Hi folks 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, sciatica back pain three instant relief exercises at home. Keep it simple
We're gonna show you a couple of new things today. Yeah, and this is
simple you can do them at home and
I've had these work and if they work they work right now the pain
dramatically goes down. And if they do work, I would do them quite often, right
Yeah precisely,
it's not something to do once a day. It's something you do throughout the day. Sure
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Let's talk about back pain Bob. Sciatica.
Almost always I wouldn't say almost always but the majority of time it's a problem with the disc, herniated or bulging or extruded
Right so why don't we just go ahead and show them so they get a good visual
Oftentimes, this helps. Am I at a good location?
See the red disc here showing the problem disc
Not that you have a red disc in your back
Of course, they're more like this, but the bulge is right here
and if you look at this nerve this nerve happens to go down your leg and if this bulge is
pushing into that nerve that makes that nerve talk to you and say ow ow ow
Give you all kinds of pain down the leg
We need to get that bulge to get back in and we call that reduce
Back in to where it belongs and if we could get that to go back in
Life is good. So we're gonna if you think about subtraction
Pulling on the vertebrae apart so that it allows room for that bulge to get back in where it belongs
So traction has been around for much longer than anything and now surgeries are more popular
So I think traction kind of went to the wayside somewhat because of that
But if he could do some traction to get that bulge to reduce, pain goes away quickly
Well, let me show them on a dynamic model here, good so here we got
two vertebrae that we pulled from the low back L4 L5
And in between we have the disc
And so again a normal healthy disc you can move forward back side side
Nothing really happens, the disc stays fine, but after a while
Let's say you do a lot of sitting or a lot of bending and you wear out the back of the disc
Which is where it normally has a problem, what happens eventually is this can happen. Can you see that?
Right there
Is that clear Liz or is that around the side too much? All right, I could turn a little bit
So now we're gonna put some traction and pull them out and that just sucks it back in
Centripetal force I know you don't believe that but that's what they used to say is centripetal force
Okay, so pulls it right back in, so, very simple right Brad? Yep. So, how do we get traction at home?
They have fancy machines, but you really don't need it. We've got three different options that you can do
Now here's a nice safe way to do it. You just get a couple chairs
and you're gonna go ahead and put a pillow down if you you know, it's hard on your knees, if you had carpet
It's okay. It's fine and my knees are young. I can handle this. Bob is tougher than nails.
Yeah, so we're gonna go ahead and it's real simple here. All you're gonna do is
weight on your arms, so I'm picking up my knees from the floor
And I'm letting my body relax, so I'm trying to let my back sag
Some people may initially have a hard time allowing the muscles around your trunk to relax so you can get that traction and let that
Bulge go back in but you'll know because this is gonna feel good. It's gonna feel like oh my goodness
I wish I would have done this a long time ago.
They don't have to do this for a minute. They can do like 15 seconds at a time, right
Just lift up. Relax lift up relax
Just give you some relief, kind of works on your posture too. Kind of gets you back in alignment
So and the other way to do this, by the way, my toes are touching the whole time
Right, so it was just my knees that were up
This is kind of a partial traction. You're not getting full body weight.
It's a way to start out and it doesn't take as much arm strength and most people feel more comfortable when they're lower
But this is quite easy as well
so if you have a good solid chair, you got to have solid chairs for this one because you know
You don't want to be leaning on something that's not going to give you support
So now the same thing again, I got my toes just kind of hanging there, they're touching
But I'm taking pressure off the back and this is a nice one to do because you can do it in your office, you know
You could just be talking to somebody, you know, hi hanging out how's it going
Yeah, because once you feel comfortable with it it's very easy to do, let's give them the profile Bob
Then they know exactly what you're talking about
We're going to show his feet position. So his toes are you know, there's a little bit of weight
I mean I can lift up, but it's easy to relax. It's easy to relax is right
because everything kind of tightens up when I do it the other way
Again, as soon as you put that traction through there
You're gonna feel that release
and if that's the situation you're gonna do this throughout the day every hour
So to get that bulge back in and keep it in. Alright, how about the second way? This way you need some equipment
I mean you need a bar. Yeah, I mean you don't have to, I mean some people
May have something at their house where they can get hang from, you know, a rafter or whatever
But you do need a pull-up bar or something to hang on
So I'm gonna do it facing this way actually works good now I do this on my back and I don't have a bulging disc
It just feels good to me. You do this for your shoulder a little bit too don't you?
Yeah, I do as a matter of fact that's working out really well for me
So it's a double benefit. Actually, we're gonna do a video on that too Bob, the double
It's like a two hole in one or something like that
So anyways with this, I'll do it this way, so you can see my feet, the same concept
you can just start to go like this and do a partial hang and
So I'm controlling the weight with my feet right here
And if that feels good and the more weight you let off your feet the better it feels I'm gonna go to my toes
Now I could lift my feet up like this. And actually I get full weight and I'm telling you this feels good right now
I'm happy.
Oh man, and I'm gonna hang here for about 30 seconds simply because my hands get a little tired after
I mean, I don't do it for my back but it actually does work for even your mid-back a little bit. Oh sure, right
From lumbar to thoracic, it's a good stretch
So even if you don't have sciatica, you may want to try this to get some back range again
Again we're going to go over later how it actually helps a lot of shoulder issues. Not later on this video later
Later in time later this year later this month
Alright, so the other thing you can do you can actually do
You can try to in theory kind of push that disc back in by instead of going forward
You actually extend the back and sometimes that helps
And sometimes I don't know or we can keep it simple
Well, we can start here some people who have trouble laying on their stomach may have to start with a pillow or two
So they lay on like this and this is the only thing they might do the first day
When you go like this if it clearly feels better and it gives you relief in the back and down the leg
That's great. Sometimes the pillow can go this way. Sometimes I'll turn it this way
it depends on what works better for the individual and how it responds and
You know, if you start with two pillows then eventually go down to one pillow
This might happen in one day if it feels good you might go I'll try it without a pillow
Well, it still feels good and still relieving some of my leg pain. I've had this happen with patients in one session
Usually it takes more than one but the
progression is the same. So then you know you want to probably do the prone prop. Sure. Where you get up on your elbows.
Same thing. What's it doing? What's the pain doing? Is it getting out of the leg?
Is it getting worse in the leg, then you don't want to do this
If it's getting out of the leg and maybe even worse in the back, that's a good sign, right
We're trying to get it out because what's happening is that bulge is literally going back into where it belongs and then you go to
the dynamic aspect. I'm just go ahead and I'm keeping my pelvis down and I'm doing kind of a half-press up here
So the full one would be but I'm not lifting up my bottom like this cuz
A lot of times your back is tight and if you went all the way up like this it would go like this
So you just want to work in the range that it allows you and then eventually yeah a full one is like this
So the full, the elbows go fully locked as a matter of fact
I just worked with a woman it took about a week and a half
Three visits before she could get to this. Yeah, but everything is going just like this
It just took a little bit longer. I do these preventively twice a day. Yeah. I just give my back a good stretch to
Help keep that disc in alignment, it's like changing oil in your car
That's right, except you have to do it twice a day which I don't think you have to do it in your car that often
There you go
Three really easy things you can do at home and between the three of them
I think you're gonna find at least one of them that's gonna give you some good relief
So carry on once again Bob we can fix just about anything except for a broken heart
There ya go. But we're working on it, day and night night and day we will never
We will never succeed. No we will never desist or stop or we digress once again. All right. Thanks for watching.