♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
(clapping)
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together, we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today, we're gonna cover the seven best
exercises to build a strong back without equipment.
By the way, you could probably write that whole word out,
X instead of exercise.
We're gonna show you stuff you can do at home,
you don't need equipment.
Because, you know, we're cheapskates,
and we don't like to spend money, so-
- And actually, these exercises are just absolutely,
they're made by a therapist, they work well.
You will build a strong back.
- Yeah, one thing you have to keep in mind,
when you're trying to build the muscles on the back,
you're actually gonna wanna, also, keep in mind
some of the muscles that attach into the back.
So, were gonna wanna make sure you're strengthening
your glutes, because they attach through the fascia.
- Right.
- Up into the back.
You want to strengthen your lats,
your latissimus dorsi.
'Cause they also attach into the back.
- Right.
- Your abdominal muscles,
they attach into the back.
So, were gonna wanna work on core.
Anything else?
Upper and lower back, we wanna get.
- Bob, I was already going on to something else,
I can't back track.
- Okay.
- What I wanted to say is that lumbar fascia,
what he's talking about, is a very strong tissue
that covers this whole area, and all these muscles
connect to it.
So, it's like you have a back belt,
your own built-in back belt.
- Like a corset.
- Yeah, really you strengthen all the muscles to it,
and you cannot get it, you cannot reproduce it
with an external brace.
- Right, right.
And it's gonna protect your back,
and keep it out of trouble.
So that's what you want to do.
By the way, if you are new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos on how to stay healthy,
and fit, and pain free.
Also, you're gonna wanna go over to the Facebook
and like us, Bob and Brad.
The TENS, were still giving away five TENS units.
This is going on 'til, I believe, Sunday.
And I think we pick the winner on Sunday.
Yeah, so this is 2018, if you're watching this
a couple years from now.
- Right, sorry, then you missed out.
But, if you go over to Facebook,
we've got it, there's a post that tells you
how to sign up for the contest.
You can also look for the contest on YouTube.
It's under, it says, 'Giveaway TENS Unit',
you'd have to do a search under that.
- Sure.
- Bob and Brad, so,
all right, so we understand the muscles we wanna strengthen.
We're gonna start off, you're gonna start off
by doing the reverse snow angels, Brad.
- Oh, yes.
Now, I'm telling you, this is an exercise that-
- [Bob] Are you gonna use the pillows?
- Oh, yeah.
- [Bob] Okay.
- I like the pillows.
You don't have to use the pillows,
but if you're doing this, like, on a floor,
carpeted floor, which I'd recommend,
I would get a couple pillows like this.
Elevates the chest, gives you a little more room
for your arms to work.
But, this really does a nice job on the muscles
of the back, from the waistline up to the shoulders.
Okay.
So, I'm just going to, palms are down.
I'm gonna go arc up, and back to here,
and palms are still down.
- So you can see, he's kept the palms down
the whole way.
It's almost like he's swimming.
What stroke would this be, Brad?
- The butterfly, Bob.
- The butterfly, okay.
- Nothing but the butterfly.
- So we called it, you know, they gotta re-change
that to the angel, the snow angel.
That'd have to be the new swim.
- Oh yeah, right.
They'd like that one.
- Yeah, bet you they'd accept that readily.
- But, you're really thinking about your
shoulder blade movement.
When I'm coming back, I'm thinking about
moving my shoulder blades down into my back pockets,
if I had some there.
- And you're squeezing them a little bit, right?
- That gets those lower traps working,
which we really like to innervate those muscles
for a good, strong back.
- This is a lot harder than it looks,
wouldn't you agree, Brad?
- Oh, Bob.
I'm not just grunting because I want to make it
sound real.
- I would start off with just a set of ten.
You know, eventually, you can work up to higher levels.
You can do 15.
- Sure.
- It's a posture muscle, so a lot of times
we do higher reps.
- Yep.
- All right, do you need a little chance to rest, Brad?
Or are you ready to go?
- Don't worry, I can get through it, Bob.
- All right.
So now, what he's gonna do is, this is gonna seem like
a very subtle one.
But, his arms are gonna be straight,
and he's just gonna, palms down on this one too, Brad.
Now, I'm gonna have you lift up, and you're gonna bring,
and yep.
All he's doing is moving the arms forward and back.
Yep, there you go.
- So, not this.
- Nope.
- Keep the elbows straight, and it's all-
- All the work is occurring right here.
- Well, even some lower than that,
but all those back muscles are just going to town.
And I don't mean maybe, Bob.
- I'm guessing you're working the serratus anterior here
a little bit, too.
- Oh, I think so, Bob.
I'm working more than that serratus, baby,
this is going, the whole back is feeling the burn.
- You don't have to put your head up like that, by the way.
- Oh, sorry Bob.
(laughing)
I like to see the skeletons popping up.
- You wanna see the smoke coming out?
What'd you say?
- The skeleton, Sam, I was looking at him.
- Not the smoke coming out of your ears.
- I hope I'm not plugging up my microphone.
- All right, number three.
Don't worry, they don't need to hear you.
(laughing)
We're gonna do the superman on the pillow,
and there's a lot of different ways you can do this.
But Superman likes to fly, you know.
So he's got the hands forward.
But you can do alternating, which is a lot easier
on the back.
- Yep.
- And to start off with.
So, you can do alternating,
and do a bunch on one side.
So, yeah.
Well, he's alternating right now, yeah.
Or otherwise, you can repeat it on the same side.
Yep, there you go.
That's what I was driving at.
- And even on this one, Bob.
I know we're gonna suggest this further in the tape,
but if you bend the knee, that would give you
a little more glute and less hamstring.
But, we can do it the straight leg, too.
- Yep, and I'm gonna do that one later in the
quadruped position, but you're right.
Absolutely, you're absolutely right, Brad.
That would focus a little more on the glute.
- You know, Bob, you wanna go right up there
right now and grab that big rounded towel
I got rolled up?
- Sure.
- Now, if you're getting a sore neck like I am,
'cause your head is suspended.
We don't care about the neck muscles.
This is actually quite a bit more comfortable
for my neck.
And, you'll find it really easy to do.
And you could do, and then between sets,
you can rest like that, as well.
You don't have to, it's just kind of nice.
- You can also do these really rapid, right, Brad?
- Oh, yeah.
- [Bob] I was gonna say, you can go ahead and,
yep, exactly.
- Oh, yeah.
- It's kind of a power boost.
So, he's really,
you know, you might wanna do some at a regular pace
and then finish up by doing the power boost, here.
- Yeah, but you might be,
if you're just starting this, you probably wanna
forget that rapid stuff.
What you could do, is this.
Takes a little more coordination.
(indistinct)
- You're supposed to be Superman.
- Oh yeah, Superman.
- Okay, next one we're gonna do is,
we're gonna do the lats.
And if you talk to anybody, without equipment it's
very difficult to do lats,
'cause lats are usually something you do,
like a pull up or something with.
- Yep, pulls the arm down and back.
- But this is a different way you can do it.
You're actually gonna lie down.
This is a lot harder than it looks, again.
I always have to say that as a pre-cursor to
doing the exercise.
Gonna put the elbows into the ground,
and they're actually driving into the ground.
And I bring my butt towards my hands, like this.
- [Brad] Yep, so he's moving forward.
And you're holding back with your legs.
So, you're getting a little leg workout too.
- You're right, I'm feeling the hamstrings too,
and the buttock a little bit, but I'm really feeling it
in the lats.
- [Brad] Right in there.
- And core.
- [Brad] You should see the look on his face.
If you could bring the camera over here,
that would be something to die for.
- No, we don't need to see that.
(laughing)
- [Brad] Killing me.
- So you can do a set of 10, and I'll tell you,
my lats are pumped up right now.
- [Brad] Sure.
- So, latissimus dorsi.
- [Brad] That V shape is growing.
- All right, so now I'm gonna go ahead
and go into the quadruped position.
This is similar to what Brad was doing.
Except now, we're on all fours here, basically.
The knees being two sets of the four.
But, we're gonna go ahead,
we're gonna, again, start off like this.
Now, again, I can go, just one side.
Or, I can alternate.
- [Brad] While you're doing this, maintain.
Try to maintain a neutral arch or a neutral spine.
(laughing)
- No, you're right, a neutral back.
- [Brad] You don't want to arch it way down
and go to end range that direction.
So, you're gonna have your stomach muscles contracted,
as well.
- And this is exactly where you do want to,
probably try to bend the knee and bring it up like this.
This is gonna make it harder to do,
and also it's gonna concentrate on the back.
- [Brad] Right, these glute muscles that are
attached.
Oh, Bob, I uncovered you a little bit.
- We don't wanna have that, this is a family program.
- [Brad] There we go.
Good, nobody needs to see old skin.
- Right, exactly.
All right, so.
- [Brad] He could have a tattoo from thirty years ago,
then you'd see what it looked like.
- Yeah, that would probably be un-describable
at this point, so.
All right, then we're gonna go ahead and do a plank, Brad.
I'm gonna go ahead, a plank like this.
- Sure.
- On my hands.
And I'm gonna reach towards the sky.
And what I'm doing when I'm doing this,
is actually, I'm working that upper back again.
- Yep.
- And a little bit of the low back, too.
- Yep.
And now we're getting some of the transverse abdominis,
the ones that go across this way.
- And the obliques, too, I would say.
Wouldn't you, Brad?
- Yeah, I think this does a wonderful job of
covering a lot of those obliques, transverse,
as well as the muscles down the back,
the erector spinae group.
So, it's a good overall.
Now, if you happen to have a spondylolisthesis,
like I do, I cannot do these without getting
a back ache the next day.
So, keep that in mind.
But you can try it and see how your back goes with it.
- Yeah, Brad and I are not big fans of planks
without movement.
We like planks with movement.
- Right.
- I think, 'cause then you're getting some core
and you're getting some isotonic strengthening.
- There you go.
- As opposed to just asymmetric.
- Yep.
- All right, last one, Brad.
We're gonna move it this way a little bit,
if you don't mind.
- You need a little break, Bob?
- I need a little break, I'm tired.
- I'm perspiring even from when I worked there,
you know.
Yep, there's problems.
- We're in excellent shape.
- Right.
- Okay, so you're gonna do this against
a countertop, so you don't have to worry about it moving.
But I didn't want to do it against the countertop,
'cause it wouldn't be a very good angle.
- Yeah, we needed the profile
so you can see the mechanics.
- So, already, I'm getting a little core
and I'm getting a little back.
So, I'm gonna bring the leg up like this
and I'm gonna drive it up like this.
And this is how you're gonna do reps.
So, now we're getting glute, and we're definitely
feeling the low back too, Brad.
- Yeah, this works more of the lower end
versus the upper part of the back.
You know, one thing we haven't mentioned
that, I don't think we have, is when you do
all these exercises, and any exercise,
make sure you're breathing on every repetition.
- That's what I wasn't doing.
- Don't get short of breath.
And it's kind of hard to breathe when you're talking
while you do this.
If you ever instructed activity class, you know how
that works out.
- Well, actually, by talking you are breathing, right?
- Well, yeah, but it's hard to coordinate
it with the movement.
- Right.
It's hard to get a nice, relaxed breath.
- Yeah, right.
- That's it, number seven.
- That was seven?
- Your favorite number.
- The number seven is complete,
you can look it up historically
and it continues to roll.
- And remember, Brad and I can fix just about anything.
- Except for-
- A broken heart.
- There you go.
- But, we're working on it.
- Absolutely.
We're even gonna read a book on it.
- All right, thanks.