♪ Bob and Brad ♪ ♪ The two most famous ♪ ♪ Physical therapists ♪ ♪ On the internet ♪ - Hi folks, I'm Bob
Schrupp, physical therapist. - Brad Heineck, physical therapist. - Together we're the most famous physical therapists on the internet. - In our opinion, of course Bob. - So today, we're gonna show you how to decompress your full back, not full spine, because
we're not gonna do the neck. - No, the back. - The back and it's
gonna be instant relief and there's no awkward positioning. - Right? - So pretty much mostly everybody
will be able to do this. - Yes, yep, but you'll see other videos where people are making you
hang off the edge of the bed over furniture, embarrassing things. It's anyways, this is straight forward. - Yeah, if your spouse came in the room and you were doing this to
some furniture, she'd be like. - We've got a family show here, anyways. We'd better continue on. - If you're 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 go to bobandbrad.com, go to the giveaway section, this week, if you're having back pain, we're actually giving away a TENS unit. - Oh, yes, here we go, right there. - Yeah, TENS unit, it's
a small battery device that'll help decrease pain. - Yep, help you manage pain if you've got- - Using electricity. - If you're on pain medication,
you can help decrease it. - Ease off it. - Or passively get off it. It depends on your situation. - Right? It'll be pinned on Facebook,
the contest, go to that page. You also can find us, a
60 second version of us, on Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok. - Or TikTok, and now Bob, as you know, our podcasts are up and running,
and we've got quite a few, must have 30 or 40 of them at least. - Now can listen to us
even when you're driving. - Yeah, and we have other people, we have experts in the field.
- Lot of interviews. - Yep.
- Lot of interviews. - Anyways, so Bob, we do need to talk about this decompression, which is essentially traction on the back. There's a lot of different ways
that you can apply traction. Traction is one of those
things that if it works, it works very good and very
quickly, it's not like you do it an hour later, you feel relief. - Nah, it should be instant. - Right, the other thing about it, it doesn't work for everyone every time. But these options that we're
going to offer are very simple, and it does decompress the thoracic spine and the lumbar spine,
so from the lower neck. - When he says thoracic,
he means mid-back. - Yeah, stand up, I'll show Bob. We got a tall drink of water here. Look at this, he's got a full back from here all the way down here. It's about four feet worth.
(Bob laughs) Well, not quite, but anyways. And this, will work on his
as mine as well as anybody's. Are you gonna stay standing Bob? - I'm going to put this on. - Okay, so go ahead, Bob,
we can come over here. But what we're going to use
is gravity and body weight. And we're essentially going to hang. Now you can use a couple
options, a pull-up bar. If you have pull-up bar
at home, that will work. We use the hanging handles, and
we used to use pull-up bars. And we found out that if you use the wall to aid yourself, it really is
a big compliment to traction. - Now, when you get the hanging handles, you also get three of them. - Three.
- The supports. - Yep, three anchors. - Three anchors, you wanna show the other
one back there too? - Yeah, over here. - Yeah, so you can go wider if you want. - Right, right, and you
do whatever feels best. For me, I always use
the narrow lines myself. - I do too. - And I personally use traction like this for maintenance on my back. I don't have a, well, sometimes I do with my spondylolisthesis, but typically it's maintenance. So I can be active on a daily basis. - Maintenance and I also use it to kind of wake me up when
I'm working at the desk. - It is amazing when you
hang how it opens things up, should we? We better, we're babbling now.
- Yeah get started. - We always get hollered at for that. So the first thing you do, if you've got back pain in your low back or your thoracic back, this
is going to cover both. You simply grab your pull-up
bar or your hanging handles or whatever you have that you can hang on. Now with the back up against the wall, the big benefit, it puts
you in good posture, okay? Now I'm gonna lower myself. One thing you wouldn't
have these too high. If you had to jump up to
get 'em or your pull-up bar, you wanna be able to have
full weight on your feet, grab the bars and slowly go down. - And that's what's nice about these. You can set them where
you want to have them. - Yep, now I'm just gonna go down. I've got about 50%
weight bearing right now, and you're probably gonna hold it. Just kind of hang out there. Now, if you have back
pain and you get to here and it's starting to feel good, just hang out there for awhile. And if you go a little more
weight, it feels better. That's okay, as long as it feels better. And particularly if you
have some sciatica involved and your leg pain is improving, boy, just hang out there,
you know, for 30 seconds, as long as you can, as
long as that leg pain and back pain is getting better. Don't do it if it hurts, it's
not the thing to do then. - I would recommend too, Brad, if you've never done any hanging and you don't know if
it's going to help you. - Yep. - Go ahead and maybe find a
bar and you know what I mean? Just to try it first. - Right. - And then if that works,
then buy some hanging handles. - Right, exactly. - Because I don't want you buying them and finding out, "Oh,
this doesn't even work." - We're gonna show a
pseudo option at the end. - Sure. - With the Booyah Stik that
you don't even need this. You can just use a stick,
it doesn't work as well. But it puts you in that direction. - It helps. - We've got five options,
that was the first option. The second option is the same thing, except for once you find out it's good, and you've let go and you
stood up and it feels good, you may wanna go do full
traction, full body weight. - Sure. - Just let the gravity take advantage. Now my feet are off, can you see that? Everyone can see that, Tanner? And I'm gonna hang here. The trick to this is to learn to relax your core or stomach muscles so that you get the full
benefits of the traction. Again, you're only gonna
do that if it feels good. It's like, oh... - And the amount time is really up to you. - Yep. - I know they try to work up
to larger amount of times. - Like minutes. - Yeah, but I get relief rather quickly, I mean it cracks my back right away. - Yeah, and your hands get tired. - Right, right.
(Brad laughs) - This also happens to be real good. - Really good for shoulders.
- For your shoulders. All right, the next one,
if that's going well, we can add rotation in. This is something you
need to do very gently. So let's say I'm here. You can keep some weight through your toes to start with this. If you can see my knees, got that in, now you can add a little
rotation to the right. See how that goes, if it feels good, you can keep working it. You can also test it to the left. If both ways feel good, you
can alternate right and left. Now you're gonna do this very slowly. This is not anything
you're gonna swing into. It has to feel good while you're doing it. And then test afterwards and
you get up and walk around. It should continue to feel good. That's important to do. - It's almost like your
manipulating your back a little bit. - Yep. - When you do those little rotations. It's almost like you're
cracking your own back. - Yep, and a big thing, I can't
emphasize this enough Bob, I think you agree is,
be cautious with this. - Right. - Don't just go into hanging, test it out gently and
wait 'til the next day. If you wanna go into a little more length, or I wouldn't add the rotation right away, the first day at any cost. - Probably after a week. - Yep, yep, and once, you know, traction, full weight-bearing feels good after a day or two of doing that, or even like Bob said, maybe a week, you can add your rotation. - Yep. - I don't rotate because I
don't feel it's gonna be good for my back.
- Sure. - I just hang, now one
thing, if you have stenosis, this is a really neat trick,
and I do have lumbar stenosis, and this does feel real good. - Which makes sense. - Yeah. - It helps open up the framing. - Right, we're flexing the spine. And anytime you flex the
lumbar spine with stenosis, it typically... - Especially with traction. - Yeah, so this stool works good because I'm gonna go down and I go full weight
bearing, it feels okay. But when I put my feet
up here and right now... - [Bob] Owee! - All the way, it's starting to feel good. And for me, 'cause I've done this before, this even feels better. And I'm just gonna hang out here until my hands get tired 'cause
I'm feeling good right now. And not that my back was
really uncomfortable before, but this is like a healthy stretch. - It's an optimal position for you. - Yep, yep, it's good. Now, if you're doing this, you have to have this
particular technique, really confident, good strength. - Yeah, so you don't want to
let go and fall onto your butt. - If your like this and you let go, you're gonna have a lot
more problems in your back. - Yep, exactly. - So only do this.
- Safety first. - Yep, you're not gonna jump into this. You're gonna do the hanging
and feel very confident. And I typically hang only
for about 30 seconds, then my hands are getting
a little tired and might- - You could even start that with one foot. - Yep, yep, exactly. - I mean it would help a little bit. - Yep, exactly.
- And reverse feet. - Sure. So you can see this all is
based on gravity and hanging. - Right.
- And the wall helps. - And the rotationals. - Yep, exactly. And there's one other
option from hanging out. You may benefit from
going face to the wall. Now, I can do this for a little bit, but if I hang here for
more than 20 seconds, it bothers my back because of my stenosis, and you can just hang there like that. - Yeah, you're going into a
little bit of back extension. - Yes. - Which maybe feels
really good to some people and somebody like you would not. - Right, you know, I would
stick with this first, and after you feel real comfortable, you've been hanging for a
while and getting decompressed, you could try that, but that
wouldn't be the first day, for sure, not even the first week. - No, exactly. - Now, if you don't have
anything to hold on, hanging handles, a pull-up bar, you know, I talked to Tanner about if
some people wanna hang on to a door, you know, and they just. - Yeah. - Yeah, and then the
hinges break off that's-- - It's always a little scary. - Yeah, if you get a stick
like this that's long enough, I'll do it from the side,
Bob, you can run forward. It should be about four or
five feet long, pretty sturdy. We use a Booyah Stik 'cause
it works really well. But you just needs a stick piece, of dolly and a piece of PBC. - And I actually have
to put it on the chair. - Sure, yep.
- 'Cause I'm taller. - And I'm gonna go to the
top of this with both hands and it cannot slip on the floor. That's when you need a rubber bottom. - Or on the chair. - Or a piece of carpet, whatever. So it stays there and then
you simply lean forward. - And don't let the hands slide down. - Right, don't do that. And what that does is
that creates a force. And I don't know if you can see it, but it's pulling through my back. It's a cheating way of getting some lumbar traction and you know. - It works.
- Yeah, it works. It just doesn't have the intensity. And again, the same rules with this. You lean forward. If it doesn't feel
better, you don't do it. The disadvantage to this is,
is you're leaning forward, flexing the spine. If you have a herniated
disc, the two don't. - Really mix. - Yep, so cautious with this one, but it is something you can try. - Felt good to me. - Yeah, yeah I think, you know, for a person with a
reasonably healthy back, it's just great for your
shoulders, your posture, your back. And it's become one of my
favorite maintenance tools. - Yeah, I know Tim Paris. If you know who he is, he
actually hangs every morning. - Does he? - Yeah, just same thing. - Where did he learn from, from us? - No. - Oh really, someone
else had it before us? - Oh, they had it before us, yes. (Brad laughs)
We weren't the first ones. - Anyways, all is good. - Remember we can fix just about anything. - Oh, except for--
- A broken heart. - Right, and hanging I don't
think is even gonna come close. (electronic music)
