- All right, Brad, If your back is like this
for any length of time, it's gonna hate you.
- Wow.
- You're gonna have problems.
- Yeah, you're right, Bob.
I agree a hundred percent.
♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet. ♪
- All right, Brad, there comes a time in life
where you have to lean over a countertop or a bed
or maybe a bin.
- Right. To get into it.
- Right. So what I see quite often is nurses
working with patients in bed
and they will get up close to the bed
but they'll bend like this
and they're working on the patient and they gotta, oh!
Just hurts my back thinking about it.
So what you wanna do,
the first step, when you find yourself in this situation
is get a Booyah Stik and actually
(Brad chuckling)
you're gonna think about bending from the hips
and keeping the back straight.
- Can you go the other way, Bob?
Then they can see that much better.
- Sure.
- And you can do this with any stick
that's about four or five feet long.
Contact here, contact here, contact here.
And then you know you have a spine
that's in that neutral, safe position.
- You might try a few of these
when you're not working with a patient.
- (Brad laughing) Right.
- They'd probably want to know what you're doing.
- It does take practice to- - It does.
And it teaches you how to hip hinge.
- Right and then after a while
obviously you can do without it.
- I mean, if you don't have one
just think about imagining there's a stick there
and you're going to, everything's happening from here.
It takes practice and a lot of cognition.
- Now, Brad, how about when you're
at a counter and you're brushing your teeth?
One of the good things to do
is to support your arm whenever possible.
You wanna show that real quick?
- Exactly. Yeah.
I'll have back patients. "Oh, my back hurts
"brushing my teeth."
So it's like, be aware. Be up and tall.
So like my countertop is too short in my bathroom.
My wife's got the tall one
and I'm actually thinking about that.
So do what you have to do to stay tall.
- Yeah, whenever it can un-weight the spine.
It's gonna help if you can put the arm down.
- You brush and it drips down
(both chuckling)
and you lean forward, especially an electric toothbrush.
- When doing the dishes, a lot of times,
if you open the cabinet underneath the sink.
You can actually get a little closer to it
and it's just more comfortable.
- Yeah. There isn't one of these in there,
but usually you open the cabinet
and there's a place to put your foot.
So you can just do this
and that changes the stress on your back can be helpful.
- Or you get the dishwasher.
- Yeah. Then you gotta bend over to load that darn thing.
- That's right. That's right.
You know it's funny, we used to teach,
you could take two tubs, like a plastic tub
and turn it upside down and put another tub
on top of it just to raise up the sink.
But it seems like a lot of work.
- Yeah. And it gets a little complicated.
- All right. Try this one.
Also what you can do is try tightening your abdomen.
That really makes a difference.
It's like having a corset
which we will show you at the end.
But you can actually, if you take your fingers
and you can try to poke 'em in
and tighten up so that you can't.
- Yeah. And it's important you do it on the sides.
If you get those muscles to contract and you can feel 'em
that's gonna be a really good brace for your back.
- Where I found this made a huge difference for me
is shoveling snow, Brad.
I mean, I would just tighten up every time I was gonna lift.
Oh my god. It was the difference between pain and no pain.
- Right. Right.
I find if you just hire it out,
that that makes a difference too. (chuckling)
- That's true, if you have a guy that'll come with a plow.
So, you can also try to increase the arch in your back
or decrease the arch in your back.
- [Brad] And see what feels best.
- Yeah. What feels best.
May experiment again.
But again, what tends to be really bad
is way too much of a curve or rounded back.
All right.
When you're making a bed, Brad,
what's a good thing idea to do?
- Well, if you have the option to raise or lower the bed.
There's a lot of beds now they selling.
Raise it up so you don't have to bend over so far.
In a hospital, nursing home, that's pretty common.
They have electric beds.
The other thing is if you can put one knee
up on the bed and then think about your back posture,
one hand here for support
and the knee or one or the other, so you can reach over.
- [Bob] That makes a big difference.
- And a lot of, really thinking about that Booyah Stik
on the back or a straight stick there.
- The final thing Brad, let's get one too,
you could actually try a lumbar corset,
especially if you're in the throws of back pain
and you're trying to get things to calm down.
I mean, maybe try it for four or five days
just until things are feeling better.
I found, actually some studies that show, Brad,
if you have spondy which you do or you have spinal stenosis,
you maybe should even wear a brace for a while.
I mean, for example, we were talking about,
if you can walk two blocks with a brace on.
but you can only walk 500 feet without it, what's better?
- [Brad] Right.
- You get more walking.
- Right. So you go for a walk,
put your brace on, get a better walk then take it off.
- So why don't you show how that brace works, Brad.
- Yeah. I like this type, Velcro here,
you get it just so it's snug, not tight.
And then when you need to lift something
or you're gonna stress your back, then you can do this
and get it more tight while you do the activity.
And think about that good back posture.
- Now, I think this one is even better, Brad.
- [Brad] I agree.
- It's the same thing, you Velcro once in front
and then there's two Velcro pulls on the side.
- Can you get a good zoom in on that?
There we go. I've used this style before.
I really do like it.
- [Bob] Really cinches up.
- [Brad] This is what I wear
when I ride my riding lawn mower.
- [Bob] Oh it is?
- [Brad] Yeah.
- And that's a good time to wear one of those.
- Because I was sitting there bouncing and it helps
and it feels better and then I take it off.
- Exactly and your back is not gonna get weak
for that short period of time.
- And that is a concern with wearing these all the time
is that your back gets weak or your core.
- Exactly.
All right, that's it, Brad.
- Wow. That was good, Bob.
- But can fix just about anything except for...
A broken Heart.
- Heart broken. Yeah.
- You know what we mean.
- Yeah, we've been around.
(both chuckling)
(upbeat music)