♪ 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 together we are the most famous
physical therapists on the internet, Brad.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- And today I wanted to show us some one minute
sciatica exercises you can do for pain relief.
These actually can lead to total relief too,
but it's just kind of a quick start.
- Right.
- So. - So we've got
a number of 'em here.
Not all of 'em might work, but more than likely
you're gonna find one or two of them that are gonna
give you some good relief.
- Exactly, so let's go ahead and start off, Brad.
The first thing, well, you know, what we're trying
to do, Brad, is we're trying to,
yeah, right aways when I stand up, Lonny goes sit back down.
- (laughing) We can't see your head.
- What we're trying to do is, we're trying to,
a lotta times the pain is going down the leg,
isn't it, Brad. - Exactly.
- Can you turn around once, Brad.
- Sure. - And face,
so a lotta times the pain is in here
and then it'll go down one leg or the other leg
and it'll, you know, go on into the butt,
then eventually go down to the back of leg,
maybe the calf, maybe even to the foot.
So what we're trying to do with these exercises
is we're trying to get that pain out of the leg,
especially out of the foot and the calf first,
and then out of the thigh and then out of the butt
and then usually that's the progression.
- Right. - So that's what
you're lookin' for.
- From the foot up.
- So this is my painful side.
I don't know if you can see that blue on here,
I shoulda probably took a red color, huh?
Brad, do you wanna hand me those pillows there?
- [Brad] Yeah.
- This is often the first step that we do with people
when they're having that pain, is we're gonna have them
lay on a couple pillows, 'cause some people can't lay flat.
So all you're gonna do, for one minute, is lay like this.
Kinda the pillows are underneath the pelvis.
- Right. - Underneath the back.
- [Brad] And sometimes, can you lift up, Bob?
- [Bob] Sure.
- [Brad] Sometimes I'll put the pillows this way,
it all depends on what's more comfortable for,
so this way or this way.
- Right.
- And I think some of these people will be
the kinda people that have a hard time
straightening up. - Exactly, Brad.
- They find that they're walking forward
with that back pain.
- That's right, and so this is the progression.
So you can stay there for a minute,
then you might just take one pillow out, Brad.
- Right, and you might not be able to be on your elbows,
you may have to--
- Yeah, you'd be down like this,
I'm sorry. - Yep, down like that.
- And then, after another minute, you take this one out.
- Right, and I've done with the patients many times
where I'll start with the two pillows.
- Yep, I have too.
- And then they say, oh, it feels a little bit better,
or a lot better with the pillows.
And you give them, I might take a minute or two,
and then you take one pillow out because it starts
feelin' better, and then you drop it down
just like Bob is here.
- So now, you know, some of you might be able
to skip to this step right away, Brad.
- Exactly. - Some of you might
be able to get, so we're gonna have you
lay this way for a minute.
Now after that minute, what you're gonna try to do
is now you're gonna try to go prop up
on your elbows for a minute.
- Right.
- So again, maybe you can go to this right away too,
some people can.
- Right, you may go up and say, oh, that kinda hurts
and you may have to go back down, but that's okay.
- You're looking at what the pain in your leg is doing.
- Exactly. - If this is making the pain
in your leg worse or it's making it go down even further,
this is not the right thing to do,
then we're gonna have to try something else.
- [Brad] Exactly.
- All right, so let's say this worked out fine, Brad.
Now we're gonna go ahead and jump into the press ups.
- Sure. - And you can do these,
y'know, for a minute if you want.
- I just did with these with someone last week
and he couldn't do the press up, he only got
about this high, he could get up, not even that high, Bob.
- Okay. - He got to here
and he was doing baby press ups, he says it hurts.
Well I said just do some more, and by the time
he got to 10 he was up to here.
- Okay.
- And the pain started going out of his foot
and out of his leg, it was a good day.
- What you try not to do is do this.
- Exactly. - You're not trying
to lift up your pelvis. - Right.
- You're keeping the pelvis down.
You're gently working it this way.
- That's a good point, Bob.
- All right, the next progression, Brad.
- Wait, Bob, before we go any further--
- I knew you were gonna do that, Brad,
'cause I was ready for it too.
(Brad laughing)
- There's new people out there
that have not seen our channel.
- Hi, welcome to our channel.
- Bob and Brad.
- Yeah, and today we're gonna, y'know,
want you to, encourage you to go ahead and subscribe to us.
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- Yeah, some people said it was up there.
- I don't, wherever the subscribe button is.
- It's on the screen, but take a minute,
we upload a video every day and it's all on
how to stay healthy, fit, pain free.
Is that good enough, Brad?
- Perfect. - All right,
so after the press ups,
let's say the press ups don't work, Brad.
You tried half press ups, you tried and it's just
still givin' you trouble.
- These are the stubborn ones.
- Yeah, now the pain is on this side.
- Yeah. - So now what you're
gonna try is what we call the banana.
- Sure.
- So I'm gonna move my butt over this way
and I'm moving my legs over this way
and my upper body over this way.
Does this all make sense, Brad, or not?
- If you look at it from this angle,
we call it the banana because his body
is shaped, if you look at it this way,
or from the top down, he's curved and his hips
are over to the, in this case, the left.
Usually if the pain is on the right leg
you shift the hips--
- To the left. - Opposite.
- So my feet are to the right, my shoulders
are to the right, my hips are to the left.
- Right, make that curve goin' in.
- Now in this position you can just
lay here for a little bit.
You might get up on the elbows.
- Exactly.
- And you might also try
the press ups again. - The press ups.
And what's gonna guide you is if the leg pain
is getting better, then you go with it.
- Now let's say you find out this works for you,
this is the thing that you can do
throughout the day for one minute.
I mean, that's the idea behind all these.
If you find out the press ups alone work for you,
go ahead and do those for one minute.
- Right. - You can do those
every hour, Brad.
- Yup.
I had a patient, I always gotta tell this story,
he was an excellent patient, he had his own business,
he needed to get better fast, he and his wife
went out to Las Vegas and he was having this problem,
he was getting better at the time.
I said do 'em every one to two hours.
In Vegas, in a shop, his wife was shopping for some
trinkets, whatever, he's down on the floor in the aisle--
- In a shop?
- Yes!
He went to a place where
there wasn't many people, of course.
- Oh my God!
- He got better though. (laughing)
- I've had people where I've had 'em take cardboard
to work though, and they worked on a shop,
you know, like a manufacturing floor.
- Yep. - And they would
go down and do it.
- Sure. - And they wouldn't
even hesitate.
- If it works, you wanna get better, you'll do it.
- Now when we say every hour we know you may not
be able to do it every hour, but if you do it
five to six times a day that's really helping a lot.
All right, the next one, Brad, if this one doesn't work,
the banana. (horn beeping)
Wow, we really got some beeping goin' on there, don't we?
- Yeah.
(horn beeping)
- We're gonna go ahead and put the towel
underneath the thigh here.
- Yep.
- So this is instead of the banana now.
If the banana didn't work, you might try puttin'
a towel right underneath the pelvis here.
- Right, so what that does, it tilts the pelvis
a little bit and it changes the force on the back
and it's gonna take that disc, that bulge in the disc,
and get it out of the way, so to speak.
- And then again, if this works then you can
go ahead and do press ups.
- Right.
- We're throwin' a lot at ya here,
but, y'know, try these step by step.
If you find one that works that's the one
you're gonna do every day.
- Right.
- All right, the next one that you may,
which is similar to this one, Brad,
is actually the roadkill.
- Right, this is kind of an unusual name.
I'm not sure how it got to be called this.
- Well, you look like roadkill when you--
- I guess. (laughing)
- So I'm bringin' just one leg up there,
one knee up like this.
- Yeah.
- So, and again, I'm gonna lay here,
I'm gonna see if this, and you had a patient
it just recently worked for.
- Oh just recently, but yeah, I use this one
over the years a number of times with success.
- Yep, so if this gives you the relief,
again less leg pain, less back, not less back pain,
normally it's usually less leg pain.
- Right.
- Eventually less back pain.
And then you can go ahead and do press ups.
Even in this position?
- Yeah.
- Or don't you normally do that, Brad?
- No, no, I'll have 'em do it, for sure.
But it's this kind of a, I always tell a person
that it's kind of a weird press up 'cause you're not
gonna go as high, but you still follow the same rules,
if the leg gets better it's okay.
- Okay.
All right, this one, Brad, is a little more advanced.
Let's say a lotta those aren't workin' for you,
you wanna try something new.
I'm gonna grab a pillow here, Brad.
- Okay.
- This is a Mulligan technique and I don't know
if they do it in McKinsey too,
but here's my, again, my involved side, my,
I don't know if you can see that.
Here's the side.
- Yeah, yeah, this is the leg.
- So we're bringin' it up like this, Brad,
and we're gonna actually twist over a little bit
towards the involved side like this.
And you're gonna see if that gives you some relief.
- One little trick, I don't know if you do this one, Bob,
but I'll have them, put your foot down
and just lift your butt up and shift it that direction
a little bit, now set it down.
- And then bring 'em up and over?
- Yeah, and sometimes that's tolerated a little better
and it works a little better, it depends on the individual.
- Oh, thanks for the little hint, Brad.
I didn't know that one, so nice.
- It works for me sometimes.
- All right, so you can give that one a try.
A different one, a little variation,
this is kinda more of a sleeping one,
to help you sleep at night, you wanna grab
one more pillow, Brad? - You got it.
- So you can lay on your side that's not painful.
So this is gonna be hard for me because
I got my mic here.
I'm gonna switch.
- Oh, (laughing) it just went down the other leg.
The reverse sciatica syndrome.
Never heard of that one. - I'm gonna lay on the side
that's not painful.
The painful side is on the side up.
- Yep.
- So I'm layin' on my side here and I'm gonna go ahead
and put just two pillows underneath the calf,
underneath the ankle and the foot.
And believe it or not this often,
you lay here for a little bit, people often find out
that this gives them some relief.
- Right, yeah.
I can't, haven't figured it out yet,
but if it works.
- I think it brings the back up into, you know,
a little bit of--
- Sure. - Arching here and it seems
to take it away.
(horn beeping)
This is another one that we do,
it's called sciatic nerve flossing, Brad.
- Ah, yeah.
- So again, since we got the painful side here
this is something that you wanna be very careful with.
The sciatic nerve is very tender and, you know,
you don't wanna go crazy on this.
I usually only have people do this once or twice a day.
- Right, nerves aren't like muscles.
If you stretch 'em too hard it becomes very uncomfortable.
- This should not be painful, Brad,
when you're doing this.
So what you're gonna do is, you're gonna go
actually bring the foot up and bring the toe toward you.
But while you do that-- - So here.
- You actually bring your head back like this, Brad.
- Yup.
- So the toe goes towards you, the head goes back
at the same time, then you go down and the head goes down.
- So the bend the knee, and then the toe
points down as well.
- Yeah.
What you're doing is flossing the nerve.
So down, toe goes down.
Up, head goes up, toe goes up.
Down, toe goes down, head goes down.
- Yeah, you're just tryin' to loosen the nerve up
in its natural pathway. - You're flossing,
especially if there's some scar tissue on it
that seems to help decrease that.
So, well Brad, those are it.
We made it through the 10 already.
- Yeah, you know, we've probably got videos
on these individual ones as well,
so just keep on lookin' at our videos
and you're gonna find some excellent,
a routine that's gonna fit you.
- We've got playlists we can--
- Sure. - Of the sciatic nerve,
so thanks for watchin'.