♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi there 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.
- All right, today we're gonna talk about
the 10 best shoulder pain relief exercises.
We got 10 of them. You try them.
You see which will work for you,
and those are the ones you apply in your life.
- Just keep working them.
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This week, we're giving away...
- Ah, the large loop bands for exercise and for pull-ups.
- They come with five of them, right?
- Yeah five. Well, we're missing the yellow one, but...
- Vary in thickness, and they come with handles too.
- Yep, there we go.
- Two of them.
- Yeah, we only have one right here.
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- Yeah, and did you say podcasts?
- Oh yeah, we have a podcast too.
- That's right. - We're everywhere.
- That's right.
- The first one is really not an exercise,
but it makes a huge difference.
I have every one of my patients,
shoulder patients do this one.
- Oh, mm-hmm (affirmative)
- I have them take a pillow,
and if you're sitting in a chair, I want that arm supported.
Throughout the day, every time you can,
try to have a pillow to support.
If you're in the car and you're driving,
you should have a pillow supporting your hand.
- Yup, yup.
- And what that does is
a lot of people are having trouble
with placement of their shoulder blade,
and by putting the pillow in place there,
it pushes that shoulder blade up into the right position.
So it's going to give you some relief quite often.
- It takes also the traction
that your arm can put through that joint.
- Right. - It relieves that.
You know, people just say almost always immediately,
"Oh yeah. That does feel better."
- Yeah I mean, they come back the second treatment,
and I usually give them one exercise,
but they all like the pillow.
- Yeah. This is typically one
when that shoulder's pretty painful.
I mean, if you're using it a lot,
it's still a good place to rest it.
- And if you were knitting or something or crocheting,
it's good to have a pillow underneath you.
- I quit doing that a couple of years ago.
- Good for you. All right.
Today, the second one is
we're gonna do the Mulligan technique.
Brian Mulligan, physical therapist from New Zealand.
Right, Brad?
- [Brad] Par excellence. Master.
- And he came up with this one.
So you can do it on a chair
or Brad's going to do with the Booyah stick.
So basically what you're going to do is
you're trying to push the head of the shoulder,
the ball of the shoulder,
down into the socket where it's supposed to be.
A lot of people have trouble with that.
- Yeah, you're not going to actually push it,
but your muscles are going to bring it there.
- Your muscles are going to put it in place.
So what you do is you start
by pushing the hand down to the floor,
and you actually walk away from it
while you're pushing the entire time,
and Indian walk forward again.
- So, if you use a stick, you just think...
I always tell my patients.
Think about pushing the stick down.
- Like you're spearing the ground.
- The angle of the stick is what direction I'm pushing,
and then I walk out, and walk back in.
Now, when you do this, it should feel better,
and you should be able to get more range.
- Right, right.
- With less pain.
- Yeah, it should be a sneaky way
of getting more motion in the shoulder,
'cause look at this once.
If I go right here, my shoulders right there.
But if I go like this, and then I stand up,
I actually got that much range.
- Again, remember all these exercises.
If they create pain, particularly sharp pain,
you cross that one off.
It's not going to be one you're going to do.
Maybe later, as it improves.
- Now, if you want some relief,
and actually doing some good for the shoulder,
this next one is good
because it's strengthening the rotator cuff muscles,
and there's basically three motions that you have to do
to do this, and Brad's going to demonstrate them.
But there actually was a study
that showed that this actually helps
to decrease the pain almost immediately.
So it's something you can do strengthen,
and plus, decrease your pain.
- Sure, yup.
- So 15 to 30 seconds is you do an isometric strengthening.
So Brad's going to show abduction first.
- Okay. So that's out to the side.
I'm going to put the pillow on the wall,
just so you can see when I'm putting pressure,
but 30 degrees, you know?
This is 90.
This is a 45, and we're going to go here,
and that's what they recommend.
- [Bob] Sure. - 30 degrees out.
You can go directly against the wall,
but you'll see there, and I'm pushing in.
You can see the pressure into the pillow.
It's actually more comfortable with the pillow.
- [Bob] Holding it for 15 to 30 seconds.
Again, if it feels better, then it's good for you.
If it actually makes it feel worse, you may not...
You don't want to do that one right now.
- Right, yup. All these injuries are different.
Some respond to different exercises.
Should we do the...
- The motion is an external rotation.
- Yup. So there's two muscles.
The infra...
Spinatus and the teres minor. (laughs)
I, I had it there.
First one was a superspinatus.
- So we're going this way, and again,
we want 30 degrees flection of the humerus,
and out a little bit, so bring it out there.
And I'm just going to...
- Yeah, he's pushing with the whole forearm there.
You see how that's going in?
- [Brad] I'm pushing in that direction.
Hold it 15 to 30 seconds, it's an isometric.
Again, should feel...
If you feel relief, and it's like,
"Oh boy, that feels good."
You know, put that as one of your exercises
you're going to do more often.
- So the fourth muscle of the rotator cuff
is a subscapularis, which actually internally rotates.
So you can actually just do belly presses,
put your hand on your belly,
and push in for 15 to 30 seconds.
Brad actually has been having better luck with this one.
Brad's had some shoulder pain.
- Yeah, from swimming.
I've got a swimmer's shoulder,
and so I take my hand like this,
put my back of my hand right about at the belt level,
and then I pull the hand away from the back,
and that gets it.
- That subscapularis. (Brad laughs)
- Thank you.
- And plus he's doing a little bit
of stretching the muscle too.
- I usually just go pressure on, or pull it out and off.
Out and off.
It's been a very beneficial one for me to do.
I've been happy with it.
- Awesome. All right.
Next one is the Statue of Liberty.
This one you're going to need a broomstick,
or a pole, or some type of device.
We use the Booyah stick
because it's got rubber tips on it,
and its got very good grip.
- Yeah. It's about the right diameter inch,
inch and a half. - Yeah, it works best.
So you can do this possibly standing,
if you're shorter, right?
- Sure.
- But I have to do it in a chair.
- You want to do it facing, and I'll do it profile?
- Sure, that sounds good.
So you're going to secure that, the bottom part of it.
That's why, if you have a broomstick,
you might have to put tape on the bottom or something.
- Yeah, if you've got a chair that has cloth,
it might grip enough.
You don't want it slipping around.
- So what you're going to do is
you're going to work your way up.
Let's say you have a little weakness in the arm even.
You might crawl your way up a little bit,
and then you going to go as far as it'll allow you,
and then you can lean forward.
Now, you maintain the grip. Don't let it slide down.
That's, that's the part of it.
You're trying to put, actually,
a little bit of traction on the shoulder.
So you can get pressure on,
or you can hold it for, you know, 20 seconds,
but you can go pressure on, pressure off,
or you can hold it continuous.
So what's nice about this,
I've had people with arthritis, and rotator cuff problems.
They love this one, because they can see the progress too.
Like, a lot of them start here, you know?
Their shoulder is real tight, and they can't get up,
can't get it up very far.
Then they start here.
But by the time they come back to me, they're up here,
and they're like, "Yeah, I can move my arm better now."
So it's, it works really well for that.
It's again, one you can do it throughout the day, right?
If you have good luck with it, that's all.
- Yeah, I started that one with, actually,
a 13 year old baseball pitcher.
He was pitching, he had to have this motion.
So he would reach way up high, and really stretch it out.
And again, it felt good.
It was a good stretch. It did not create pain.
- We had an Olympic swimmer that it helped.
They commented in the comments.
He said, "I'm a participant."
- Say no more, Bob.
- He's, you know, that's what you're having trouble with.
- That's right.
- All right, next one is...
This is one you should...
Everybody should be doing, to be honest,
because we're all having trouble with posture.
So this is one you do throughout the day, just as, uh...
I've had people really in pain too,
because if you're like this all day long,
you're sometimes pinching the shoulder.
So you do W's, and I like to do W's to Y's.
So you start with a W, and then you go up to a Y,
and while you're going up to the Y,
I'm actually squeezing the shoulder blades
together the entire time.
- Yeah.
- So I don't know if they'll be able to see this, Brad.
So I do a W.
- Look at the wrinkles in his shirt.
- [Bob] And then I keep the W, or I keep the,
the pressure on the scapula,
or the shoulder blades while I'm doing it.
- Come over here. You know, you can do this on the wall.
Then you know you're flat,
and you got really good posture and do that.
My shoulders are tight inherently.
I mean, I was born with tight shoulders, Bob, I think.
- [Bob] Sure.
- Blame it on my fam...
My father. You know, the genetic thing.
- Yup, that's right. All right.
Next one is actually,
this is part of the McKenzie approach.
They start with what you should do
is actually shoulder extension.
- Sure, yeah.
- And I've also seen McKenzie mentioned, like,
if you are working overhead for a long period of time,
you might want to counterbalance it by,
by doing some extension.
- Sure.
- So you can do it with a pole, broomstick,
and you can pull it back,
and really give a good stretch like that.
You can go like Brad's doing in.
Or you can actually, if you have the mobility,
you could even take your hands clasped together,
and just go back like this.
- I have a hard time doing that.
- Yeah, I...
- I usually take a towel.
I'd put a stick and then do it, because it's hard for me.
- But it, again, ten of these.
Pressure on, pressure off. Pressure on, pressure off.
Again, a good preventative one if you're working overhead,
or working maybe on somebody's hair or something, you know?
- Even on a computer. It's just a good exercise.
- All right, next one.
Brad's going to demonstrate.
This is actually cross fiber massage.
This is where we're trying to...
If you think sometimes scar tissue has developed
over some of the tendons,
or they've been pinched for a while,
so they're a little bit damaged.
- This is particularly people that have had
this nagging shoulder problem for, you know,
weeks or even months.
You got to get in there,
and break up some of that scar tissue,
and that's my situation.
- Right, and so, you know,
you got to follow the bone here,
and you can feel the bone right there,
and just a little bit below that, you'll find a tender spot.
Right, Brad? - Yup.
Mine's going away now, but I could easily find it.
That's that super spot. Yup, that's a good idea, Bob.
Uh, right there.
- So you're pushing hard with the fingers.
You're, you're not just moving the skin.
You're actually getting in there,
and really rubbing.
- That's right. - And this is the...
I have to admit, Brad.
This is the one that really helped me at,
at one time I was younger.
I was like, I was doing everything.
Nothing made a difference.
And finally, I started doing this, and, like,
was better in days.
- And this is from Dr. Cyriax.
- Yup. Yup.
- James Cyriax.
You go across this way, not up and down,
but across. - Across the fibers.
- Now I found with mine in the last few weeks.
I do this and this shoulder, and my arm and my hand
always get so fatigued, and I want to go more,
and he suggested minutes, and, you know?
- Yeah, he... - I've got one of these now.
- They like to do them for 15 minutes.
- Yeah. - Which is too long
for most people.
- So what I'm doing now is I take this,
and you have to have the round ball on there.
Don't go straight in on it. That's just going to beat it up.
You have to go sideways, so you're getting that head,
'cause this is...
On these massage guns, they,
they travel forward and backwards,
and that would beat it up.
This actually does that cross friction movement,
and it's much easier, much easier,
and actually, I could feel distinctly
when I'd go over that tendon,
and now I can just barely feel it.
Things are coming in the right direction.
- Yeah, that's what you want to not feel actually,
is when you start doing it,
if it keeps hurting or even gets worse,
you can't do the massage.
It's too tender. You might ice it.
But if you do it, and after, like, 30 seconds to 60 seconds,
it actually starts to feel numb, or a little bit better.
- Yeah. - You are golden.
That is when you want to make sure
you do in the cross fiber there.
- Oh, I'm golden, Bob, 'cause this is feeling good now.
- Yeah, this is always nice
when we develop problems ourselves, (Brad laughs)
because we figured out solutions that, you know,
you, you probably wouldn't have know that.
You wouldn't have known that massager would work on that.
- No, no.
And that's, like, I was stretching when I looked over
and I'm like,
"Gosh. maybe this will make my life a little easier,"
and it is.
- All right, so...
- I went swimming this morning, Bob,
and it's clearly improving.
- Oh, good. So final one is just outright hanging.
This is from Dr. Kirsch. - [Brad] Yep.
- And his book.
I'll find this book while you're hanging, Brad.
- Yeah. Dr. Kirsch is an orthopedic shoulder surgeon.
He's retired now, but he developed this system,
and he wrote a book and he's got, like,
the fourth or fifth edition, and I'm doing it right now,
and this is one of my staple exercises for my shoulder pain
from swimming.
There we go, and now I gently take my pressure
of my body weight down.
I really like the hanging. You can do this on a pull-up bar.
We use the hanging handles.
This works well because you can control your weight
with your back against the wall.
It assures good posture.
You don't start swinging,
and I'm going to slowly bring it down.
When I first started I wouldn't hang, total hang. Now I do.
I take my legs right off the ground, and I'll hang.
And 30 seconds is about all I do.
- Yeah, and you develop better grip strength after a while.
So you can hang on easier.
But Mike, if you want to come over here just real quickly.
So this is, this is his book.
Shoulder Pain: The Solution and Prevention.
The exercise that heals the shoulder,
and relieves back pain, it says too.
So yeah, this is the fifth edition. John Kirsch.
K-I-R-S-C-H, and, uh, he's a really nice guy.
We, we've had some email correspondence.
- Right.
- The testimonials in here are amazing.
People say that it helped them.
- We've, you know, with our personal experience,
and our patients, and the comments we get back from people
that say the started hanging, uh,
and they're having really good success.
So it's, uh, it's a wonderful, wonderful self treatment.
- There we go. We gave you 10 options.
Remember Brad and I can fix just about anything.
- Except for... - A broken heart.
- There you go, Bob.
Yeah, but none of these are going to help.
- No.
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