♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- We're ready to go, aren't we, Brad?
- Yeah.
- Hi, 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 wanted to talk about how to correct
and measure head forward posture.
I think that's a good idea
people need to know where their head is at.
- Right.
- And they need to know if they're improving.
- Yeah, exactly.
Had a patient, she came in, the doctor said,
"Boy, you really got poor posture
"and maybe should improve it."
And she realized it and her head is like this.
And so she was motivated to get more upright
'cause she didn't want to get worse and worse
as time went on.
- Which causes all sorts of problems.
- Exactly. So I thought, well we got to measure this first.
Show her some exercises and then come back
(Bob's hands clapping)
and measure again to see progress.
- I can't wait. Let's go.
- Bob, why don't you put your back up against the wall?
- Okay, so we need a wall first.
- Yep, ya got a good angle here, Lonnie?
So, here's the points.
- Are you directly on, Lonnie?
You might wanna. Okay.
- She thinks she is.
Okay, the sacrum should be touching,
that part of your back right below the belt.
- Right here below the belt.
- So that's touching.
- Up against the wall.
- Keep your feet about six inches,
a foot away from the wall.
So you're leaning into the wall.
Your back should be touching here.
Okay and your head forward posture.
So this is about what this woman looked like.
And you'll see this, if you look around for people.
And so I said, "Can you bring your head back
"and touch this part of your head, not the top of your head
"but this part of your head to the wall as best you can."
There you go.
And that's as far as you can get it, right Bob?
and this is about how far that she could get, actually.
You take a ruler and just measure it and eyeball it in here.
You're three inches from the wall
and that's as far as it went and I actually pushed like this
and I couldn't really get too much farther.
It was a little spongy.
So I knew she had some stretch there
but we needed to work on it.
Okay. So you write down your dimension and then you're done.
Now the exercises.
We're gonna go back to the old famous chin tucks.
We've had many videos on these
'cause these work for a lot of different problems.
- Very important.
- Yep. So seated in the chair.
I want you to scooch your bottom back in the chair, Bob.
- So I'm here,
I'm gonna scooch back. - All the way back.
Best posture you can.
And now you're gonna bring your chin tuck in and back.
Now do a chin tuck, like a lot of people do,
that's not correct.
Yeah, they start to look down
or they start to look up towards the ceiling.
It's straight in. - Straight back.
- And this can be hard for some people to grasp.
- A lot of people have trouble with this.
- Right, and you-
- It's like you're backing up a vehicle here.
- Yeah, exactly. You should feel-
- Or. I'm sorry, Brad, go ahead.
- You should feel a little stretch back in here.
It should create no sharp pain, just that stretch pain.
- Throw the pie in my face, Brad.
- Yep. So it's like this (vocalizing) and back.
(vocalizing) That's kinda fun.
Keep going. It's like a yo-yo.
Anyways. (chuckling)
- Then some people do the over pressure.
Do you wanna talk about that now or?
- Yeah, that's a good point, Bob, go ahead.
- A lot of times people will do over pressure.
You can take the thumb right here,
in between the thumb and the finger
and just push back a little bit.
Some people just go like this with a couple of fingers.
And start giving a little bit of stretch.
Pressure on, pressure off.
- Good.
- Pressure on, pressure off.
- I think that's a good way to think about it.
- Pressure on, pressure off.
- About 10 times is good enough.
Do that about three to five times per day.
Now you can do it standing as well.
And with this particular person, she really had a hard time.
Like Bob said a lot of people do.
So I said, "We gotta get through this."
And she had a walker, she was a little off balance.
So doing this standing was a little wobbly for her.
So I said, "Well, let's just go back to the measuring point.
"Bring your walker right in front of you, hold onto here."
So she felt very steady.
And I said, "Just try to touch this part of your head
"to the wall."
Not the top, so you're doing this,
but it's the lower part of your head.
What's that called?
The inion?
- [Bob] Oh, the inion. Yeah.
- The inion, I always called it the onion
but it's really the inion.
If you wanna look that up in your anatomy book
and she could do very well, then.
I put her up there and she got it.
- What's nice about this.
You can actually push off a little bit on this, right?
- Yep. And the shoulders go back.
- [Bob] Shoulders back.
- It's a really good posture exercise as well,
head forward posture.
- The point about this exercise, Brad,
is not only is it training you but it's also a reminder.
It's a reminder of where you should be.
- Exactly.
- So you can do these throughout the day just to do a few
and like, "Oh, that's where my head's supposed to be."
Not here.
- Yep. It's that kinda that muscle memory they talk about.
Maybe not exactly, but it's in way of thinking
- No, that's the problem with it,
is after a while, this feels normal.
And then you don't notice
until you see yourself in a picture and you go, "Oh my God."
And this feels abnormal.
This feels like you're really exaggerating going up.
- Right, exactly.
We've got one more position to talk about
and that's laying down in bed.
Chin tucks, as well as pillow posture.
- On the bed.
- [Bob] I think she cut you off.
Are you ready to start again?
Oh, you started. Okay.
- Oh, we're going. Okay.
So you can do the same exercise here.
The head will be up a little bit.
You let your head let gravity do the work here
and then do your chin tucks here.
Now, if you really have serious head forward posture
like this woman, her head would never,
she could never tolerate this.
And what I found out with her
is she's using a very thick pillow at home
and the pillow was actually forcing her head forward.
So I said, "Get a thinner pillow."
And so this is a real thick pillow.
So she's gonna get a pillow half that thickness.
- And some people just use a rolled towel
to start off with, right?
- Yep and you can do that anything to help
with that posture back.
- [Bob] A rolled towel or sheet.
- Oh Bob, I think I'm gonna take a nap.
My head forward posture's improving already.
- [Bob] So do a few chin tucks with that in place, Brad.
'cause that shows you again you can really work on it.
- Yeah, there we go. Good point, Bob.
Now with this woman every week she's gonna do exercises.
I'm gonna go back to the wall and I'm gonna measure her
and then I'm sure she's gonna make some progress.
I don't know, she's in her eighties,
she may not get all the way up
but at least it's gonna improve.
Eliminate the worsening of it.
- And also hopefully decrease pain issues
with something like that. - Exactly.
- So, all right. - All right.
- Thanks for watching.
- Head forward.