- I'm ready if you are.
- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion of course, Bob.
- Brad, today, we're gonna talk about
the top seven bed exercises to perform
after someone's had a laminectomy or a discectomy.
- So we're talking back surgery.
- Back surgery.
If you've had a fusion you could do these also.
But these were designed specifically
for a laminectomy, discectomy.
- Sure.
- And you may want to have the guidance of your surgeon
or a therapist
after your... - Right.
Your surgeon will give you specific instructions
if they need it.
- One thing, generally people start walking right away.
- Sure. - The second day already.
This is not like the old days
where they kept you in bed for a long time.
- Right - They get you up and moving.
So, let's start with
the exercises now - Sure.
- All right.
The first one is the hamstring isometric.
- Okay.
Hamstring in the muscle right here.
- Right. So what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna push my heel into the bed.
- So you're pushing down this direction.
- Count of five. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, relax.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, relax.
For a set of 10. - Sure.
- All right, then we're gonna go to quad set spread.
- Muscles right here. We're gonna get those going.
- Yeah. And I'm just gonna tighten it.
I'm gonna push my knee into the bed.
- Right here.
Ow, you squeezed my hand.
- And that's gonna tighten up that muscle.
Same thing.
- Do that again so it's exaggerate a little bit, Bob.
There we go.
There we go, it's pushing down right there
squishing my hand.
- Again, a of count of five and 10 repetitions.
All right, then we're gonna go,
what they call glute sets or butt,
butt toning. - Butt squeezers.
- All right. So I'm squeezing my butt together.
- Yep.
- Again, count to 10.
- Workin' those butt muscles.
- Brad, They didn't need to see that.
- Well, Bob,
some of them like that.
- All right, then we're gonna do ankle pumps.
Can you get outta the way, Brad, so they can see there?
- Oh sure.
- My ankle pumps. - Yep.
- That's good for blood clots and...
- Right.
- These are something you can do throughout the day.
- Right. You can do 'em together at the same time too, Bob.
- I am doing 'em together.
Do you not see them? - No, no, you're alternating.
- Oh, like that?
- I like doing 'em like that.
But you can do whatever you want,
as long as the ankles are pumping there.
- Next one's a real important one
that you're gonna need to know to help
what we call stabilize your back.
- Sure
- Or put it in the right position
when you're doing a lot of the other exercises
and that's a pelvic tilt.
So...
- Watch the red tape line here.
This gives you a guide of the position of his pelvis,
so let's see what happens.
- So if I were to put my hand underneath here,
I'm trying to squish my hand.
- Right.
- So I'm turning my pelvis this way.
Like that.
- There we go.
So, can you get this out?
Go ahead, do it again, Bob.
So I'm gonna exaggerate a little bit,
but the pelvis tilts this way.
This way.
So his back is going into the table
and you can see his stomach muscles have to contract
to get this to happen.
- Yeah. You normally have kind of an arch here
and you wanna make sure that arch is gone
because a lot of times
you're gonna have to hold that pelvic tilt
while we're doing some of these next exercises.
- Sure. Yep. - In fact, so.
All right, so,
you do the pelvic tilt.
Now that you've learned the pelvic tilt
go ahead and do it and hold it down.
- Yep.
- And now I'm gonna go ahead and do hip flexion.
- So bringing that knee up, one at a time.
- And I'm keeping the pelvis down.
- Right.
- Locked in place.
We'll do 10 of those on each side.
- Right.
When I do this in the clinic I put my hand under here
and I say, "squish my hand with your back now.
Keep squishing it while you do that."
I can feel it.
Now, hold it down, Bob. Hold it.
Now do the exercise. There you go.
Hold it back down. Hold it, hold it.
- Remember when we used to do it with a blood pressure cuff?
- Yep. That's another little trick.
- So if we're spending a lot of time on that again
it's because a lot of people have trouble with it
and it's very important for you to know.
- Right.
- All right, the next one is straight leg raises, Brad.
So again, I'm gonna do the pelvic tilt
and hold it.
And then I'm gonna go ahead and lift up. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
- And a key point here is make sure
this leg is up like this
with a foot down on the bed or the table.
- Cuz' that's gonna make it easier for you
to have your pelvic tilt then.
- So then you can obviously switch to the other side,
1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
- Watch out for "Bone" Apart.
- Yeah, "Bone" Apart's gonna get upset with me.
All right.
And as always,
if there's some issues where you wanna alert the doctor,
you know, if your incision's in the closing.
If you got redness, swelling.
If you got a high level of pain.
- Right.
- You know, compared to what you had before.
- There should be no sharp pains
and definitely no pains going down your leg.
- Yep. No loss of bowel or bladder.
And like Brad just said,
pain or numbness or tingling going down the leg,
You wanna... - Bad for you.
- Yeah, wanna back off.
Just remember, Brad,
slap that subscribe button or we come out and slap you.
All right. - Oh Bob!
♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet. ♪