♪ The two most famous ♪

♪ Physical therapists ♪

♪ On the internet ♪

- Howdy folks, I'm Bob Scrupp, physical therapist.

- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.

- Together we are the most famous physical therapists

on the internet. - What do you wanna wear,

a cowboy head or something? (both laughing)

- Got my spurs on, I'm ready to go.

- What's up today, Bob?

- In our opinion, you're supposed to say.

- Oh, in our opinion, of course,

yeah we have that qualifier.

- We're gonna talk about eight everyday habits

that are harming your spine.

Maybe your neck and back, and you don't even know it.

And we're gonna help you get through this

so that you stop doing that.

- And these are the things we know are happening

and you just don't know it

because it happens over a period of years,

and it's because of, largely posture,

keeping the spine where it needs to be.

And what were you just reading

something about teenagers having-

- Yes, we just found out, a lot of teenagers are,

and they're looking at, they're examining their neck

and they do x-rays of 'em,

they found out the deterioration is equivalent

to somebody who's been working at a job for 20 years.

Like even a dentist or somebody

who is bent down all the time,

that their necks have deteriorated equal to that.

- And it's because they're studying so hard.

- Well, no, no, they're doing this.

They're on their phones and they're down,

I'm not being negative 'cause we're all on our phones.

But when you're gonna use your phone

you're gonna want to bring it up like this so that,

again, to talk the Tyrannosaurus rex arms,

the real short arms.

You bring it up like this.

- So we should tape your arms to your body so that.

- Yeah, that's a good idea.

- We could come up with something, Bob.

- All right.

- We'll come up with that later.

- By the way, if you're new to our channel

and you haven't left already,

please take a second to subscribe to us.

We provide videos on how to stay healthy

and fit and pain free, and we upload every day.

Also go over to Facebook and like us

because Brad and I have severe psychological complexes

which have not yet been diagnosed and we need to be liked.

- Yeah, that's gonna help us.

Oh the button is here, is here, or here.

- Yeah. Here, here. - Subscribe.

- All right. Eight.

And maybe we'll throw in a bonus if we have time, Brad.

So let's start off right away in the morning

when you're getting outta bed.

- Right. - Okay.

You start, this is what a lot of people do,

and your back by the way,

is very vulnerable in the mornings.

'Cause what has happened at night,

your discs fill up with fluid during the night.

So you're actually taller in the morning

than you are during the day, 'cause during the day,

you start squishing some of that fluid out

and you actually shorten up a little bit.

- And that's how the discs survive,

they get fluid overnight and they get nutrients,

and then in day it pushes out the old fluid

and waste products go out, it's called imbibition.

- Wow. That's quite impressive.

- There you go, you bet.

- So you're gonna, you're starting up,

you wake up in the morning,

and the first thing a lot of people do

is they go like this and they go like this.

- Yep. The old- - Yep.

And this is a really hard maneuver on your back,

especially in the mornings.

- Let me get that for you.

So right here,

you're rounding your back. - You're all rounded out.

- Which puts a lot of pressure on the back side of the disc,

and if you do have a start of a herniation,

which you would not know yet- - Or a bulging disc.

- Right. That will help make it worse.

- Right. So, all we want you to do in the morning,

you get outta bed one of two ways.

One, you can roll over onto your side,

what we say, roll over like a log.

So you're rolling your upper body and lower body together.

- [Brad] There you go.

- You're gonna push your legs off the edge like this.

- [Brad] Right here.

- And now you're gonna use the elbow and the hand

and you're gonna push up like this,

and you're keeping the back straight the whole time.

- Exactly. - An alternative would be,

if you're having a lot of pain in the back already,

you can just go ahead and slide over

onto your stomach like this,

and now you're gonna go ahead and bring the foot off,

and now you can keep your back straight like this.

This is a lifesaver if you're having back pain.

'Cause this is one of the few ways you can get outta bed

without having pain. - Right.

- All right, number one, that was number one.

Let's go to number two, Brad. - Okay.

- Number two is just using too many pillows for your neck.

You wanna throw me one, Brad? - Yes I do, Bob.

- 'Cause this could be if you're on your couch, or you're-

(pillow thuds) (both laughing)

Ow. - Sorry Bob.

I get carried away. - He's been waiting for that.

There's some built up tension and anger there apparently.

All right, so let's say I'm like this, Brad I'm sorry,

I'm gonna have to move you again.

I'm trying to lay down correctly, somewhat.

(Brad laughs) So look at this.

I'm watching TV or whatever I'm doing.

- Here, put that arm down. - You're on the couch,

and yeah, look at this.

- His spine is straight here,

but you can see it takes about a 45 degree angle

to get up to here.

You can see the TV easier or your cell phone

or your iPod thing, but look at your neck.

It's really taking a beating.

- Now what you can do,

is you can try to do maybe more like this,

where you get the pillows so you're a little bit

more like this, but one of these wedge things

works out quite nicely, actually.

- [Brad] Do you want me to throw it to you, Bob?

- No, I think we're beyond the throwing stage now.

So, these work nice,

if you tend to be in the habit, just gimme one pillow.

- Yep. - If you're in the habit

of that you'd like to watch TV in bed

or maybe even read in bed,

this is a really nice alternative

and these things aren't very expensive, are they Brad?

- No, I think these go for around 20 to $30,

and if you get 'em- - Sure, you go on Amazon.

- Yep, go on, search around,

you'll probably get a better deal than that.

- Foam wedge? Is that what you call it?

- Yes. - Okay.

- The other one is the leg wedge,

so this is the wedge and you'll see the picture of it.

- Now I can read, I can read my phone, or watch my phone,

so nice alternative there.

- Really, the bed is made for sleeping,

not for all this other stuff anyways, so.

- All right, and we're sticking with the head here.

Now, let's say you get up in the morning,

you get to your computer,

what's one of the first things you do?

You look at your computer now,

and if your head is forward like this,

that's something we're gonna want to correct too.

And we've always said that

one of the first things you should do

is take your screen, and you're gonna wanna raise it up.

'Cause most people, their screen is too low.

And when it's too low, it brings their head down.

- Especially if you're using a laptop.

- Right. - Almost always people are.

And we got some good videos on how

to make those modifications with the laptop.

- Yeah, so with the laptop,

you're gonna wanna raise it up onto a stand

or a couple books,

and then you want a separate keyboard for it.

- Sometimes it might be really thick books, it depends,

but you have the cordless keyboards,

I just bought keyboard and mouse cordless for my laptop

for $20 at the office.

- I mean- - Cheap.

- And they're gonna save you a lifetime of pain.

And by the way, we got a little desk coming out,

a little portable desk

that we're gonna probably do in October,

somebody sent me from Australia.

- Oh, great.

- It's for laptops,

you can carry it with you.

- Oh really? - Yeah.

- Something to look forward to.

- Yeah. - Let's go on.

- Now the next one, Brad, is that,

and this is, a lot of times,

people think this is not a problem because,

let's say they're just picking up their keys from the floor

or something like that. - Right.

- And they bend over like this,

and then they go like this,

and it's called a straight leg lift is what they're doing,

they're not bending their knees at all.

- And then the hamstrings tighten up

which even puts more force on the back,

it's a double whammy actually.

- So again, people think,

well I'm only picking up something light, it doesn't matter.

And if you keep doing this repeatedly

and repeatedly over time,

it's gonna break, the straw that break the camel's back.

- Exactly.

- You're gonna end up in an incident.

- Not only the camel's back, but your back.

- Yeah. And by the way, this is one,

where you see a lot of people pulling weeds this way.

And this is even worse then,

'cause now when you're pulling the weed,

now you're adding a force on your back as you pull,

and that makes it even more stress

on your back. - And as a therapist,

we know that's a long lever arm,

so it multiplies quite a bit of force.

- Do you wanna hand me my vacuum?

- Yes I do.

This is a nice vacuum, isn't it?

- This is where we have to borrow your imagination,

is what we call it.

I had a teacher used to say,

"Let me borrow your imagination."

All right, so one thing you don't wanna do is,

what's also very harmful to the back,

is bending and twisting at the same time.

If you wanna hurt your back

or if there's someone you don't like,

(Brad laughs)

and you want them to hurt their back,

tell 'em to go ahead and bend and twist.

- And then pull on something. (laughs)

- And then pull on something, (laughs)

yeah that would, like a lawn mower,

what are you doing?