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♪ 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.
- So this video is how to preform nerve flossing
which can help sciatica.
This is a video that's part of a series of videos
on sciatica.
If you go to bobandbrad.com, our website,
and go to the programs section
you'll find the one on sciatica.
And you may want to watch some of the videos
prior to this one,
because you may not need to do this exercise
if some of the other exercises are working.
- Right, as a matter of fact we kind of prefer those,
you know, check those out first and like Bob said,
if they work, this one's really not needed.
- Yeah, because the problem with this one
is it can help but it can make your pain worse.
So you gotta be very careful with it.
- Very - We'll tell you
how to do this so that to prevent you from
getting a flare up and you being upset with us.
(laughing)
Alright, so we'll start off.
We're gonna actually, what you do is floss the nerves
just as you'd likely use floss to
glide through your teeth and clean 'em.
We're trying to pull the nerve from one end
while releasing it from the other.
What happens over time when you do that
it actually can desensitize the nerve,
so it's not as sensitive to pain.
- Right.
- So, in the end, what we're trying to do is
decrease your pain.
- Sure. - So.
- Right.
- Again, you're going to do this very careful,
we're going to do just 10 repetitions,
and after we do the 10,
we're going to wait a day or so
to see how the pain did.
- Right, so. - Let's do the ten,
and then we can talk more about that Brad.
- Sure, you bet.
- Brad's going to show from the side.
Brad's got some tape on his ankle
which will show very nicely what the ankle is doing
while we're doing this exercise.
So we're assuming at this time
that the pain is on the left side,
you just reverse it if the pain
is on the right side.
So what you're going to do is you're going to go ahead
and extend the neck and leg at the same time,
so you're straightening the knee
and putting the neck back at the same time
while you're dorsal flexing the ankle.
- So pulling the toes up, you can see the yellow tape
- Yeah.
- That's dorsal flexion.
And keep in mind your back is actually gonna arch.
- Yeah be nice and straight.
- Yeah and look up.
Like you're looking up toward the ceiling behind you.
- Yup. Arch.
We're doing this very slow right now,
but you're going to be doing this much faster.
We wanted to show you.
All right then you go ahead and flex the neck,
flex the knee,
and push the foot towards the floor.
- So you can see I'm pointing the toe
down towards the floor.
You have to make sure that the leg of the chair,
or wherever you're on doesn't get in the way.
- Yeah that's, we forgot to mention that Brad.
You need to be on a high mat or bench,
or solid table.
Something where you can actually swing your leg underneath,
otherwise this isn't going to work.
You can't do this on a chair where
your footing is hitting the floor.
- Right. - So it can be a
little difficult to find the right surface for this.
So that, going up like that,
and going down like that,
that's one repetition.
You're going to do 10 of those.
We'll show you about the speed that you want to do it at.
So we'll start off with number 1.
Going back,
straighten the knee.
Going down.
- When you go down, your back does slouch actually.
- Slouch a little bit, yup.
Coming up.
Going down.
- Now typically, the part where
it's going to irritate the nerve,
would you say Bob,
is going to be on the up extension.
- Right. Exactly.
- And when you pull on a nerve
that's sensitive, it can be painful,
and you're gonna feel it not in your ankle
but typically in the leg or up in the back even.
So be very cautious if it starts to hurt,
don't push into it.
- Right.
- Respect that and go the other direction.
- Yup. If you can only go up so high,
and before the pain really gets to be too much,
then stop, and head back down again.
- Right.
Again, Bob said this can really flare it up,
so don't have the attitude "No pain, no gain,"
cause that's not gonna get you anywhere.
- No you won't get accustomed to this.
This is not something that you know,
over time you'll go
"Ok if I'll just keep stretching it will get better,"
that's not how this works.
So again you can do a repetition
You can do ten reps,
then you're gonna wait a day.
We can stop now, Brad. - Yup.
- If there's no pain from this,
or it's slightly better,
then you can do it once a day.
- Right.
- If it did get actually worse,
then I want you to wait 3 or 4 days,
or maybe a week and try it again.
Before you try it again, though,
what I want you to do before you do it
is to actually lay on your stomach
a little bit before you try it.
- [Brad] Okay.
- If you can't lay flat, you can lay on pillows.
We've done that before.
- Or you put the pillows underneath.
- Right
- We did show that on our previous video.
- Yeah, so you can lay for a couple minutes
and then try the exercise.
- [Brad] Okay.
- Same thing, do the ten
and see how it is the next day.
If it's worse, you're gonna say,
"You know what, I can't do this."
So I'm just gonna stick with
some of the other videos we have.
We're gonna talk about how to reduce your pain-makers.
- Sure. - Throughout the day.
Just by reducing the things that are causing your pain
can quite often take away your sciatica too.
So don't get discouraged
if this stuff isn't working.
We've got a lot of other ways to tackle this.
So, anything else you wanna say Brad?
- No. Nope.
That's good for now.
- All right, thanks for watching.
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