- All right massage guns, Bob.
Massage guns are as popular as bell-bottom pants
back in the sixties and seventies.
- Yeah.
- People our age can relate to them.
- Right. They were huge on me.
- Great. And this video
is going to show you
the best areas of the body to massage,
as well as the worst.
And the worst are, you really need to pay attention to this.
- So, we cover.
- We're going to be complete.
- Yup. From one end to the other, hang on.
6.9 seconds. No, 9.6.
- Yeah.
- Something like that. We'll be back.
♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Okay Bob, let's get right to it.
The best, three of the best areas.
Now, in order of size, specified area, not muscle.
- Right.
- Because you really cannot just massage,
well, you can, but we wanted to get a localized group.
- So, first of all,
and this is assuming you're doing it to yourself
and not having someone else do it,
because it's really hard
to get to your back with these efficiently.
So, anyways, it's the shoulder.
The shoulder and the peck area.
- The peck which affects the shoulder a lot.
- Exactly. They work together.
- Right.
- And the head that you pick is important.
I use my peck. I had a peck problem for about a year
and I normally use the round head.
And actually, for the shoulder,
the round head is probably going to be
the most utilized in my opinion of course.
- By the way, Brad is using the EM19.
- That's right.
- A massage gun that actually is available in 500 Walmarts.
- Right. There you go.
And you can get it online.
- Right at Walmart.com.
- The box looks like that.
Sometimes they put it in the wrong shelf I understand.
- Yeah, that's right.
- So, anyways, it has 20 different levels.
It's got a real nice indicator
for when the battery is getting low
which is really nice to know.
So, you got to plug it back in.
- 20 different levels.
- 20, I'm going to go, probably,
I usually go at the mid-range.
Oh, 20 is too high.
I'm going to bop that back down to about,
- 10?
- What there 10, it is.
- Now, I'm going to go in,
and this is a powerful gun.
I tested this personally
and it is got plenty of amplitude
as well as stealth force.
- [Bob] Don't blow your voice.
- Yup. So, I'm going to work it in here
and you really want to get in deep,
depending if you got massive pecks
or if you're a thinner person.
- [Bob] Or you're Brad.
- Yeah. So, you can go straight in,
it's going to go deeper.
And if you go sideways, not so much.
And of course, what level you set it at.
And you know, a lot of peck strains happen,
and this is a really good exercise for peck strains.
If you're going to work the shoulder
and say you have impingement problem,
which is the majority of shoulder problems,
you do not, the round head works really well,
but do not go straight in on it.
You're just going to beat it up.
- [Bob] Very good.
- And irritate it.
What I like to do,
I got another camera going there.
We're going to go at it.
I actually cross.
So, I'm going to, there's a cross-fiber massage,
exactly how I'm doing here. And it works best.
- [Bob] The ligament runs like this.
- Yeah. Here let's,
it works really better if you put a pillow down.
So, you can completely relax the shoulder,
get on that muscle sideways and work.
- Across the tendon.
- Yeah. And this really works well.
And you can do this for two or three minutes.
It's a lot easier
than doing a manual cross friction massage.
Works well, but your fingers get tired.
- The fibers of the muscle, the peck muscle
run like this.
- Yep.
- So, going across would be like that.
- I could do that, like this
to get that cross-friction benefits.
- [Bob] And I would do it before you use the muscle.
- Yes. Yup. Kind of a warmup.
And you can do it afterward if you'd like.
So, yeah, I've been doing this with my peck
and the shoulder swimming thing.
You know, if I ever quit swimming,
maybe I wouldn't have the problem,
but that's not an option.
The next area,
and this is probably by far,
the most widely used group, muscle group area that is,
and that's the quadriceps, the hamstrings, and the glutes.
These are the muscles
for moving your body, running, walking, climbing, hiking.
- Big muscles, yes.
So, you need a powerful gun.
- Exactly right.
- This is the gun for you.
- Yeah. So, the round head works fairly well.
But for me, I like, especially if I have my pants on,
I'm going to use this plastic one.
- [Bob] It glides.
- It glides right across your clothing.
It works really well.
Now, you really need to be careful.
Get it going, as you go across your quads.
Don't go too hard if you've got really massive quad muscles.
It all depends on the mass you have.
If you have thin,
because you don't want to beat up you know, your femur.
- [Bob] Right.
- So, again on the hamstrings,
that's where I really like this one.
You can work it across there.
I mean, you can see my stripe just getting pulsated there.
- [Bob] Right.
- Feels good.
Now there's a technique that,
who is it? We learned this.
Kelly Start.
- [Bob] Kelly Start.
- Yes.
- [Bob] The supple leopard.
- Yep. If you, we call it flossing,
and you just do this.
If you have a smooth floor and you got your sock on,
you can just slide her across the floor.
I'm on carpet. I'm going to use a knee-glider,
it works really well.
I'm going to turn this baby up a little bit.
I need more power.
I'm going to bring her up to oh, about 15, about 75%.
And there, now I can really work those hamstrings.
- [Bob] Now you're cooking with gas.
- Yeah.
Oh yeah.
I could do this for a while but you're getting bored.
So, the last group.
Now, this I've done standing,
but it's probably not the best.
Again, I like the same head, the flat, the smooth head.
And you can cross like this.
- [Bob] Really good for piriformis syndrome.
- Yeah.
Just make sure you're not beating on a spot
that is too tender.
- [Bob] Right.
- If it starts to get sore,
you need to get away from it and work around that area.
I like to work close to the SI joint.
Not on it, and not on the bone,
but over the muscle and it really does me wonders.
You can work on the medius here, you know?
And if you want to put the round head on,
you can even work that IT band.
- [Bob] IT band.
- Which is a nice way to get that loosened up.
So, that's area number two.
You can do it lying down, in the chair.
You'll find a number of ways that it works well with.
So, we're going to go on to the next area.
And leastly but not lastly.
(Bob laughing)
- There you go, Bob.
- All right, Brad.
The last areas are actually the forearms and the calves.
- It's like toss-up.
- Right.
- Which one is going to be more?
- It depends on you.
- Right.
- I mean, are you a gamer?
If you do a lot of gaming
and you use your forearms.
Or you are a golfer.
- Yeah.
- Or a tennis player.
- Yup. Or you work for a living,
and you're using your hands a lot with tools.
- Right. You're going to actually
definitely want to take it up here.
You're going to work the forearm
before these muscles go down into the hand
and they affect the wrist and grip.
- [Brad] Right.
- So, you want to warm those up
before you play the game.
- [Brad] Yup.
- Whatever it may be.
Might be tennis, might be golf, might be a video game.
- [Brad] It might be going to work, Bob.
- Right.
- [Brad] People work with their hands, Bob.
- They do? Really?
- [Brad] Yeah. So anyways,
if you've got knots in there,
you're going to find out that those knots,
are going to be a little painful,
but if you work on them,
and after about 20, 30 seconds
it starts to feel like,
oh, they're starting to release,
then you know, you're right on the money.
- Like Brad said, also if a tender spot, work around it.
- [Brad] Yes, exactly.
- And if you want to give me a round one, yeah.
- [Brad] Okay.
- So, let's say you have, right by the elbow,
a tennis elbow.
In that case, again, you don't want to
go directly on it like this.
- [Brad] Yeah. You're just going to pound it up.
- Go across the fiber.
- [Brad] Yeah.
- If you can tolerate it.
- [Brad] Yeah.
And you'll find this really is helpful.
- Right. Works really well.
Same with golfer's elbow.
All right. Let's go to the calves, Brad.
So, a lot of people, me included,
have trouble with my calves.
- Here Bob. Allow me, so you can.
- Wow. What a nice kind of.
- I won't do that very often.
Once in a while.
- My calves can never get massaged enough, Brad.
- [Brad] Yeah. Bob really works those calves.
- [Bob] Yeah.
- [Brad] Now you even got more aggressive
with the bullet head.
- [Bob] Right.
- [Brad] That'll really get in deep.
I don't use it because it's a little too aggressive for me,
but it's an individual thing,
and it depends what you like and how you're built.
- All right.
- Yeah. They pop right out a little interference fit.
I'll get that one.
- I wish it was a silver bullet.
- I think they're going to come out with that Bob.
- Oh.
(Bob laughing)
- [Brad] That's enough, Bob.
You don't have to literally, you know?
It feels good, yes.
We understand.
All right. We're going to get on with it.
- I'll go with the fibers and against the fibers.
- Right. So, the fibers go vertical there.
We're going to go across them.
- Across and with them.
- Yup.
All right.
We're going to get on with the three worst areas.
And this is important to know,
probably more important than the best ones in certain ways.
Okay. We're going to talk about the worst places
to massage on the body with a massage gun.
It's very critical that you understand this.
So, we've got a nice diagram, this shows, the lymph nodes.
- [Bob] Right.
- [Brad] Or the lymph system.
- [Bob] Those little green dots.
- [Brad] Right. They're very sensitive.
You do not want to beat them up with a mechanical massager.
- [Bob] Massage over them.
- [Brad] Right. So, the areas
are in the knees, mostly in the back of the knees.
You want to stay away
from that popliteal fossa area.
There and there.
- [Bob] And the front is going to be bony anyway, so.
- [Brad] Right, you're not going
to massage the front of the knee.
And then this is a big area.
- [Bob] In the groin.
- [Brad] In the groin area. Look at the lymph node.
They're just all over the place in there.
So, stay away from that crease.
- [Bob] Right.
- [Brad] That femoral crease area, you know?
It runs this way and this way.
Just stay away from there, okay?
And then the next.
Some of these they're showing in here are deep in the body.
- [Bob] Right.
- And people don't massage their stomach muscles.
At least we don't recommend it,
but the armpit. There and there.
So, when you're working the pecks,
you want to stay on the peck muscle
and don't go behind it,
and get deep in there where all these lymph nodes are.
They've got a job to do and it's not getting massaged.
And then look at the head, neck, and head.
It's just full of lymph node.
- [Bob] Ton of them.
- [Brad] Yup. They're and there.
Stay away from that.
We do not recommend
ever massaging the neck and the head anyways.
- [Bob] That's right.
- [Brad] We'll cover that on the next.
- [Bob] Next round.
- [Brad] Yup. The next episode.
Okay. The next structures and system,
that you really need to be careful with,
is the nervous system.
So, here we have some diagrams.
The backside of a body, the front side of the body.
The yellow lines represent the nerves.
And really, it's a little harder on these,
but we can tell you the areas to be careful with.
You can see the brachial plexus comes right through here.
- [Bob] Through the armpit, right.
- [Brad] So, stay away from that. We mentioned that.
Very similar to the lymph system. Okay. Also,
- [Bob] The funny bone.
- [Brad] the funny bone, which is at
the backside of the elbow.
Just stay away from there.
A lot of people,
almost everyone has bumped their funny bone,
and get that zinger up into your finger,
particularly your pinky finger.
- [Bob] Probably the wrist.
- [Brad] Yeah. Stay away from the wrist.
More of the front side of the wrist here and here.
And then the sciatic nerve,
which is on the back side of the body.
- [Bob] Right.
- [Brad] This is the anterior, the front.
You're not going to get to sciatic nerve there,
but around the buttocks area by the glute max,
be careful for that.
You'll know if you hit it
because it's going to be uncomfortable.
So, just when you're doing those muscles,
it should always feel good.
If you hit that nerve, it's no good.
Stay away from that.
And also, also down the leg,
and the back of the knees, same as the lymph.
Bob, were you going to say something else?
- [Bob] No, that, that's what I was going to say.
- The only other place is the ankle,
around the Achilles tendon,
there's some nerves that wrap around the malleolus,
or the ankle bones, just posterior to that.
So, be nice to your nerves.
And once again, anything,
and this is the third one,
and it relates to this so much,
so, we'll go right into it.
Nothing from the neck up,
Stay away from even the low neck,
you know, those upper traps.
If you know what you're doing, for sure,
maybe you can do the upper traps.
A lot of people don't.
So, stay away from those upper traps,
and the whole head is off limits with the gun.
So, be careful, and obey these rules.
- [Bob] Very good.
- [Brad] Very good.
Enjoy the day and massage away.
- [Bob] Thumbs up.
(sound effect clicking)