♪ Bob and Brad, the two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists on the internet ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- We're the most famous physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion of course.
- Wow Brad, today we're gonna talk about how a single finger
can help neck turning pain and stiffness.
Most of your neck, this is gonna be a surprise to you,
a lot of your neck turning occurs
way at the top of your neck.
And that's why a single finger's gonna work,
but we'll get into that.
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So, what are we giving away Brad?
Just real quickly.
- The? - Yeah I got it.
You know you'll never recall,
Vibrating Peanut Massage Ball.
- And it was really a nice device
to get those muscles loosened up
and boy does that thing ever vibrate, look at that.
You can take it to parties if you want.
And there's a multi-task.
- It works three hours on a charge.
This thing, it's a really good price.
It's like 30 bucks with all their coupons and stuff.
So, let's go to work Brad.
Do you wanna turn that thing off?
- It's got it's own mind. - It's gone.
All right, I'm gonna go to work while he's doing that.
So, if we look at the spine,
and this is orientated like this.
So, if you look, you got seven vertebrae
that make up the cervical spine.
The top two, we have the atlas and the axis.
Just like the atlas that you would have for geographical,
then you have the axis.
Well you have the atlas and the axis.
This has a little point that goes up
and this rotates around it.
But anyway, 60% by some reports,
'cause I've seen different research that showed four.
60% of your rotation occurs right here.
- [Brad] So, when you turn your head, the rest of your neck
could be stationary. - Almost stationary.
A lot of the movements coming from here.
I imagine some movements coming from there too,
but the vast majority is coming from that area.
So, when you have pain when you turn your neck,
that's the first place we look.
And what you can do, might as well show this right away.
You can take your finger,
and you put it right on this big wing
that's coming out here.
- [Brad] Which is, not the number one vertebrae right?
- Right the number one vertebrae.
You put your finger there and then you turn
and when you turn.
- Here I'll turn the head, you put your finger there Bob.
- I'm holding that vertebrae and what happens,
they'll be turning above it and turning below it going on.
So if that joint is a little sticky,
and it's causing pain, that'll loosen it up.
- So, it's just what we'd call immobilization.
- Right. - But a gentle one.
- A gentle one, yes.
And we're gonna give you some of the precautions here.
Now, the reason I'm bringing this up, by the way,
was it happened to me.
In fact, I was, just every time I would turn to the left,
ow, ow, ow, ow, it just hurt.
And it was kinda dangerous because I ride my bike,
and you gotta look over your shoulder.
I don't have those mirrors like you do.
Don't you have sensors and stuff?
- I have radar. - Radar yeah.
And so I gotta look over my shoulder to make sure a car
is not gonna take me out.
- Well you gotta be careful.
- Yeah, and I was hurting every time I turned,
even when I was running,
so all I do is I take the one finger,
I'm gonna show you how to do it in a minute.
I put it in place here
and I turn and I hold it and it actually feels good.
- You did this while you're running?
- No, not when I'm running, before I run.
And when it's done, it actually takes the pain away,
for a while, then I had to redo it.
But I did it for a bunch of days and finally it's gone now.
- But you didn't invent this.
- No, no, this was Brian Mulligan.
He's a physical therapist.
I think he's still alive, isn't he?
- Brian, yeah he's getting up there.
- He's getting up there.
Brad and I actually got the opportunity to see him.
He's from New Zealand, quite a guy.
- Yeah he's a character but he's a good speaker, unlike us.
- And so, he came up with this idea.
I'm gonna show you a different way to do it too,
like the way that he teaches it.
But there are certain people
we wouldn't want you to try this on.
I don't want you to do it on children.
I don't want you to do it on the very elderly.
'Cause a lot of them are gonna be osteo product.
They're gonna have osteoporosis.
We don't wanna be pushing on the bone in that instance.
Rheumatoid arthritis, the ligaments can get real loose
and you don't wanna be messing with it.
If you're on steroids or if you had neck trauma,
meaning that you were in a car accident,
and had whip lash or something like that,
I don't want you messing with that.
- Surgery, if you had surgery.
- After surgery, good point too, I wouldn't do it either.
If you even have any, if you move your head
and you feel giddy and sick and you got visual disturbances,
that might be something else.
- Red flag, don't do it.
- So, the first rule of thumb though,
is no pain should be felt whatsoever when you're doing this.
- You're just stretching a little bit.
- You're just stretching and it actually feels good.
So, I'm gonna show, can I sit on that, maybe, Brad?
- Oh, well that's why I got it here,
getting it warmed up for ya Bob.
There ya go. - Here we go.
So, if you look at the base of my head here,
I'm gonna go right down into the center.
This is where the skull meets the neck.
The suboccipital area, we call it here.
- [Brad] You can follow that bone, the occipital bone.
- So, this right in the center.
If you move over about an inch,
you're almost behind the ear,
but if you move over about an inch,
you'll be there.
And you just hold your finger there and you hold it.
So I'm pushing in and then I turn at the same time.
I go on the side where you feel the pain.
So, if I feel the pain on this side,
I'm gonna go one inch over
and I'm gonna turn towards that side.
So, if the pain's on this side,
when I turn it's on this side,
I'm gonna go one inch over, turn this way and hold.
And I do like six repetitions
and then I don't do anymore.
I just see how it felt.
I don't do anymore until the next day.
- You might feel increased range of motion.
I teach our assistants to do this on our patients
and we measure first, and then we have them do it,
and almost always there's a little bit more range of motion
and less pain.
- I mean, I hate to discredit your title,
but you could use two fingers
if you wanted to get more support.
- Oh yeah absolutely. - One on top of the other.
'Cause I know that's what I like to do
and the same thing and get in there.
- Absolutely right, Brad.
Two fingers might give a little more.
- So, we have to change the title?
- Now we gotta change the title,
call it two fingers can help neck turning pain.
But you can also, actually use a belt
and I'ma show that way too.
This is how Mulligan teaches it,
but he teaches it with a towel.
I find the belt, like a leather belt, works better.
- 'Cause it just grabs to the skin.
- You probably started trouble when you see this,
'cause I bet your old man took this to you a few times.
- Well, I didn't wanna go there.
I was getting a little shaky when you pulled it out.
- All right, so I'm gonna try to miss my mic here,
but so you're gonna put it right on the base of your head,
right below the skull, kind of where your finger
was supposed to be.
Now let's say I wanna turn to the left,
you're gonna drop this one down, don't go like this.
Drop this one down and this one's gonna come across,
and it should be up about by your eye.
- Sure, is that the maxilla bone?
- Yeah, maxilla and mandible.
Yeah, it's maxilla.
So, anyway, or the orbit.
Orbital?
- We don't do a lot of therapy around the eyes.
- Okay, so anyway, I'm holding this one down
and I'm pulling this one across,
and just give it a gentle stretch,
and you're gonna feel, again, the stretch back here
and again, it should not be painful.
It's just another way of doing this.
Again, you can do the same number of reps,
like six the first day.
If it feels good, you could, in the next day,
you could do it up to three times a day.
And that's what I was doing.
- So you just do it the one direction
or can you do it both?
- Well, if it helps in the one direction,
there's no need to go the other way.
- Assuming that way's already normal.
- Right, if that's already normal.
But generally, there's one that's worse than the other.
It's a great little technique, give it a try.
Again, let's be safe here.
Don't go crazy with it
and try it six repetitions the first day.
Wait till the next day to make sure
it didn't make things worse or something like that,
but generally, if it doesn't hurt while you're doing it,
it's not gonna make it worse.
Some of us still have old cars
that we can't look at the screens
and I have to look back yet.
- Yeah, exactly.
But those screens are gonna make people
lose range of motion.
- They are. - Over the next decade or two.
As people age.
- There's no reason they're gonna have to look back at all.
And the cars are gonna drive for them.
- Right, you're gonna fall asleep while you're driving.
All right.
- All right, thanks everybody for watching.