♪ Bob and Brad, ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists on the internet. ♪
- (clapping) Hi folks I'm Bob Schrupp physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- We are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion of course Bob.
- Today, we're gonna talk about the top five exercises to do
before knee replacement.
This could probably actually be done
before a lot of knee surgeries,
especially if you're having knee pain right now.
So we don't wanna exclude anybody.
- (laughs) Absolutely. - 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.
And Gosh, you're gonna wanna go to bobandbrad.com this week,
because this week we're giving away
a sleepovation mattress.
And look at the individual mattresses
and the channels here.
And this is only a sample of one.
- [Brad] Yeah, they're normal sizes
- Yeah, they're normal sizes.
Go to (indistinct) bobandbrad.com
go to the program
not the program section.
The give-away section, there we go.
Then you can also go to Facebook.
It will be pinned to the top of the page.
You can go to Instagram, Twitter or TikTok
for a 60-second version of our program.
- There you go Bob, thank you.
- So before surgery, as much as possible,
you wanna improve your strength and range of motion.
You're gonna get a better outcome.
But while you're doing these exercises,
we don't want any sharp or stabbing pains or shooting pains.
Stop if you're feeling that.
- We call this actually prehab.
Rehabilitation prior to surgery, very important.
- Yeah, a lot of times what we might have you do,
before you do these exercises,
you might just walk a little bit to warm up the legs,
for a few minutes just so to sure the muscles are moving.
But first one we're gonna start off
with just a very simple one.
We're gonna need a chair with arms on it.
And because your legs are sore,
what you can do is
I don't want your knees bent beyond 90 degrees.
I want it to 90 degrees only.
- Right, so that's at right angle
if you will. - Yeah, right angle.
And while you're in this position,
what you gonna do is you're gonna use your arms,
but I'm also using my legs.
So I'm just getting some strengthening here.
And a lot of times actually,
if you could try to hold yourself up on the way down.
This chair is a little bit low for me, isn't it?
- Right, if it is too low,
you can put a cushion or a pillow or two underneath.
- Yeah that's better. - And that will make-
That'll make a big difference.
- Yeah, that's much better.
So again very gentle.
Most people can do this.
If the side hurts,
take a little more pressure on your arms,
but it's just a good warmup, good start.
10 times, two times
we're gonna have you do all these like 10 times,
two times a day.
- And you can actually shift your weight
and put a little more weight through your good leg
with that as well.
If your other one is- - Right exactly.
- Weak or painful.
- All right, the second
all the other ones are gonna be done in bed to some extent.
Brad will finish with the knee glide on the
and the feet glide on the chair too.
But why don't you,
do you mind starting with,
we're just gonna do a straight leg raise supine.
So he's laying flat on his back.
- This would be the sore leg. - [Bob] The fault leg, yeah.
- It helps if you bend this knee
and bring this up.
It takes pressure off your back.
They just go much better if you do that.
We're gonna lift up
you gonna straighten your knee out the best you can
and lift up with good motion control
and get it up to about the height of the other leg is fine.
And then back down.
And we're gonna do 10 of these like Bob had mentioned.
- [Bob] So, basically you're strengthening the quadricep
in an isometric manner,
and almost everybody should be able to do these.
Now you may get tired.
You may get fatigued,
but try to work yourself up to 10 again, two times a day.
Short arc quads.
So all you're gonna do
is you're going to take a rolled towel.
A lot of times people take a coffee can
and put a towel over the top.-
Yeah, if you can get one of the metal ones.
The plastic ones are squishy a little bit.
- [Bob] Oh, also I guess someone had mentioned
a two-liter bottle and putting
just some (indistinct) around that.
- Yeah. - [Bob] Would work too.
- Anything about six inches in diameter or so.
It's not real critical.
- [Bob] So yeah now you're doing just some short arc quads,
and this is one that you start off
with you're tightening up
and eventually you might even be able to
put a little bit of weight on your ankle.
- Sure you bet.
And really this is one of those things
that you may not be aware of,
but you can feel those quadriceps tighten up.
And if you do that before surgery,
after surgery you can do the same thing.
'Cause those muscles are not gonna wanna-
- [Bob] Yeah they're not
gonna activate. - Fire after surgery
because of the surgery.
So that'll just be a good,
it's a good prehab exercise
- Yeah, you'll be ahead of the game.
And you could just take your purse, put it on here,
especially if it's, (laughs)
some ladies have purses (Brad laughs)
they won't be able to lift them.
All right, short arc quads, two sets of 10.
Now, we're gonna just do-
we wanna make sure the knee has as much range of motion
as far as straightening is concerned.
So we're gonna go ahead and just take that rolled towel
and put it right underneath the foot or the ankle,
so that it's comfortable.
And just let gravity do its thing.
I mean, it's a good one to two-minute stretch.
- You may not even be aware
that your knee doesn't straighten.
If you put both legs together,
you might see that this one drops lower than this one.
And so we wanna eventually get that range of motion,
until it is straight.
It's gonna help you rehab after surgery.
- Yeah, the point we're trying to make with all these,
these are really simple exercise to do.
And really no excuse for not being able to do them,
but they're gonna help you in the end.
So all the ones we've done so far, two sets of 10,
except for this one.
You're gonna hold for like a minute or two.
So, and I'm going to grab the,
do you wanna start with the knee glide Brad, of feet glide?
- Well, Bob let's go with the-
- [Bob] Probably the knee glide.
- Yeah, that's the one I was thinking.
I'm gonna take my shoe off just-
- We need a towel too. - It represents-
- Mike do you wanna grab a towel?
- 'Cause the nice benefit about this
is you can do these laying down
and after surgery, this is a big benefit-
- Yeah you're gonna wanna have a knee glide after surgery
because what we're gonna work
Mike's gonna throw a towel in.
This is gonna help you get your bending and straightening
and strengthening all in one.
And how are you sitting Brad? - Good, it's good.
- [Bob] So what's nice about this
is obviously you can work on it
while you're in bed.
And so after surgery,
you can get a head start by doing it in bed
and then eventually you can go on the floor.
- Right in the hospital bed,
and then at home.
Of course, it's really nice and smooth.
If you don't have one of these,
there's another good option
you can try and slide your foot on the bedsheets,
but they wrinkle. - Not gonna work for everyone.
- Yeah, it does not work well.
- Another thing,
if you need some help, right after surgery,
just starting to get a little movement.
Nearly anybody can help you do this.
- And sometimes you could help yourself with your hands
if you can I think put a towel around your knee.
- Now, if you wanna go with the premium version (laughs).
So that was the knee glide.
And by the way, it's very lightweight.
It's 3.1 pounds
- Yeah, that's what this one is.
That one is just right around five pounds.
- Around five pounds.
And what's nice about this one
is afterwards you can actually use it to do exercises too.
You can actually keep your knees fit if you-
- You can work the other knee as well,
so that doesn't get stiff.
Because if you have some arthritis in your other knee,
staying still is one of the worst things you can do.
I had one person, a friend of mine,
he went in the hospital,
kept his knee still for a different procedure.
His arthritic knee got so bad,
he had to wear crutches
for just after being in bed for a day and a half
completely motionless.
- Yeah, and so arthritis does not like to be still.
Joints like movement. - That's right.
- So anyway, this is another nice option.
What you then can progress to
is actually doing some on the floor here.
- [Brad] In a chair obviously.
- In a chair, right.
- [Brad] And it could be a wheelchair after surgery
or at home in any one of your chairs.
Typically a firm chair,
not a piece of lounging furniture
where it's soft and cushy.
- Now, the advantage of this also is
that you can get a little bit of help
by putting this stand up.
And so it's gonna help you in deflection,
but it's a little harder to extension into quadricep.
- [Brad] And if you don't have one of these,
you can put a towel on a floor,
as long as it's a smooth shiny floor.
So that that works.
That's a traditional way.
- And then this goes the other way too,
and it actually works the hamstrings a little more.
- [Brad] Yeah, that's a really nice hamstring device
for the points in the rehab.
- So after you've had surgery,
we generally recommend like three times a day
for five minutes.
It's up to you.
You could go two times a day for five minutes,
as you're preparing.
It's all gonna really help.
And I think we've gone over this enough Brad,
but they probably understand
that the feet glide is gonna work the same way.
Again, it's gonna allow you to work both legs
at the same time when you're seated.
And you can get a little bit of workout.
I always point out what this-
- This also has a stilt
- [Bob] It has a stilt that way.
I wanna point out with this.
Brad always gets upset I think when I put this out,
there is a little bit of swish, swish sound, so-
- Yeah, but it's not like a stationary bike
or a treadmill. - No.
But it's not silent.
There is a little
so if you're gonna be in your office or something
with other people,
they're gonna go, "What's that sound?"(laughs)
So, but, and again, this goes this way too.
So we just,
we're really proud of these.
We think they really serve a great purpose.
- [Brad] Yeah, exactly. - And our patients
have done so much better
when we send a knee glide home with them and so-
- I've heard patients say when they come from the hospital
and they start using that they say,
"Well, why don't have one of these at the hospital?
"All we got was a-"
- A towel. - A towel to put on the floor
it's like, well it's taken time.
- I guess, we're better than the hospital (laughs).
Brad and I can fix just about anything.
- Except for- - A broken heart.
- But these knee glides are not gonna help
the broken heart. - No, I can see that.
Not at all. - I don't think.
I'll work on that.
- All right, thanks for watching.
(playful music)