strong like bull too right away?
- No.
- Okay. Strong like bull
- Strong like bull, gotta roll the r.
Strong
- Strong, strong like bull.
All right, thanks.