- [Brad] (laughing) Whatever. - Hi folks. I'm Bob
Schrupp, physical therapist - Brad Heineck, physical therapist. And together we are the most famous physical
therapist on the internet - In our opinion, of course, Bob. - Today, we are gonna talk about the best sleeping posture to
improve that hunchback posture. You know that... - Yep. - Rounded out posture. That's really not desirable. It's not good for you. It's not healthy for you. - Right. - And it causes pain quite often. - Right. So there's some things you can do while you sleep to improve that. And we're gonna get to
'em in just a moment. - Yeah. And if you are new to our channel please take a second to subscribe to us. We provide videos, how to
stay healthy, fit, pain free and we upload every day. Also take another minute
and go over to Facebook and like us, Bob and Brad,
because when you like us we send out positive vibes to you. It's a good thing, energy. - And it may not even take a minute. - Yeah. - 30 seconds. If you're good. - Yeah. If you're fast. All right, Brad. So you wanted to show
the hunchback posture - Right, when we're
talking about hunchback in the medical field,
you call it, kyphosis. - Sure. Okay. - Thoracic kyphosis,
which means the mid part of your back is curved. And that's this, what we call hunchback and you'll get it up below the neck. You'll get that bump there. And what happens is not only
does your back hunch like this but in order to keep your
head up your cervical, your neck has to hyper extend, which can lead into more problems with headaches, neck problems
down into the shoulder. So it's just not here
where it's gonna cause - It's a cascade of problems. And this goes from one. - Wow,
- Yeah. I thought I'd throw that out there. - You've been reading books again. - Yeah, that's right. - That's good. But so how can we straighten this and how can you do it
with the bed as a tool? - Right, so you definitely wanna work on it during the day, but if you sleep with bad
posture all night long you're gonna undo everything you did just throughout the day, - Precisely
- All - So we want to make
sure you don't do that. - And the first thing is,
check your mattress out. If you've got a mattress that's worn out and it's kind of got that bowl - It got the bowl in it - Right.
- Yeah. - You need to do either replace it. Or if you can't afford a
mattress, cause a good mattress costs a little bit more than
you'd like to spend as usual. But if that's the case, what
can we do to just fix that? Well, one you can do is
you can flip it, right? Yep. You can also take plywood. I did this when we were, I dunno why you always laugh at this, - (laughing) but my wife and I took plywood and put it between the
mattress and the box spring when we were... - Just married. - Just married - Don't even talk about it anymore, but yeah, you put- - That right there and it firm things up so that we had a better, I mean some people will take it,
put it right on the floor. The mattress on the floor. - Sure. I mean - If they're having back
pain and stuff like that - I was just talking to
someone this weekend. He had a very firm mattress. He can sleep better on
the floor than he can- - I've heard that too
- On the mattress right now. - I've heard that too. - But you know, when he says flip it you can flip it upside down. You can rotate it 90 degrees
or 180 degrees to get the the better part of the mattress
that you're sleeping on. Those little tricks
can save you some money and be successful. - All right. So if you are gonna buy
a mattress, you shouldn't buy a soft one though. You should, you're gonna
wanna have least one that's medium or firm. - Right. - Cause otherwise- - When you go to buy one they'll say that's the three grades, soft, medium, firm. - because you could see if you
have one that's really soft. You're just gonna sink down into it and it's gonna play
right into that kyphosis. - Right. - You know, so you don't want that. So if we, you know, a
lot of times we get asked for recommendations, we do. There's one mattress that we
do endorse by sleepovation. This is it right here. What we like about it
is a number of things but just a quick commercial,
it's got 700 individual cells here that provide different, you know it helps take the pressure
off the pressure points. So like your back, shoulder, hip. - With kyphosis you're gonna have a pressure
point particularly right along the spine where you have
the, the hunch so to speak. And this is going to
even it out just like the - Yeah. - The roll hole cushion. - So the reason Brad and
I really like this cushion when we first saw it is because
we've been using a cushion like this for years with patients - 30 plus years - 30 plus years, it's
the number one cushion for people who are having
trouble with pressure sores on their bottom or
pressure on their bottom. - Right. So this cushion
goes in a wheelchair for people who aren't able to move much. And it really is comfortable and does a lot of good
things for their bottom. - Yeah. - For circulation comfort, et cetera - And proven by science. I mean, they have a lot of studies that show this is the best cushion. So you look at this very similar to that. So if you purchase, you
know, through the link below we do get some off a
small fee that we use to help offset the cost
of making these videos. But you get $300 off. - Right. - Plus if you put in the code, the code word which is down
below, you get another $50 off. So $350 off. we never do things unless
you benefit from it. And we never endorse things
unless we really like them. - Right. - All right. Let's move on, Brad. - Okay. So the next thing is pillow thickness. Now you got your mattress, a new one or you've corrected, you're old one. The best that you can. The next thing is to make sure if you're do have that kyphosis not- - I think this shows it
really well, Brad, right? - Your head gonna be up here
and you're gonna need a pillow. That's the right height. If you get a real, a too thin of a pillow and your head's not supported that might be too much force on your back. It's gonna help straighten your back out. But it may be too much too uncomfortable. - You may have to work
your way down to it, right? Yeah. You wanna work your way down to the thinnest possible pillow, when you're laying on your back. - You could start with two pillows. = Sure. - So you're getting some stretch and it feels like you're
getting a little straighter and you know, over a few weeks or maybe a month or two,
you may take a pillow out and you can see how the spine
is starting to straighten out. Unfortunately, one problem is we all normally move when we sleep we don't sleep on our back all night long. It's almost impossible
to, so we need to work with this and then we
need to dress sideline which we're going to in a little bit too. - Oh, one thing I wanna mention Brad, since we're in this position here, the other thing you wanna avoid is, you wanna put another pillow on there. - Sure. - You wanna avoid this, reading in bed like this. - Right. - You know, the alternative
to that would be you can get one of those. You wanna grab that
wedge over there, Brad? - Oh, yes - You can. Cause someone
had just ask about this and they were like, would
this work well for reading? It's like, yes, absolutely. So you can see how I can
actually stay in pretty good posture or put one thin pillow here. And now I'm just a right
posture for reading. And yet, you know, my
kyphosis is not getting worse. - Right and so many people
have TVs on the wall. - Yeah. That's the other thing. Yeah. Watching the TV
would be the other way. And these are inexpensive. - Yeah. this is a sleep wedge, not a leg wedge. - It's a sleep wedge. Okay. Gotcha. - Okay. Good. Bob. I wanted to talk
more about supine position and I know you personally
use this technique with your- - I've done this for years. I would like to think
this is my invention. - Yeah. Very good. I think so too, but
it's, you know, I bet you someone else might be doing it. - Yeah. So what I do is
I take, this isn't it this is a little too large. I take a throw pillow, a smaller pillow
- From the couch - From the couch and
yeah, my wife gives me a hard time about it, but- - That's what I was just wondering - So as I lay here, could
you see how this kind of brings my chest out a little bit? - Yeah. So right here, elevating his chest then that's gonna help take
that kyphosis and reverse it. - Yeah. So, you know, I don't know if you can tolerate this, it might be something
you have to work into. But then what I do is when
I go to lay on my side this works out pretty slick. Is I just pull it down a little bit here. I create the canal for the side sleeping for the shoulder. - So it's taking the pressure
off the shoulder blade. - Yeah. So now I don't have any pressure on the shoulder and I can lay on my side. Now. I usually like a thicker pillow. When I lay on my side - You might double it up - Double it up
- or you have a second one. - Or have a second one. Right. So I just lay like this and
now I'm in great position. Pressure's off the
shoulder pressures off the you know, the back. The back's all lined up really well and just works out real well for me - You could take your
wife's pillow. (laughing) It just kills me, when I make - She probably-
- These jokes (both laughing) I'm trying to kill somebody, okay? - Prone, what about
sleeping on your stomach. Now, if you got hunchback, chances are you're not gonna sleep on your stomach cause it's gonna be very uncomfortable. - You could try a pillow underneath you. Sure. We generally recommend
that you don't sleep on your stomach, but for
short periods of time - Just for, you know you may wanna just do a
good stretch that way. - Yeah. Yeah. - And it may be only for 30 seconds to a few minutes, depending on what you're tolerated and
how severe your hunchback is. - Yeah. - If it's real severe,
it may not be an option but if it's not so bad,
you may be able to lay on your stomach and feel that stretch. - Do you sleep on your stomach at all? - Not at all. - Don't you? See I'll sleep on my stomach for I'll bet you a half hour or something. - Sure. - And I just go back again. - I used to when I was
younger and I don't anymore. - Sure. Okay. We talked about the side sleeping already, right, - Right. Side sleeping. So the next thing we did
want to talk about is another stretch. We talked about stretching
prone, if you wanna lay on your stomach, but
also laying on your back before you sleep and when you get up or maybe if you get up in
the middle of the night you can throw this in too - Sure - It's the hallelujah stretch. - Yeah and you know, you can do this just in bed with laying flat without anything. And you can just work on you're gonna go ahead
and just stretch way out and you take a nice deep
breath while you're doing it. - Right. - And you want to expand that rib cage and and let that back stretch. - Yep. And as you're breathing think about getting really
tall, arching your back up. So your chest is going
up towards the ceiling. Bob's six and a half foot tall. He's gonna pretend he is
gonna go to 10 foot tall and let everything stretch out. - I do a stretch like this in the morning. I'm stretching my hamstring
and this shoulder actually doesn't go all the way down in the morning until I stretch it. And then it, then it reaches down. Oh, you know, cause the chest is tight. - Sure. - So it's stretching the chest. Now, if you wanna add a little
more, you know, stretch to it go ahead and take that throw pillow again. - Oh right. - And now you go over it like this and now you're getting even
more of a stretch here in bed. - This will be the more advanced
by the time you get to this your kyphosis or your hunchback
is probably almost back to normal and you're really doing well. - You certainly could try
this even with the kyphosis. - Sure. - And see if, you know you can get a little extra stretch cause you don't have to stay
here a long period of time. - Right. - You can just give it
a good stretch like that but that'll be a good bonus there. - Sure. - So... - Wow, Bob, I think we
pretty much covered it. Head to toe. - Yeah, I think we did. So.
- All right. - Thanks everybody for watching.
