(telephone ringing)
- Yes.
We're starting.
Hi folks!
We just went live there, buddy.
- Yeah.
We are alive,
not only are we alive- - We are on Facebook, Bonnie?
Hi, 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, Brad, we're gonna talk about
how to stop cracking your neck,
or popping your neck,
and what you should do instead.
- Sure.
- And the first thing we should talk about,
why is it that you should stop cracking your neck?
- I don't know, Bob?
- Yeah, I'm gonna tell you, Brad.
(Brad laughing)
Well, first off, one of the things is,
this is kind of a controversial thing
because sometimes it pits
chiropractors versus orthopedists,
but if you're having your neck cracked
by a professional,
a physical therapist or a chiropractor,
there's no problems there.
There's this slight, slight, slight, slight chance
as you get older, I would say,
that it could cause a stroke.
I mean, it's a very slight- - Right.
- It's almost inconsequential,
so I maybe be a little more leery as you get older
having your neck cracked by a chiropractor,
but I'm sure that's gonna cause all sorts of controversy.
- Yeah, and it's a personal thing.
- Yeah, it's a personal thing.
- I personally won't have it done anymore.
- But I've seen a lot of chiropractors, even online,
that talk about cracking your own neck
and the dangers of that.
And one of the things they talk about,
and I don't know if this is true or not,
but over time is how it stretches out the ligaments,
and your neck becomes a little more lax
and then now the muscles have to work harder,
so they tighten up and they become painful.
So this idea of constantly cracking your neck
can lead to a painful neck,
and can actually cause pain.
- Sure. - Because your neck
is becoming not as stable.
So, what are you gonna do instead?
Well, what we're gonna do is show you
some gentle stretches or exercises
that you can do instead of popping your neck
or cracking your neck.
And hopefully this will take away that urge.
- Sure. - Cause you know,
it feels good to have your neck cracked,
so a lot of times people are constantly doing it.
- Yeah, and I don't know if it actually feels good
or just you hear that cavitation of that crack
and psychologically you're, "Oh!"
That's very powerful,
that psychological aspect of it.
- That's very true, Brad.
All right, so the first thing you're gonna do
when you're starting to feel that need
to crack your neck
I'm gonna have you do a chin tuck, Brad.
- Okay.
- So, Brad's gonna show it from the side,
and I'm gonna show it from the front.
And what you're gonna do is
you're gonna take your neck
and you're gonna tuck your chin back, like this.
- And before you do that,
make sure you're in good posture.
- Yeah.
- Cause this is all about posture
which is gonna be very helpful overall.
- Now, when you do this,
sometimes when you bring your neck back like this,
now, don't go down like this,
and don't go up like this.
You're going straight back,
now,
I feel a little almost cracking when I do that, Brad,
and it actually feels good to do that.
So this might even relieve
your need to feel that crack. - Sure.
- Now, if you wanna add a little more to it, even,
you can even take your fingers
and push your chin back a little bit.
Some people do it this way,
they do in the crook of their thumb
and they go back like this.
And all that,
one it's correcting your posture,
but two, it's starting to put your neck in the position
to relieve the pain.
- Right.
If your head is forward, anyways,
you're creating all kinds of extra stress,
muscle fatigue, that's-
- Yeah, the more your neck is forward like this,
the more you're gonna run into problems,
there's no doubt about it.
- So it's a win-win stretch.
- Yeah.
- All right, so then the next thing you're gonna try,
is you're gonna try after you've done a few of those,
and if you're still having pain
or you're still having pain issues,
you're gonna try cervical extensions
which we call neck extensions.
So now you're gonna kind of get your chin back,
where you were,
and then you're gonna work on bringing your neck back
this way. - Right.
So from that neutral position,
and we'll go back,
and gently go back as far as you feel comfortable,
maybe you can bring it back.
- Now, if you hit a painful spot,
stop right there and just go back forward again.
- Right.
- Back, and you can do these every hour,
you can do these 10 times every hour,
10, 15 times.
Now, if this hurts,
in a lot of people it does,
they can't do it,
then Brad and I usually start with the towel, then.
- Sure.
- So why don't you grab a towel, Brad,
and I'll grab a towel.
So there's two ways to do this,
show 'em your way first, Brad.
- Okay,
I usually take the the towel kitty corner
and I go like this,
it just hits it in a nice cushion bundle there,
low on the neck,
not by the ears, but low on the neck.
And usually-
- You pull down like this, don't you?
- It all depends,
but I guess it depends on what the results are.
But just to start out with,
I'll have someone do it like this
and just the bundle there,
that support seems to say, "Oh!"
I've had so many people say,
"This feels so much better." - It does.
And this is something you can work for a long time
and eventually go to without the towel there.
- Right.
- But this is the intermediate step-
- Sure, yep.
- And then you can use that to pull,
and I will go up like this
if you get good results
and think you can go farther without any pain,
and when they're done, it feels better,
that's a green light.
- By the way, we're gonna do all these steps first,
and then we'll try to take some questions.
I see there's a lot of comments already, Brad.
We appreciate you all here,
we appreciate you on Facebook.
Give us the thumb-sies and the heart-sies,
we'll try to-
- Do some heart (indistinct).
- Yeah, there we go. (chuckles)
All right, the way I like to do it
sometimes with people,
is I take the little edge on here called the salvage,
and I put it along the edge,
right underneath my ears like this,
and I pull up like this,
and this is how I like to go up and down.
And you can actually get different levels of the neck,
now I can go a little bit lower,
and I can go real low like this,
and you can work the different levels,
and again, that helps starting to get that movement
back that way.
So let's say you do this a while,
and maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't help,
if it's not helping,
the next thing I want you to try
is this one instead, then.
- Okay.
- Let's say you're having pain just on one side,
let's say it's on the right side,
what you're gonna do is you're gonna do your chin tuck
and now you're gonna bend to the right,
you're gonna bend to the painful side.
- Okay.
- And what you do is,
you're gonna do 10 of those again
and see if that helps relieve the pain on that side.
It often does.
This is the one that helps me,
this is the one without a doubt.
I did these, it didn't help,
I started doing chin tucks, and going to the right,
and it just immediately started taking it away, Brad.
- Okay.
- I mean, it just worked out really good.
- So the chin tuck first,
and then a side bend to the painful side.
- Painful side, yep, exactly.
Next one, if that doesn't help,
then you can actually go chin tuck
and turn to that to that side.
So chin tuck, and turn to that side.
- And just one word of caution,
throw out all this if you are getting some pain,
tingling, or any symptoms
down into the shoulder or arm.
When you do these,
and the pain and the symptoms get worse
and go down the arm further
it's a big red light,
stop right there,
it's not the one for you.
- Yeah, it's a stop light.
It's a stop sign.
You wanna see the pain actually getting better,
sometimes it even starts to travel,
come up the arm,
and you may even get a little worse up here,
but it's less down here,
that's a good sign, so,
I'll go again.
Chin tuck and turn to the side,
that of the pain,
chin tuck turn to the side of the pain,
that often really helps make the differences.
So those are all the movements that you're gonna try.
- Sure.
- And hopefully that'll you eventually start
taking away your pain
so you don't feel that need to crack your neck.
You can also just do those chin tucks,
like I said, to help stop doing those.
Now, as far as neck pain, too,
the other things that you might try
are you wanna make some changes to your posture
so you don't have that forward head posture,
like this.
So you're gonna wanna work on...
One thing I'm gonna show real quickly, Brad,
just laying down here- - Yep.
- When you're in bed
try not to be in this habit of sleeping
with a bunch of pillows like this
and your head's forward like this,
'cause this is creating that bad posture
all night long.
So you wanna have- - Right here,
that neck is just all flexed and out of neutral position.
- So you wanna have a thin pillow
when you're sleeping on your back.
If you're on your side,
now, that's where you can use a double pillow
or two pillows,
you can be right on your side,
and now I got my neck in a neutral position again.
- Right, so things are lined up.
- Brad, why don't you start lookin over
and see if we can answer some questions here.
- I'll have to walk over there, though.
- Why don't do that, Brad? - Okay.
- So, for every inch your head is forward,
by the way,
when I'm like this,
that puts 10 more pounds of stress on the neck.
So, if I'm here
I'm 10 more pounds,
20 more pounds,
30 more pounds.
So you can see why those chin tucks are so important
to keep you lined up.
And so, any questions, Brad?
- Well, they're coming so fast. (chuckles)
- [Assistant] (indistinct),
with the dates are supple (indistinct)
plus globulus sensation in the throat,
and swelling.
- Well, a lot of times,
this is a good question, actually,
if your posture is bad,
this throws off all your whole swallowing mechanism.
So one of the things that we do with people,
the first thing we do is we do chin tucks,
believe it or not, when they have trouble with swallowing
because that helps all these things line up again.
- Sure.
- So, Brad?
- Jeff was wondering, he said,
"What about this problem with pain,
associated when you have shoulder workouts,
and for exercising?"
So he's exercising his shoulders,
and it's causing problems,
so the problem is likely in the neck,
and the shoulder exercises,
'cause the muscles are all connected-
- Right. - To that area.
It's going back and forth, is a problem.
- It's all about posture.
The other thing is when you're lifting, sometimes,
you get a lot of stress on the neck,
you know what I mean?
I've noticed that when all these muscles tighten up,
it clamps down on the neck,
so,
it's gonna be all about posture,
I mean, it really is.
- Why don't you grab the weight thing,
and show 'em two things they should not do for sure,
that were behind the neck,
either the military press behind the neck,
the lap pulls goin down.
- Well, I don't mind the lap pulls goin down,
I definitely wouldn't be doing
any of these shoulder presses.
- Pulling down the lap pole,
you still gotta get your head out-
- Oh, I see what you're saying.
Yeah, you're right.
He's talking about pull downs here,
if you pull down like this,
your head has to go forward, I got you.
You're right.
So even if you're gonna do pull ups,
I would do pull ups in front of the bar,
and pull downs in front of the bar,
which are really good for the shoulder,
but I wouldn't do any press up like this.
I know people are going maybe dispute that
but we see so many people
that end up with shoulder problems
because they're doing press ups like this.
So, any questions from Facebook, Lonnie?
- [Lonnie] There's this Kristen (indistinct),
she said, "Bob, the first edge of fabric
is called selvage."
- Selvage. (Brad laughing)
Did I say 'F', did I say, "selfage"?
- Yeah.
- Selvage.
Thank you.
Boy, she knows what she's talkin about, wow.
I appreciate that, we have an intelligent audience.
- Theresa is wondering about pain from whiplash,
now that's kind of a different category
from what we're showing, when she says-
- I can tell you with whiplash,
one of the main things you wanna do with whiplash,
besides trying to keep the...
You may even have to wear a collar for a while
but it's isometric strengthening, Brad,
that's the big thing that you wanna start.
- And we do have the video on-
- We do have a video on that,
if you're typing whiplash,
but the strengthening without moving the neck,
so you're gonna go ahead,
and you can actually use a towel for this too,
but I'm gonna work on pushing a deflection,
so if my hand was in here
my head would go forward like this,
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
You can do repetitions of 10,
you can work back like this,
push back.
So again, if the towel wasn't there
I'd be going back like this,
you can go side to side,
you can get a towel like this
and push one direction and the other direction,
it's all about isometrics.
Unfortunately, with whiplash,
it can take a long time to get over,
it's a real bummer,
but do the isometric strengthening.
Any others?
- They're coming so fast and go by, (laughs)
I have a hard time keepin up.
- [Lonnie] You can pull them down.
- Yeah, you can.
- [Lonnie] "Does Bob and Brad do
a towel exercise to pull down shoulder?"
- To pull down the shoulder?
I'm not sure what they mean by pull down the shoulder.
I'm not sure what they mean by that?
One of the shoulder exercises we do
is a Mulligan technique,
where we actually...
Usually it's on a higher surface and,
oh, can you bring the chair over real quick?
This kind of puts the shoulder down into position.
You push down on the arm
while you're walking back like this,
and then you keep pushing down as you walk forward again.
So I'm pushing down,
I'm pushing down the whole time,
this sets the shoulder down into position
the way it should be.
And especially with impingement and stuff like that,
it really works well,
for generally about 50% of our patients really like it
and think it really does give them some benefits.
- There was one question about
why chiropractors crack your neck
if it's bad for you?
But there's a misunderstanding-
- No, no, it's not bad for you
to have your neck cracked for you by a professional.
- Someone that knows exactly what they're doing-
- The only thing that we were leery of is that,
as you get older,
if you're in your sixties or seventies
and your arteries are a little more susceptible,
I don't know that I would have my neck cracked
at that point. - Right.
- You could tear an artery and it could cause a stroke.
- Sure.
- Again, very, very, very minute
part of the population. - Sure.
- I mean it's 0.00 something, I think,
but it is a possibility.
- Sure.
- No, I wouldn't have any hesitation
to have your neck cracked by a chiropractor.
So,
anything else, Brad? Lonnie?
Anything else on Facebook?
- [Lonnie] "Is there a way
to alleviate the pain?"
- Alleviate the pain, of neck?
That's what our whole video is about. (chuckles)
- [Lonnie] I think so.
- Again, all these things should help
alleviate the pain.
Generally, it's a lot of times
your neck is lacking some motion in one direction,
and by restoring that motion, the pain-
(video freezes)
- Someone's decided they're having problems
with prolonged sitting.
And again, maybe we didn't hit that posture
while you're sitting,
it is so critical, that head forward posture,
that's why the chin tucking, you said,
was a good exercise
to minimize that stress on your neck from this.
And a lot of times people have no idea
that their head is forward. - Yeah.
- When they're sitting,
unless someone who's next to 'em says,
if they could take a picture of you,
you look at that picture and you say,
"That's what I really look like?"
- People are often shocked how bad their posture is
if they see it on video.
I had a friend of mine,
he saw himself walking on video,
he hadn't in years, and he goes,
"Who's that old man?" (Brad chuckling)
Because he was walking all bent over.
What happens, unfortunately over time is,
your body tells you that this is normal,
and so this feels abnormal,
to sit up,
your position sense after a while,
adjusts to where you are. - Right.
- And so then now it feels abnormal to be straight.
And so you really need to have someone look at you
or do our posture test against the wall.
- Yeah, we just did a video today,
it won't come up for a week or so-
- It'll be up in the next week.
- Okay.
And it shows five steps
on how to assess your posture, and correct it.
- It's a five step system- - Exactly.
- So stay tuned, you're gonna go-
- It is a system,
and it's from there or probably will become
a natural protocol for all therapists
in the next generation.
- Wow!
- [Lonnie] You want one question?
- Sure.
- [Lonnie] "If I have my neck crack on its own
with normal movements,
looking over to sides,
or they a (indistinct),
sometimes does this means something
wrong going on?"
- No, that's a very good question.
- Yeah, it is.
- So what she's asking, he or she,
is asking- - [Lonnie] It's Irene.
- Irene?
Hi, Irene, that's a very good question.
Generally, as you get older
and I'm telling you,
by older, I mean once you're aged 20 and on,
your neck is beginning to deteriorate,
I hate to tell you this.
So it is very natural to have cracking and popping
in your neck as you move.
If there's no pain with it,
there's certainly nothing to be concerned about,
but you're gonna expect some pain
a lot of times with motion,
and that's why, again,
sometimes that popping starts to decrease
after you've done the stretches
and the chin tucks, and the rotations and all that.
After a while,
a lot of times things smooth out a little bit,
and there's less popping and cracking.
So, very, very normal.
It'd be abnormal, really,
if as you get older
that you don't have some cracking in your neck.
Anything, Brad?
- No. (laughs)
- Okay, well,
we'll probably wrap it up then
because we've been on on the air for quite a while.
Thanks again everybody, for watching,
we really appreciate it on Facebook and on YouTube.
And if you have any other further issues
you'd like us to cover,
please always put 'em in the comments.
We may not respond to 'em 'cause there's so many now-
- Yeah, we're kind of overwhelmed.
- But we do look,
and we always look for ideas
on what to do videos in those comments.
- Sure, sure.
- Thanks for watching. - You bet.