This article is a transcribed edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in February of 2024. For the original video go to https://youtu.be/PgWjX8YHAjQ
Brad: Now in the past when Bob was younger, of course, he would do an extension stretcher, which made his back feel better. He tried that this time and it was not working, which is amazing because I had the same scenario. That used to work for me and no more.
Mike: So he tried the prayer stretch instead. Also commonly known as the child pose and he saw immediate relief. So this is an example of testing and retesting to see what is helping his back pain.
Brad: So the same system you can use at home, So you can determine what stretch is going to work for you. It always works well.
Mike: So the prone press-up test like this, which Bob first did actually increased his back pain. Now for some people extending their spine like I'm doing here can actually increase their pain while for others, it may actually help.
Brad: That's right, so let's look and see what's actually going on with the spine. Go ahead and do your press-up and look at the spine in the lumbar area, it's extending it, putting it into an arch in one direction, okay?
Brad: And now what you need to do is assess the pain or if it feels good while you're doing 5 to 10 repetitions, but not only that, but how it feels after you get done within the next five minutes up to an hour. Sometimes it may be a little uncomfortable here, but then when you get up and walk around, it's, oh, it feels good as a result of doing it. So it's important to note how it feels while you're doing it and after. So that's the test, and then the retest is how things feel after the exercise.
Mike: Now the stretch Bob did perform known as a prayer stretch or child pose, you simply get on all fours like this, and then you rock your butt back towards your heels. And as you can see, I'm doing this, my back is actually flexing more, which helped relieve some of Bob's pain issues he was having.
Brad: Right, now if we want to look at the spine to see a more detailed example of what's going on in the spine, the other stretch was arching it. Now this stretch is actually rounding the back in the opposite direction. And with Bob's case, this felt much better while he was doing it and afterward. So that means this would be the stretch you'd want to continue versus the press-up stretch because it responded much better.
Mike: So to perform a prone press-up, you may only start on your elbows like this and this may be as far as you can go to begin with and that is certainly fine. Now some people over time, you can actually push up to the full range of motion. For some people, it may only be here. For others, it may be extended all the way. Important thing to remember is keep your pelvis on the mat or floor, wherever you are doing this. Do not lift it up. It is not going to stretch your lower back. As you can see, if I just go up like this, my back stays in the same position, or if it's dropped down, now I have more of an arch.
Brad: Again, you're going to do these because they feel good the more you do of them. So this is really important. A lot of times with patients, I'll actually put my hand on their lower back to give them some feedback that this needs to stay down on the floor or the bed, wherever they're doing this exercise.
Mike: And oftentimes, you want to perform 10 repetitions at least of this exercise.
Brad: Okay, now we're going to go over the prayer stretch or the child's pulls, whatever you want to call it. Actually, we got this exercise for this particular diagnosis, or pain from Rick Olderman, a physical therapist who has written books on this. He's developed programs for it. He's an expert in this. And go ahead, show him what Rick wants us to do.
Mike: Bob and Rick wrote a book together too.
Brad: Oh, that's correct.
Mike: So in order to perform this, like I said before, your knees are going to be apart. I like to bring my heels together. You can put them wherever you want, whatever's comfortable for you. Then you sit back slowly while keeping my hands in the same place and my buttock will touch my heels. Stay here for a few seconds, feel a good stretch, and then come back up. You're gonna do 10 repetitions of this and this should feel good on your back. You may notice some stretching in your shoulder muscles as well and that's perfectly acceptable.
Brad: That's right. So again, repetition's 5 to 10. You can hold the stretch as it feels good. Bob says he holds this for 15 to 30 seconds. You may not start with that. You may start with just a few seconds. I personally hold mine for about, well, 5 to 10 seconds and I do repetitions. Use good judgment and listen to your body.
Mike: Now some people cannot get on their hands and knees we realize. So we will show a variation you can do seated.
Brad: That's a good word, variation. Now if you're not comfortable doing this, getting on your hands and knees on the floor or even the bed, simply take a towel and on your kitchen table or cupboard that's smooth. Put the cut towel like this, take a chair so you can sit comfortably. A firm chair works best. Hands here, and what we're simply going to do is use the towel so that you can slide your hands very freely across the surface. And right now my back is going through that flexed mode, that stretch that makes your back feel good, hold it as needed, and then come back and there you go. Now the really other big benefit for this is you get your kitchen table, your countertop cleaned off. So it's a win-win situation. Pain-free back, clean kitchen table.
Brad: Now there was another exercise that Bob does that actually helps his back as well. And he has tight hip flexors of the muscles in the front of the hip. Now what happens when you have tight hip flexors? If we look at the spine, they're deep and they connect to the spine and go down to the hip. When they're tight, when you stand up and when you walk, they actually pull the pelvis forward like this, which arches the back, which is similar to the arch in the back when you do the prone press-ups, which also irritate the back.
Brad: So to stretch those muscles out, to minimize that, is what we're going to do. And go ahead, Mike. Let's show them the tricks in this particular exercise.
Mike: Okay, to stretch your hip flexors, you're going to need to sit on a firm surface at the edge. Whether that is a kitchen table at your house or a firm bed, it's up to you. Once you're in this position, you want to lay down on your back bringing both knees up towards your chest. You're going to take one side and drop it down. I'm going to be stretching the right hip flexor. Once I'm down here, I'm going to bend my knee. And you'll notice once I bring the left knee towards my chest, you can see my tightness coming because my hip flexor will probably pop up a little bit. If you're not feeling much of a stretch here, you may have to scooch your bottom more towards the edge of the bed to let more of your leg go off.
Mike: Now it's important to remember to keep the right leg in a straight line. Do not let it go out to the side. It's not going to stretch the hip flexor muscles. We're going to hold this for roughly 30 seconds. Reset the back with both knees to the chest and then drop the other side. Again, hold for 30 seconds, breathe through it. You may notice one side is tighter than the other. Maybe do three sets of 30 seconds on one side and the other side you only have to do two.
Brad: Now I want to make sure that it's very clear that the knee that's not being stretched needs to be pulled up because if you don't do that and you allow that to come down, that's going to allow your back to arch and it's causing that pain that we don't want to cause. So that's very critical this is up and then you just relax this leg and let that stretch, that hip flexor.
Mike: Now the last exercise Bob did to help with his back pain was actually strengthening his glute muscle or his butt muscle because typically when one muscle is tight it can make the other muscle not engage as much. So by engaging this more, we can get the hip to relax more.
Brad: That's right, and Rick Olderman's book explains this clearly. We'll just have to show the exercise and you can read the book to get details.
Mike: To strengthen the glutes, we're going to perform butt pumps in a slightly different way than you may be accustomed to. So I'm actually going to get down on my elbows on all fours like this. We will show a variation where you don't have to kneel down if you have knee pain. So what you're going to do is lift one leg up into the air. You're not going to go all the way up like a true glute pump exercise. You're going to pick a spot in between down on the ground and all the way up and you're going to do little oscillating movements. Try to perform 30 repetitions and focus on your buttock muscle engaging. Now if you're having some trouble, sometimes people can rotate their foot in like this and it isolates the glute max a little bit more.
Mike: So once you can do 30 repetitions total on each side and you feel comfortable with it, to progress, you would simply place a cuff weight on the back of your thigh like Brad is showing here. And then you perform the same exercise with some more weight. Rick himself said he has a 70-year-old lady doing this with hip pain and it solved it.
Brad: Wow. Excellent job. So this is a standing option for the same exercise, working the same muscle for the same reason. You put your hands on a countertop, which works well, or a table, you can go to your forearms. Because my table is short, I'm doing it on my hands. Do the same thing, we're going to put a 90-degree bend or so in the knee, okay? And then I'm going to bring it up to the mid-range. Again, not way up, not too low, right in the middle, working that oscillation type of motion, 30 of those. And again, rotate the foot in and do it to isolate that glute max even more. And I can definitely feel that muscle working more now. When that gets too easy, just put a weight around the leg to get the advanced, more strenuous version for that muscle.
Brad: Alright, we're going to talk about one option that you may or may not want to do. If you respond well to heat, you can use a hot pack on your back for 15 to 20 minutes prior to the exercises. Loosen them up those muscles and get better results. This particular hot pack is one that we recommend. It works very well. It heats up the whole back. It does plug in here. You can take us off and actually wash it. It's an amazing thing. It's got the remote here with different levels of heat and a timer as well, so it turns off just in case you fall asleep with it on.
Mike: And you kind of feel like a cool super villain because it's almost like a cape.
Brad: It is really a nice hot pack. Alright, so once you do your test and retest, you decide which exercises are going to help you out. Work with them, as we had mentioned. And actually for both of them, when you feel well enough, you can actually start walking. Don't walk too far right away, but that will help in either scenario. Plus, we've got another video that will help you just to give you additional work.
Mike: So if you want to check out more videos on back pain, check out our video "How to Fix Low Back Pain in 90 Seconds, Bob and Brad Concur!" This is about completely different techniques so you can try this as well to see if it works.
Brad: And it's had excellent success as well because we did it.
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