♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists ♪
♪ on the internet ♪
- Action.
- Alright. Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp
physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck; physical therapist.
- And we're the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion of course.
- In our humble opinion.
- Today we're going to talk about "why do my traps hurt"
and how to stop that pain.
So when we say traps what are we talking about Brad?
- Like trapshooting?
- No. - Oh.
- The trapezius.
- The trapezius muscles in the back.
Goes from - it's like a big broad fan of muscles
from the neck all the way down to the-
- Well let's draw it for a second.
Well you got the backpack on, maybe show on me.
- Sure. Upper trapezius.
So they start here and they attach down to the scapula
and all the way down to here.
On both sides this whole area is traps.
Upper, middle and lower traps.
- There we go.
- Very broad man - And a lot of people get pain
in those areas.
You get knots in those areas.
- Yes. Finger points.
- It's one of the areas where I tend to get pain.
- Very common.
- It's miserable.
- By the way if you're new to our channel
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos on how to stay healthy, fit, pain free
and we upload every day.
Also you always want to join us on our social media channels
and probably check out our website because we're
always giving something away.
Right now we're giving away a Varidesk-
What is this called?
ProPlus
36.
- Adjustable work station for computer.
- Yeah I'll show it just in a minute here.
Go to bobandbrad.com; go to the giveaway section
and we always have it listed there,
or you go to BobandBrad on Facebook.
- Right - And we should have it
pinned to the top of the page.
- That was very smooth today Bob.
You must've been practicing over the weekend.
- Well I thought I was always smooth.
But here I'll just show this real quick.
So this has - we said 10.
It actually has 11 different levels.
- Right. - So I'm just using the
handle here to squeeze it up and it's-
these are really well made.
- Right.
- This company - they're the leader in this area.
- [Brad] It's commercial duty made for
someone working everyday.
- And by the way this is going to help your traps.
- [Brad] Right, because it promotes good posture.
- Yup - [Brad] And if your posture's
poor your traps are gonna let you know.
- Right. You're kinda jumping ahead on me Brad.
- Sorry. Sorry.
- (laughs) So that's the question;
it was "why do they hurt".
Well a lot of the pain is coming from -
I'm gonna grab a spine Brad if that's alright with you?
- Yeah. Grab one for me too.
I need some spine.
- [Bob] I'll probably give you a spine
because we have an extra one.
So, the pain - when you get pain down that area
surprisingly can also be coming from the neck.
- [Brad] Oh yeah.
- So the neck can refer pain down into that area here.
So it could be from poor neck posture,
or it could also be from poor posture in the area itself.
Right in that upper back.
- Right. So I always think of it as if
there's a issue in the spine
the muscles
surrounding that area.
The pain could refer out and then the muscles contract
up as a result and respond to that tightness.
Then you get those knots.
So if you take care of the spine -
- The knots go away. - The knots go away.
Right.
- So it's not in the muscle per se;
it's not a muscle problem 'cause a lot of times
it jumps around. - Right.
- And so if it jumps around it can't be the muscle
'cause the muscle if it hurt it
would always be in the muscle.
- Right. So in other words it may hurt on the left trap
and then another hour later it may hurt on the right side.
- Right. Or even a little bit different spot
- Right. - Than the right side.
But the whole thing to say here is it's all caused
by bad posture.
- Sure.
- I mean I think universally we can almost say that
with the exception of maybe some type of injuries.
- Right.
- But you know the bad posture is usually that forward head
- Yup. - Rounded upper back posture.
And that's really gonna start burning after a while
if you stay in that posture.
And a lot of people don't even realize they're
in that posture because after you've done this
for a couple of years it feels normal to ya.
- Right.
- What feels abnormal is when you get up
into a normal posture. - Right.
- So we're going to show you some quick things
to try to help take away the pain.
One thing that helps me tremendously is using
the Thermotex Infrared heating system here.
So -
- But the key is - one of the key things
is with this is how it's put on
- Right. - And what it does -
it has these nice wide elastic straps
to hold the Thermotex
heating device on it.
Pulls your shoulders back.
I mean it's not like it's pulling them hard,
but it pulls them back enough so it reminds you.
- As a great reminder.
- To keep that posture and then at the same time
gets deep heat into the muscles as well as into the spine.
Allowing things to relax and get better circulation.
- You're right Brad.
It's the two things like when I'm having trouble
like if I'm sitting for a while and I start
getting pain there I have to correct the posture
- Right. - Which this helps me do.
But it also gets some heat in there
which helps take away the pain.
- Sure.
- So the reason we like Thermotex Infrared is because
a normal heating pad only penetrates a few millimeters.
- [Brad] It's basically skin deep.
- That's on this side.
What the Thermotex penetrates is - you got it Brad.
- [Brad] 2.36 inches.
- 2.36 inches which you can see -
well if you put that up against a spine
that's gonna penetrate into the joints itself.
- Sure.
- And that's where your gonna get some great benefit,
as opposed to just really going skin deep.
- You know the muscles around the spine
you've got an inch or an inch and a half
of muscle depending on the person
and you know how they're built.
But this allows that penetration to get through that.
And that's what we're looking for.
- Yeah so it looks a little bit strange.
I mean I don't do this around the work office,
but I do it at home - Sure.
in my home office.
But -
- We've had people here though -
- We've had people - we had a Nurse
that said, "Oh I can't do that".
She ended up putting it on because she was hurting so bad
and it gave her relief.
So let's go - we'll show you some things,
and we have a link below for that,
but we'll show you some things you could do
with - for very low cost here.
One of the first things you could do is
just go ahead and correct your posture
by doing chin tucks.
So a lot of times it's that forward head
rounded out posture. - Right.
- So throughout the day what you're gonna do
is you're gonna get back into the right position,
and you're going to do what we call chin tucks.
Brad and I have shown people this probably
7 million times now.
- (laughs) Exactly.
And it's important that you get good posture
with your low back and shoulders first
and then do the chin tuck.
- Right you don't want to be like this,
and then going chin tucks.
- Right. - Good point Brad.
You want to get up into good posture.
What's nice about these; you could do these at the office.
You can do them anywhere - you could do them
in your car.
- That's right - I do it quite often there.
I do them regularly in my car. - Yup.
- And you don't want to be going down like this
or up like this.
You're going just straight back.
- Straight back.
- It's a reminder and it's a stretch at the same time.
- There you go.
- So. The other one -
should I jump into the ball
- Yeah - right away Brad?
- Get about a 6 or 8 inch ball
and it's desirable to have one a little soft.
This one's actually a little flat and that works out good.
- Yeah.
- If you get a hard firm one like a soccer ball
or a basketball it's not going to work very well.
- Right. And this works great because you can move
it onto different levels.
So you can start -
This actually is not going to work for me.
I'm too tall Brad.
You want to grab this chair?
- Well the chairs too short.
- Well one of the two. (Brad laughs)
So - whoa watch out there.
We're gonna grab a different chair.
- [Brad] We can use - - We're going to have Brad -
You jump into it - Sure.
because you're shorter than I am.
- All right. (grunts)
My mic thing is getting in the way.
Let's see if I can do this.
- [Bod] I knew you were going to do that.
This is how long I've worked with Brad.
I knew he was going to do that.
- Well you know it's kind of fun.
Adds a little excitement to the day.
- [Bob] That's right.
- I'm gonna start in the lower trap area.
And I like to go like this,
or like this.
Be sure you're getting your pecs stretching
with your shoulders.
And I'm going to do a little chin tuck at the same time.
And then I'm going to roll back.
(exhales with grunt)
- [Bob] Yeah so you get a little bit of neck action too
while doing it all at once. - Sure. Yeah.
- [Bob] And you're stretching - these are the things
that are going to pull you over.
Tight pectoralis major. - (Brad exhales forcefully)
- Those are all gonna pull you over to that bad posture
make it difficult to get out of it.
- So I'm going up - So -
- about as high as I'm going to
and also it's really important that you breathe and relax.
If you do this with shallow breathing you won't relax;
you won't get near the benefits and the stretch
won't be as effective.
So -
- [Bob] Now this was developed by one of our PTAs
came up with this idea. - Yeah.
- Physical Therapist Assistants.
We used to just have people do it over the back of a chair
and now we have them do it using the ball.
- Yeah. It's just more comfortable and it's more specific
so there you go here catch. (exhales playfully)
- Alright next one.
Brad you just need a ball.
I really like this one.
- Yeah.
- Take a tennis ball and a towel.
And what you're gonna do - you're going to hit
like six different spots.
You're gonna lay on it.
Brad why don't you face towards me so we can show on here.
So I like to hit here - I'll show with the ball.
Here, here, here, here, here and here.
And Brad said - he mentioned here we could also
put two balls into a sock, and actually you can get double
at the same time. - Right.
- You can go one each side of the spine,
and you could just go right down the spine
- Yeah. - and do it with less time.
- Yeah I'll show them with - - with the towels?
- Can you get down on the floor?
Now you can do this on carpeted floor.
I wouldn't do it on a hard floor.
So we got a little mat down.
- [Bob] Yeah and if you're just starting
and if you have poor posture you may need a pillow too.
- Yeah. - [Bob] Because this is gonna
be too intense for you to try without one.
- So I've got the tennis ball - you can go directly
on the tennis ball without the towels,
but if you haven't done it before
you may want to get a little cushion there.
I'm going to start on the left side on the third spot
down closest to the belt line.
And I'm going to work that -
you may work this for 30 seconds.
It's up to you.
- [Bob] And then at some point Brad you let your head down
and you bring your arms back. - (Brad exhales in relief)
I just capitated but I got this crack.
- [Bob] That's the final position you want to be in.
I don't know how that feels for you Brad.
You have pretty decent posture,
so I'm certain you could tolerate this okay.
There's a lot of people that won't be able to tolerate that.
- I'm gonna do it without the towels.
I know it's a little easier to get more specific.
I've done this assigned - - [Bob] Right.
- It actually feels a little bit better.
Now you're gonna do that on both sides of the spine
in that muscle part; it's between the scapula -
(talking over each other)
and the spine itself.
Now I've done this myself and I've had patients do this
where you put; just put two tennis balls in a sock like that
and then you can get both at the same time.
And - it works pretty good because they'll roll together.
And I can roll as long as your t-shirt doesn't get -
- [Bob] Rolled up with it?
- There that's working good now.
So that's an option.
You can do it however you like.
- [Bob] Again don't be shocked if this is way too,
you know
intense for you.
Again the towel will soften it and so will a pillow
underneath your head.
- Yeah. Right.
- [Bob] So try some of these things and I think
we could knock that trap pain down
- There you go. - or get eliminated.
Remember Brad and I can fix just about anything -
- Except for -
- Step apart.
A broken heart.
- Time got away on us. - Yeah it did.
- I thought it was under 10.
- Well we're working on it.
- Working on that too. - Yeah.
(short lively ring)