♪ Bob and Brad. ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists on the internet. ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And we're the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion of course, Bob.
- We should get our tape measure, Brad.
We should be six feet apart.
- That's right.
(laughs)
- Everybody, practice that social isolation
or whatever... - There you go.
- Social distance, that's all.
Okay, how to crack your back between your shoulder blades.
We're going to show you seven ways to do this.
- Um.
- We're going to stay in our lane here.
We're physical therapists.
All we're gonna show you, these are gonna be safe to do,
cause we're going to basically show you stretches
that may lead to a crack. - Right.
- In fact, quite, often, we tell you,
"Don't look for the crack.
"Don't listen for the crack, because it may
"or may not happen, but you'll still get benefit
"from the stretch." - Right.
- So let's go ahead and, oh by the way,
before we start, Brad.
- Oh yeah.
- If you're new to our channel, please take a second
to subscribe to us.
We provide videos how to state healthy, fit, pain free,
and we upload every day.
Also, go to bobandbrad.com,
because we're always giving something away.
Right now we're giving away the TENS Unit.
- There you go.
- TENS Unit, fantastic for chronic pain.
Gets you off those opioids, or those other narcotics.
This is an easy device to use
and it's fairly inexpensive. - Right.
They're nice units.
- You can also find it on Facebook.
It'll be pinned to the top of the page.
And if you want a short version of us,
go to TikTok, Instagram,
and Twitter. - Twitter. Twitter.
- All right, first one.
If you have a folding chair, Brad,
the folding chair's often have a low back.
- Sure - So they hit you
in that spot, you know, kinda in that mid-back.
- Yeah. - And that's the area
we're talking about.
Lotta people get knots and stuff in there,
and pain in there,
so it's a good place to stretch.
This chair is pretty low,
so I'm gonna go ahead and pretend it's a folding chair.
- Okay.
- We're gonna have one of them placed here.
Take a towel, put it over the top of it.
That'll help cushion it a little bit.
- Little more comfortable. - Yeah.
And it's very simple.
All I'm gonna have you do is bring your arms up.
You can bring them behind your neck like this,
or behind your head, and just stretch back.
Just slowly and under control.
I just felt a little pop, not bad.
- Yup, now this is a good example of a chair
that's too high. - Yes.
- You know, if I did this, and, no,
it's not going to work.
It's too high.
- So show em what you can do.
- So, you take a ball and it works.
I have a ball like this kinda flat,
and that works better, a soft ball
or one that's like this, that's flat.
And you put that where you need to put it.
And you'll tell.
It's right between the shoulder blades,
and I'm gonna do the same thing.
You can do the old W stretch, hands behind the head,
the Hallelujah, and I'm gonna move the ball up.
And you can change your position slightly
and you may get that crack that you're looking for,
at what level.
One way or another, it's a good stretch
and it's gonna help stretch out the pecs.
It's gonna help get those, that posture where you want it,
out and stretched.
- Yeah, I've had patients said that this is the only thing
I showed them, - Uh huh.
- and they got better with that.
- Sure. - Quite often when
they have that mid-back pain.
All right, the next one, Brad, if you can move that ball.
- Oh yeah.
- This could be, you could do it with a foam roller.
Basically, almost the same thing.
It's gonna be the same principle with most of these.
I'm gonna get into the mid-back here
and you could just roll back and forth.
You could bring your arms up like this.
You could keep em down, whatever you want to do,
but you'll get into that spot.
You like to roll more up into this area, don't you?
- Yeah, I do like to get up closer to the neck.
- This is a little bit harder on a mat.
It's not rolling as well
as it should. - Yeah.
You need to do it, I like a carpet
or floor works the best, in my opinion.
One thing you don't want to do is roll down
on the low back.
- Correct.
- Keep it to that mid section between here
and that low neck.
- Yeah, the other thing is you don't want to roll up
into the neck too far either.
- Yeah, right, exactly.
We're talking shoulder blades.
- We're on number, what number are we on?
Number four.
So this is called the Backpod.
- Ah yes.
- Now, this is my favorite thing
and the reason I use this every morning.
I like it because you can get real specific
on the areas of the back.
Brad, you mind turning around?
- Oh, sure.
- So every morning, while I'm doing my stretches,
I lay and I place the Backpod on this side,
this side, down, down, down, down.
I hit six spots. - Yup.
- And I don't even usually put it
in the middle, Brad.
I don't know if you do or not?
- No, I don't.
- I just stay off to the sides.
And it's a real hard, but it's got a little bit
of a cushioning on top.
- Right.
- For some of you, this'll be too much.
You won't even be able to handle this.
You'd have to start with a towel on it, or.
- Yeah, show them how to use it,
cause I don't know if it's really clear yet.
- You wanna show it?
- Sure.
- So you've gotten to the point
where you don't use a towel anymore.
- Right, initially, I did.
I put a towel on it like that.
Just to give a little more cushion.
But after I got used to it,
now I don't use this.
I use this mostly for costochondritis,
like a chest pain and this actually,
this is why he invented this.
Steve, Steve. - Steve from New Zealand.
- Yeah, he's a physical therapist.
He's actually got a nice video explaining on
how this works for costochondritis,
but, oh, there we go.
I did get a cavitation, Bob, a little crack was there.
- [Bob] Yeah.
- Oh, there we go.
- Now let me just tell you, first off,
this is very expensive.
I wish it wasn't,
but I think Brad and I know from making products ourselves,
it's really expensive to make molds,
and then he's gotta ship it from overseas.
My guess is he's not making that much on it.
But they are expensive.
I'm gonna just warn ya.
- I can tell you this though,
it's a lot cheaper to buy this,
than for me to go to the emergency room
because I got chest pain.
(laughing)
- Well, anyway, the thing is,
there's a couple of times,
I was not using this for a couple days.
One time was a recent funeral,
and I'm starting to get this pain
up in my neck and between my shoulder blades,
and I'm like, "Gosh, I can't stop doing this
"for two days and my back pain comes back?"
That's the case, Brad.
Like I even got one, when we go to our cabin on the weekend.
- I just got another crack.
- There we go. - I'm thinking about
- I'm glad you're happy. - You should
take this with you to weddings, to social, whatever,
and just if you need it.
- Steve just sent me a couple, a bunch,
so I've grabbed a couple already for my cabin.
- Yeah, it's a buy.
- Anyway, next one, number five,
you can actually go up to a door frame.
I'm gonna go to the corner here, Brad.
You can go to a corner,
like a door frame would be here and here,
and everybody has one of these in their house, thankfully.
And what you're gonna do is put your arms like this,
and you're gonna squeeze like this
and squeeze your shoulder blades together
and really lean in.
And it's a lot of times, just that will cause the cracking
that you're looking for.
- If it doesn't crack, it's a great exercise
for your posture. - It's a great stretch.
You can even do one arm at a time.
- Sure.
- And you know, keep one arm on your hip
and go forward like that.
So which ones do we have left here, Brad?
- Well, I think we're at six. - Number.
That was number six.
The single.
Number seven is the booyah stick.
- Ah, yeah.
- So, we just found out
this works really actually quite well.
Yeah, you get it up into that spot
like, you can get it up even higher,
like I get it way up into between the shoulder blades.
I take my arms, my elbows, and I pull em forward,
and I lean back at the same time.
Now my back was not cracking now because
- Well, you've already cracked it
- I cracked it all not so long.
So, but it's just.
(breathes out)
I once said to go ahead and get a Booyah stick
just for this.
(laughing)
But if you're on the fence, and you're thinking
about getting one for your shoulder,
or some other issue that you've got going on,
this is a little bonus that'll work for you.
- Yep.
- All right, Brad, anything else you wanna add.
- Ooh, no, no, I'm feeling great, Bob.
- All right.
Keep you at a distance here.
- Oh yeah.
- Remember, Brad and I can fix just about anything.
- Except for - a broken heart.
- There you go.
- But we got time to work on it now.
(laughing)
(upbeat music)