♪ 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 are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion of course, Bob.
- And our opinion matters.
Today we're gonna talk about back pain.
How do you make your back much stronger.
Mike didn't like that.
- Did you say much? - Much stronger.
- Oh yeah. - It's an interesting study
I'm gonna talk about.
But before we do that. - Okay.
- If you're new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide video's on how to stay healthy, pain-free.
And we upload everyday.
Also go to bobandbrad.com because we're always
giving something away.
This week we're giving away a couple Booyah sticks.
- There you go, Bob. - Brad, say it.
- Booyah! - There we go.
You can use that for shoulder pain and back pain.
(mumble) - Balance.
polithera of things. - You can also
find the contest of Facebook.
It will be on BobandBrad.
It will be pinned to the top of the page.
Go to Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok
if you want a 60 second version of our program.
So there was two interesting studies.
One was by Yago I believe, y-a-g-o, in 2009.
I think if you look it up, you know
you use that in a Google you'll come to it.
- You'll get to it. - And there's a other one
by Leinonen, l-e-i-n-o-n-e-n,
in 2003.
Both have involved patients with spinal stenosis.
A type of back pain. - Common in people
as they get older. - As you get older,
especially 50 to 55 and older.
It's a kind of arthritis type of problem.
- Not unusual, and you can live with it.
- So anyway, I'm gonna not give you the specifics
of the results of the studies.
I'm just gonna say overall what they found.
The people who had spinal stenosis, and had no pain.
They had normal EMG's.
That's where they take needles and they're seeing
how your muscles are working.
- Right, they're looking. - Of the back.
- The input tells you how the quality
of the muscle contraction, essentially.
- Most of the people that had pain, in spinal stenosis,
had abnormal EMG's.
In other words their muscles weren't firing right.
They weren't strong.
So what he concluded from this
is that you wanna get your back muscles strong.
And that may in its self, take away your back pain.
- This is again, with people with stenosis.
- Stenosis, right.
But I gotta believe it's gonna carry over a little bit,
don't you think, Brad?
It surely doesn't hurt to have a strong back,
if you're having back pain.
- Which by the way the exercise that we're gonna show
are often times skipped when people do core exercises,
to support the back.
A lot of people think core exercises.
- Your abdomen. - Right.
But you have to strengthen the muscles back here,
if you're gonna do proper core strength.
- Let's talk about first how often you have to do these.
- Okay. - At a minimum,
you could do it twice a week.
I'd be happy with that.
If you wanna, you can do it three times a week,
especially if your really motivated here.
But they found out there's really not
that much more of a benefit.
From doing two to three.
- In this study, that's what this study.
- Yeah, in this study.
- Now if you do it three times a week,
don't do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
- No, right. - Spread it out.
- You've gotta have the day in between.
- Right, so like a Monday, Wednesday, Friday's
a great option. - Only one set.
So if you're busy, you have no excuse to.
This isn't gonna take very long.
We do want you to do 10 to 20 repetitions.
Work up to 20. - Right.
- You gonna start off maybe with 10,
work up to 20 repetitions.
We're trying to increase strength
and endurance of your back.
So your back is a big endurance.
- Right. - You need endurance
a lot of times more than you need the strength.
- They're pastoral muscles, make to contract
and hold contractions for a long period of time.
- So two guidelines here, no pain when you're doing these.
And also you should push towards the point
where the muscle actually fatigues.
- Some people may consider that pain,
but you have to know the difference
between fatigue pain versus the bad pain.
- If you lift weights, you're gonna have to start
to get some discomfort there.
- The muscle burns. - Yeah, the muscle burns.
- That's the good burn.
- Want things to be nice and smooth.
We're gonna show you exercise one and exercise two.
With one mat way, and then we're gonna show you
with weights, so you'll see.
- Yeah, just be patient with us.
- I'm gonna go into the quadruped position,
is what you're gonna start off with.
That means you're on all fours here.
And all you're gonna start off with,
is you're gonna have your back in neutral basically.
I don't want you have it arched this way.
I don't want you have it humped up like that.
And you're gonna start just by lifting the leg up here.
Bring it down nice and smooth.
And you're gonna alternate back and forth
to the point where you do.
Again, eventually you wanna work up
to 20 repetitions each side.
So that would be 40 if you're counting
just going back and forth.
- 20 on a leg, right.
And that may take a while for people build up
to that strength.
Keep in mind, we're doing this on this plinther bed.
Don't do it on a bed. - Do it on the floor.
- On a carpeted floor is desirable.
- All right Brad, that becomes too easy for me.
I get up to the 20, I'm going,
I'm not feeling any struggle anymore.
So now I'm gonna do a alternate arm
and a alternate leg.
So I'm gonna go ahead and do basically the pointer dog.
- So he's got the left leg and the right arm.
And now you can see how it looks from this side.
And he's thinking about contracting his core muscles.
His stomach and all the way around,
while he's doing these, to maintain a neutral
or straight back. - Yeah, so you're getting
a little more benefit here than just the back.
You're getting also your abdominal core
there a little bit too.
- [Brad] If you're an older person,
or if you have problems with balancing with this.
That may be an issue, and you're not alone.
- We'll show you an alternative
that you can do without that.
Okay now Brad, we're gonna go to weights.
Let's say, now I can do 20 of those.
I've gotten so much better.
So now you're gonna start going to weights.
And you start off with a one pound cuff weight.
Now these are three pounds, 'cause that's all we have.
And I'm gonna be curious Brad,
at how hard these are gonna be,
'cause I've never done these before.
- Yeah, well I have a feeling that
like any of these.
Most of these exercises they look easy.
But when you actually do 'em,
then you put some weights on.
- Yeah, you see somebody else doing it,
and it looks very easy.
And you're like, "Well, that doesn't look that tough."
It's funny, a lot of times.
It's really good to do these every so often.
The exercise that we have patients do.
Because you forget how tough some of them are.
- Now Bob's a tall guy.
His leg alone is six foot long.
So when he goes out, three pounds at that distance,
is quite a bit.
- So I'm gonna start off now just again with the legs.
And we're gonna work that.
And I do feel that more on my back.
- So you're talking right on the belt line.
Those are the muscles that are working.
- I can feel more stress on that now.
It isn't too bad yet though.
But I think when I get up to 20 on each side.
- So notice Bob is taking his time.
He's got good form. - Yeah, nice and smooth.
Again, it should be pain-free.
Then eventually you're gonna go do this.
And these are gonna be harder now,
because you're gonna work on balance.
- [Brad] Now, do they want you to put wrist weights on too?
Or just on the ankles. - No they don't.
They didn't say anything about wrist weights.
It would be an interesting.
- [Brad] Yeah, if you're an over-achiever,
you could probably try that.
- I'm guessing that would really work
the upper back muscles.
- [Brad] That would probably be over-kill.
- Can I have a pillow then, Brad?
- [Brad] Yeah, you gonna take a nap?
- Yip, I'm gonna take a nap.
So if you can't kneel down like that.
Or you are worried about your balance and that.
You can start off this way.
And obviously you would start off without the weights.
Your pillow underneath you, maybe even two.
And you can even be up on your elbows here.
- Sure. - And you're just
gonna lean down like this.
And you're gonna lift up like that.
And again, you'd start off without the weights.
Just a slight bend at the knee.
And you'd revert over and again.
You'd work up to 20 on each side.
- You could adjust this pillow up and back.
Whatever feels comfortable on you.
- I might go like this. - Sure, you bet.
- Again, this is a pretty flat pillow,
and with the cushion I would probably use two pillows.
- [Brad] Sure, there's nothing wrong with that.
- And again, it should be pain-free.
This is a good option for people if they
have more trouble with balance
or difficulty with strength even.
They could give this a option.
And again, when you get up to 20.
You can do 20 without weights,
then you're gonna start adding weights again.
And you can go up to five pounds eventually.
- [Brad] And that's what the study (murmur).
- That was the study.
Once you hit five pounds,
you're into maintenance then.
You've strengthen the back pretty well.
- [Brad] I thought you were gonna say
their into the Olympics.
- They're in the Olympics.
- [Brad] So you must be feeling
these muscle fatigue by now, Bob.
- Yeah, I am.
When you're this way, they don't have you doing this, Brad.
- Sure. - They just had
you work the legs.
So it would be a single way to do that.
Well there you are, Brad.
What do you think?
- Well, I think it's a good idea.
And I really think that if you do want to do core exercises
and you're not doing that.
This is. - A good option.
- As a matter of fact, we did a video on a study
that said, how to strengthen.
And they used this exact exercise for core.
So things relate. - Did they use weights too?
- No, no they did not use weights.
They did it on college kids,
and they measured their strength before and after.
It was the same exercise, I think they did have
a ball in there as an option.
But the same concept.
So I think we're in the right territory.
- You know, even in a quadruped position,
when you do it, you could have
an exercise ball underneath you.
- Sure, right. - I mean that would
give you a little more stability.
- Quadruped is that hands and knees.
- Yeah, the first one that I showed you.
Remember, Brad and I can fix just about anything.
- Except for. - A broken heart.
- But we're gonna work on it.
- Yeah. - No, we have
been working on it.
- We're gonna fix those relationships out there too.
- Yeah, well maybe we can get paid for that.
(laughing)
- Counseling. - We'd be councilors.
- Yeah, thanks.