♪ Bob and Brad, the two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists on the internet. ♪
- Hi folks. I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And together we are the most
famous physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Brad, today you want to talk
about absolute best foam roller and technique, right?
- Right. First of all,
we wanna talk about just the foam roller.
Some people out there may not even be aware
that you can use one of these round cylindrical objects
for working with your muscles, getting them to relax
reduce pain, and just feel good about it.
And another nice thing I like is posture.
So anybody concerned about posture,
we're gonna show a technique on that.
- Yeah. We're actually gonna do a posture video today,
and this is one of the things I'm gonna suggest.
- Right. They're wonderful products.
- This one's pretty too, by the way, Brad.
- Exactly. We're gonna talk about that a little bit too
so guys just hang on for just a little bit
so we can get through all this information. Alright.
- Alright. What are we starting with Brad?
- Well, first of all, why does a foam roller work?
Okay? Now I have not--
- Theory, according to Brad
- Right? I have not gotten any studies.
I don't even know if they have studies on this yet
but they're throughout the, you know, they're sold
by the millions throughout the world, and this is gonna
kind of help you understand, in my theory, why they work.
First of all, they work as a massager to massage the muscle.
I don't think you can disagree with this.
- No, you can't, and a lot of people use it in that way.
- Exactly.
- A lot of athletes.
- So for example, let's take a look at the leg.
I actually drew this, Bob. What do you think?
- Yeah this is shocking that Brad drew this.
- Yes. It's not bad. I think later on I might--
- It's not a stick figure.
- Yeah. I think I'm gonna start doing paintings.
- Can you see that Lottie?
- That's good?
- Oh.
- It's good now?
- Okay. So if we're looking at the side view,
if this is Bob. Can you? Yeah.
So here we're looking at Bob from here down and here
we've got some of the major muscle groups.
We've got the calf muscle here,
and the hamstrings, the quadriceps,
and this blue line in here represents the TFL.
Okay, that's a fibrous band
that goes from the knee up to the hip,
and then there's actually, the muscle belly is connected
up in there, into the hip abductors, okay,
and the glute matches-- - TFL, by the way,
"Tensor Fasciae Latae." That's how we used to do it.
- That's how you remembered it.
- In anatomy, that's right.
- Okay. So before we go on any farther,
maybe we should bring up the point
about if we got new listeners out there.
Oh, right. If you're new to our channel, by the way,
which a lot of you are, please take just a second.
There's a subscribe button right on the screen here.
We provide lots of videos
how to stay healthy, fit, pain free,
and we upload every day.
- You bet. Okay.
- We work hard, Brad.
- Yeah we do, when we're not sleeping.
Okay. Alright so here we got the muscles.
Now, if you look at the lines of the muscles
muscle fibers in the leg, go up and down.
There's fibers in the muscle
and you can see the fibers in the buttock area,
they go at an angle backwards.
Okay, and this TFL muscle kind of goes at an angle this way.
- Okay.
- Okay? And this goes throughout all the body.
We're just gonna talk about the leg now
cause that's what we're gonna do some demonstrating on.
When you use the foam roller, you want to go
with the fibers of the muscles.
You know, you can go the other way and see how it works out,
But this is the way I typically do it
and I get good results this way.
So if you're gonna work the calf,
the muscles go up and down.
The fibers go this direction,
so we're gonna roll in that direction.
- Sure.
- Same with the hamstrings here,
and as well as the muscles up in the hip area.
The TFL goes along the full way
and we're gonna work on that too.
That one is kind of a tender area.
- Yeah. Very sensitive.
A lot of people have trouble with that one.
- Right. So one of the rollers we're gonna have
is gonna address that just by the density of it.
- Alright, very good.
- Okay. The other thing I really think works well about
the foam roller is that if you think of using a rolling pin
over some dough, it squishes the dough out.
Well, that's what the roller's doing.
It's kind of squishing your muscles and that helps to
relax it like a deep, when the massage therapist digs in,
you know, and they're trying to get that trigger point out
and it's like, "Oh, it hurts so good" kind of a feeling?
Then you're okay.
Plus it helps the circulation cause it squishes out
like if you roll a foam roller over a wet sponge
it squishes the water out of the sponge,
and then as you take the pressure off
it's gotta resorb back in.
- So not only blood flow, but lymphedema too.
- Exactly.
- I'm adding to your theory as we go along here, Brad.
- I would not use this for lymphedema though.
- Right. Not lymphedema treatment, no.
- Okay, now let's look at the density we talked about.
We've got three foam rollers here, cause
if you look this up and you order one on the internet
there's gonna be the density.
Now we're gonna bring this up closer.
A good close up view.
We need this one in the middle, Bob.
- [Bob] Okay.
- [Brad] Oh! Too far away.
- [Bob] Lottie has a restraining order against us.
- Okay. You got that?
Eh, let's see, let's get this up cause
if you wanna get these same rollers we have
you can get 'em here from OPTP.com.
They're company that only sells quality equipment
and that's where we get our stuff from.
You can get 'em wherever you want
but that's where these are from.
If you look at this
and you push into this dark black foam roller,
you can see my thumb is not going in very deep.
I'm pushing fairly hard.
- [Bob] This is very, very dense.
- Yep. Now we go to this one
and if I push in there you can see
it's a little easier to get my thumb to go in farther.
Okay? And then we look at this one and I can bury my thumb,
the front end of my thumb, right into it much softer.
So we got the high density,
medium density, and then the low density, okay?
- [Bob] And I'm really anxious.
I have never used anything but the high density.
- Sure.
- And I have not tried these out yet, Brad,
so I'm very curious to see how they're gonna feel.
- Well I gotta be honest with you, Bob. I was the same way.
I always used the dark one because you know,
I'm tough man, He man, strong like bull
gotta have something aggressive
to really work those muscles out.
And it does, but when I got these,
I'm thinking these are little nicer.
- Right.
- And I think they do just as good a job
if not better cause you relax more.
- And especially on some of those sensitive areas
like you said, like the IT band or--
- Exactly. Why don't we
Why don't you stand up Bob? We're gonna--
- Sure.
- You said you wanted to do it on here.
I don't want you to bump into here.
- Yeah. Obviously we don't want you doing
foam rolling on a table but
we're just doing this for demonstration purposes.
- Right cause Bob doesn't want to get on the floor.
- I don't want to get on the floor.
- Okay, Bob, we're gonna do the calf.
- Okay.
- I want you to long sit.
- You want me to do the calf?
- Yep. Remember I talked about the calf muscles.
The fibers are going this way so let's do both.
- At the same time time?
- Yeah. - Okay.
- So go ahead and roll that out Bob.
He's got his buttocks off the table,
he's putting the weight through there.
And how does that feel?
- I mean it's yeah, it feels good.
The calf isn't sensitive to me, so.
- If you wanna get more aggressive on one leg,
cross one leg over.
- Yeah. Now it's getting a little tougher.
- Yeah. That's more aggressive, isn't it?
That's probably about as aggressive
as I know as you can get on the calf.
- Yeah.
- Okay, now let's just switch, Bob.
- Alright.
- Let's go to the softest one,
and see what kind of difference it makes.
- Oh yeah.
- You notice that?
- Yeah. Oh yeah.
It's not nearly as sensitive
but yet it's still doing the job.
- Right.
- In fact, in some ways it seems like it almost does better.
- It, may
- It digs in deeper in a sense, you know what I mean?
- I noticed that we'll get one on the back,
and you'll really notice it when you do your thoracic back.
why don't you do the hamstring one?
- How come you skipped to the medium?
- Well, I just wanted to get the maximum difference.
- Oh sure.
- Yeah. But you know, we can do the medium one too here.
And you notice these are really pretty.
If you're gonna get one for your wife
or something for a gift, these are gonna hit a home run.
- Yeah. You're gonna, you know,
if you bring these to the gym you're gonna stand out,
you're gonna be cool.
- Yeah, right.
- Like you aren't normally Brad, so that really--
- At the Y they got a white one that's kind of dirty
and it's been around for five years and yeah,
that I still use. I don't care.
- Yeah, really good.
- Yeah. So he is working that now.
Let's get to that buttock muscle area
where you're doing the muscles that connect
to the it band that strains here,
and I want you to turn on your side a little bit, Bob.
- Oh boy.
- Yeah, this is where the softer one really pays off.
Cause Bob's on the medium density.
- Yeah. That would be hard.
- Yeah let's see what your facial expressions give us.
Now we're gonna go to the high density.
- The buttock doesn't bother me as much
as if I go on the band here.
- Yeah. Well we're gonna to that too.
Go ahead, go to the band one.
- Yeah I felt that already.
I mean, as I just, yeah, right there.
I'm not as sensitive as you are,
but this is pretty intense.
- Yeah. So for that IT band--
- Yeah, let me try that one once here.
- Let's try the low density.
- Oh, see that? That's really nice.
- Isn't that?
- Yep. This is the baby. This is the winner.
- Yeah, exactly.
- I, you know, maybe there's some guys that are
a little sadistic and want to have some pain
when they're doing this, but
- Then they should have the high density one.
Let 'em go to work on it.
- So really nice. Really.
- Now let's go. Let's do the back once.
- Yeah. I know how this one feels.
I did this one this morning.
- Oh, you did. - On my back.
- Yep, okay. So you wanna use the medium or the--
- Let's go medium first.
- Medium? Okay.
- Okay.
- You did this already.
So you have your back cracked?
- Yeah. It actually just did already.
- Just did now? Yeah. You'll get a little cavitation.
- Amazing. Just, you know, an hour later it seems
like it's still ready to cavitate again like you said.
- Now, is that all the farther you'll roll on yours?
Or will you go up to the neck?
- I don't go up to the neck.
- Right there.
- Yeah. - Yep. And you can vary that.
Whatever works good for you.
Do you do the length one for the posture?
We mentioned that earlier.
- I don't.
- Okay.
- I should though. I do a stretch like that,
but I don't use this but I should.
I don't have a full one like this for one thing.
- Oh yeah. You need the three foot one.
If you're gonna use the posture technique.
Let's try it with the hard one first, Bob.
- This is, yeah. Really great technique for posture.
Oh, I'm already off it, aren't I.
- Yeah, it works good if you can put your head right here.
Can you lift this arm up, Bob?
You get from your sacrum to your head
right down the center of your spine.
And all I do is I just lay like this.
- Yeah.
- This shoulder and pec always gets tight on me.
I don't know why.
- And you let gravity stretch things out.
- Yeah just let gravity stretch this out.
- We have a guy that's complaining
about his posture, Brad, on Facebook,
and I'm gonna recommend that he tries this.
- Right, right.
- Because you can lay here a long, long time.
And that's what he's gonna need is a prolonged stretch.
- Let's try the soft one now. Go up there on the soft one.
I really like this for, for posture.
This just lines that back up.
- It's like, you know, a softer mattress.
I mean, it's just feels really good.
- Yeah. And you can lay there.
Now, if you really wanna do a little balance and core stuff
you can lift one leg up, and then the other one.
Try both, Bob. A little core strength
- I'm hanging on that's why, so
- Okay, Bob, they're getting bored of this now.
I just wanted to finish up with one thing here.
We can just about fix anything.
Foam, rollers, bodies, legs, IT band,
but what about this, Bob?
- You can't fix a broken heart. What a bummer.
- Have a good day
- Thanks.