♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
(upbeat music)
- How you doing, 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.
- Yoga stretches for sciatica,
are they good or are they bad?
- We gotta clear this up, Bob.
- Yeah, we gotta clear this up.
- Right.
- We're getting a bad reputation.
- We've done a lot of videos on sciatica.
We got a lot of good comments,
but two things happened.
First of all, my wife does some yoga
and her instructor saw our video
and she says, what is your husband doing,
saying that yoga is bad for your back?
I don't think we said that,
but I could see where.
- Play the tape.
- Right, yeah. - Let's find out.
- If we did, we didn't mean to.
We've got over a thousand videos,
so it's a little lot difficult for us
to even know which video it was.
I'm pretty sure we didn't say yoga is bad
for your back or bad for sciatica.
However, there's certain poses that can be
and could really cause problems.
So that's what we wanna show you.
If you're, if you have sciatica,
pain down your leg,
it's a caution light
and maybe a red light, actually,
to not do some. - Some of the poses.
- Specific poses.
We're gonna go through this.
But before we do,
we thought we should educate you
and show you why
so it makes a lot of sense
and you say, oh,
now that makes sense to me.
- Right, why we shouldn't,
why you shouldn't be. - Exactly.
- Also, by the way,
by the way, speaking of the thousand videos
that we've done, Brad,
in case you are new to our channel,
haven't seen any of these videos,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We have a subscription button there or there.
We provide videos on stay healthy,
fit, pain free,
and we upload every day.
- There you go. - All right.
- And I did have another viewer.
She was a yoga instructor
and a physical therapist.
And she said kind of the same thing.
So we gotta clear the air
and the benefits of yoga.
They're wonderful, Bob. - Oh, yeah.
You know, we're big yoga fans.
- Right. - Without a doubt.
- We. - Yeah.
- You haven't done a yoga class.
- No, I have not.
- And I haven't either,
but it's on my bucket list.
- Right.
- I think once I do it,
I'll probably love to get into it.
Time's an issue.
But strength, range of motion,
balance, focus,
everything that makes your life healthier, yoga encompasses,
except for one little thing right here, Bob.
- Right.
- Lonnie, can you focus in?
Now, with sciatica. - I'll hold it.
- Oftentimes, or the majority of the times,
it can be from a disc problem. - Right.
- A bulging disc or a herniated disc,
'cause a bulging disc turns
into a herniated disc with enough time.
And if you have poor. - Doing the wrong moves.
- [Brad] Wrong moves, which could,
which we're gonna talk about.
Now, this is a spinal nerve right here
that comes out from the spine.
And if you look right in here,
you can see that red bulge.
That red bulge represents a herniated
or bulging disc, right there,
and that's the problem.
And we want to keep that bulge from getting bigger.
We want to get it back
and where it belongs
so that your life gets better without pain
and all the problems that come along with it.
So we're gonna take a look at what causes that.
Now, if you bend forward,
bend forward like this,
is typically a no-no for the sciatica.
- On him, is bending like this.
- Right.
- That squeezes the bones together
and pushes the disc out.
We'll show on the (indistinct) here.
- So, and if you go the opposite direction,
typically that'll do the opposite,
depending on the severity of it,
but it will improve the problem.
- Yeah, so we're saying forward flexion is bad,
extension is good.
So anytime, I guess I'm jumping ahead a little bit here,
but on yoga poses that,
if you go into flex,
you're gonna have to be careful.
- Exactly.
Listen to your body
and really be careful.
Now this green ball is a green ball,
but it does make a good model for a disc, okay?
So you push down here now.
- So here's the two bones
from your lower back two vertebrae.
- Right. - And.
- Right through here would be your spinal cord
and the nerve would come out right here
that we talked about before,
that peripheral nerve that goes down your leg.
And that causes that pain and numbness.
- On a healthy disc,
that's not a problem. - Right.
- It's gonna move back and forth.
Not a problem.
- When you bend forward, this happens,
and back this way, happens.
If you have a bulging or herniated disc,
focus right here.
There. - Yep, and that's.
- See how it's a bit?
- And that comes from bending forward repeatedly.
- Right, the more you bend forward,
the more that wants to bulge out.
So we don't wanna do that.
We want to get that back, back, back, back.
There you go.
Get it back in, let it heal,
get some scar tissue over that.
So you can get back to normal living.
So remember that forward flexion.
And we picked out five different yoga poses
that we can give examples from.
And then you can relate to it,
why that pose may cause harm
and increase your sciatica.
- Well, understand this.
If you're not having sciatica,
you're just having run-of-the-mill back pain,
those poses may be fine.
- Right, exactly.
- They may be, especially arthritis.
It might actually feel better to do those poses.
- So you can't group back pain into one lump.
- No, so we're talking about sciatica today.
- Exactly. - That's all.
- That's why it's on the title, Bob.
- That's right. - Okay.
So let's go through some poses.
Now, I don't know the names of the poses.
I went online to find some.
I don't know if they're the name
between all the schools or instructors,
but they call this one the boat pose.
And this is a lot of abdominal strength
and it's like this.
Okay, whoa!
I'm not real good at it.
'cause I don't do it.
But Bob, what's going on back here?
- [Bob] This is actually,
there was a study done by Alf Knockinson.
- Yeah. - He's a MD
and he measured disc pressure.
And this was one of the,
they had a pose similar to that.
- Right.
- And the pressure went up immensely.
- Right. - When you did that.
So if you have already trouble
with your disc due to sciatica,
that's gonna be bad. - Right.
- [Bob] That's gonna be a good way
to blow out a disc further.
- This one, very similar.
It's still flexing.
Remember the cut, the model,
what's going on with that disc.
You flex like that,
it's gonna push that disc. - Out the back.
- Exactly.
- [Bob] So you can't do that one either, I'm sorry.
- Now this one seems kind of passive
and like it's not gonna do much,
but it really does put a lot of flexion
on the vertebrae in the low back.
Okay, and this one's the child pose, okay?
And again, it doesn't matter if your hands are here.
Down here, you actually put more stress on it,
as opposed to when you're up a little bit,
but exact same mechanics are going on.
- [Bob] Although it's interesting, Brad.
There was, I saw a guy, Mulligan.
- Yeah. - That actually felt that
that might open things up a little more.
- Sure, and he thought.
- That was one, it was interesting.
- Well, that's why I'm saying, Bob,
this is not a red light
for all of them,
but listen to your body.
And this is a caution.
And think about it.
Is this really helping?
While you're doing it,
if it creates back pain
or leg pain, definitely stop.
But then after. - Even that evening.
- That evening, if all of a sudden,
you start getting pain down your leg,
the numbness, the tingling,
it may have been from.
- Or let's say, yeah,
you do it on a Friday
and you just have a terrible weekend.
- Right.
- You may have done the wrong things.
I mean, you gotta listen to your body.
Like I said, it's an experiment.
- Right, you really,
and yoga people are in tune with their body.
I think they will probably be able
to very easily identify which stretch
or which stretches are helping or injuring,
or making their sciatica worse.
- So yeah, generally, if they,
you can keep your back straight while you're stretching
and, or going to extension with sciatica,
you're gonna be okay.
- So straight or extension. - Right.
- And you can do that.
There's some nice ones.
Well, let's go back.
- Sure. - I wanna,
before we get to the extension ones.
- You're gonna show a couple more
that are bad. - Right.
From the standing position,
if you're gonna do the one bending forward,
they call this the chair revolve.
So here, we're putting a fair amount
of stress on the back.
And in that flex position again,
remember what it's doing to that bulge.
- [Bob] Chair revolve.
- And then a twist on it.
And normally this can be a nice stretch for the muscles
and range of motion for the back.
But when you do this,
particularly on one side of the vertebra,
it could make that bulge even worse.
And you may not have a hard,
you might get from here
and not be able to straighten up.
- Brad, of all of the stretches you showed today,
that one by far is the worst one
on a disc. - Right.
- I mean, it. - Particularly.
- What we were always taught is
that if you bend and twist. - Right.
- That's the best way to blow out a disc,
without a problem.
- So big red, big caution light
when you're going through some of these,
when you have back pain
and pain down the leg.
- Yeah. - And then the last one,
which I personally don't like,
many people that do is. - Yeah.
- Now, on the picture,
this woman was really flexible.
She could go down
and flatten her chest right to her ankles
and wrap her arms around like this.
- Ooh. - Oh, my back hurts
just thinking about it, sorry.
But I know there's people
who don't have back pain, they do yoga,
and I bet you,
they do that on a regular basis.
- And they don't have any problems.
- And they say they love it.
- But if you have sciatica,
caution, caution, caution, caution.
- Exactly. - So.
- Now, this one, the crescent moon.
Stretching. - That's a great one to do.
- Yeah, I mean, they we're talking,
and there's a number of 'em like this.
There's one like this
and I don't know the name of this one.
I didn't write that down,
but it's back here like this
and they're stretching like this.
These people in yoga are very flexible.
- [Bob] Yeah, they are,
I was gonna say.
- The woman had, (laughs)
her chest was up in the air.
Her knees were up in the air.
- [Bob] I bet she thought
that was gonna look different than it did.
- Yeah. (laughs)
Sorry about that. - But really Brad,
just even this one.
This must be a yoga pose, isn't it?
- Yeah, it is. - I mean,
this one coming up like this.
- Yep, exactly.
- I think I remember seeing him do this.
- It is one.
- That's probably one of the best ones you can do.
- Right, yep, exactly. - So.
- So once again, yoga's a wonderful activity.
It's gonna keep you.
- Have we said that enough, by the way,
so that the yoga people aren't mad at us?
- I'm telling you, Bob. (laughing)
- I think, again,
now if you have run-of-the-mill back pain,
Brad, let's say even just maybe more
of a muscular issue
or if it's in the facets in the joints.
- Right.
- I don't know that there's not a stretch you couldn't do.
- Right. - I mean that,
in that case. - Exactly.
- In that case, it's gonna be,
I think, good for back pain.
And I know that there's some yoga courses
that are just for back pain.
- Sure, right. - So.
- Exactly.
- It's really the sciatica
that we're worried about.
- Yeah, that disc, that bulging disc.
And again, specific diagnosis, sciatica,
for the specific movements.
Keep in tune with your body
and you're gonna do outstanding
and have a long yoga career.
- All right, remember, Brad,
we can do just about anything except.
- Just wait, Bob, I gotta go all the way.
- We can fix just about everything.
- Except for, look at this.
- A broken heart. - Right.
- If that baby breaks open,
you gotta, we gotta get it back together.
We know once we get this problem solved.
- Now we're cardiologists then, so.
(Brad laughing)