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This article is a transcribed edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in November of 2021. For the original video go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuI9iDRn0i0&t=58s
Bob: Today we’re going to show you how to stop back pain, shoulder pain, and get perfect posture in 30 seconds.
Brad: All at the same time?
Bob: Are you telling the truth?
Brad: Absolutely, Bob. You can treat shoulder pain, back pain, plus address perfect posture in 30 seconds. It’s a wonderful treatment! Both you and I do it already, Bob. We can agree on this.
Bob: We’re advocates.
Brad: So, correcting posture. If we look at just correcting your posture, your shoulder mechanics are going to get better. So, that’s one thing. You look at decompression of the spine or traction. It’s going to help, not only your posture, but it’s going to help your spine. All at the same time, if we do this with a method that helps impingement with our shoulders, it’s amazing. All three of these are going to be accomplished. We just found out a few years ago about, if you hang with your arms above your head and use your body weight, it’s called brachiating. It does all three of these at once. We’re going to talk about a little more detail, but again, Dr. Kirsch wrote a book "Shoulder Pain? The Solution & Prevention: Fifth Edition Revised and Expanded".
Bob: Dr. Kirsch. Former orthopedic surgeon.
Brad: He’s from Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Just 30 miles from where I grew up.
Bob: This is the fifth edition, which means it’s been selling.
Brad: Yeah. He’s a wonderful man. He’s doing this because he really wants to get the word out and we’re helping him. It’s so simple and it does all three of these. So, he doesn’t address all three of the points, but we do because we know it does all three. So, we’re going to talk about hanging. You can hang from anything. Anything that will hold your weight safely. A pull up bar if you have the already. Certainly, welcome to use it. He talks about in the book where people hang on to a tree branch. If you can.
Bob: Rafters.
Brad: I know at my house, there is a handrail that goes down and I can hang on there, but I use hanging handles because it works better.
Bob: Sure.
Brad: For posture reasons it works well if you can put your body up against a wall and the hanging handles or whatever you’re holding onto puts you up against the wall.
Bob: Then it straightens your back out.
Brad: It does. Then you know you’re in perfect posture while you’re doing it. So, my butt’s hitting, my shoulders hitting, and I’m going to bring my head back gently and now that’s all touching the wall.
Brad: You need the height. So, when you grab the handles or the bar, your weight-bearing and then you slowly go down, and I’m getting that brachiating, that impingement in the shoulders is being opened, so, that problem is helped. Now, I’m getting my posture help. And, as I take weight off my feet, the number three, the decompression of the spine. You’re literally treating three different areas.
Bob: Right, you’re also improving your grip.
Brad: There you go, another benefit: strengthening that grip. Now, this is where in Dr. Kirsch’s book for the shoulders specifically, he’ll say, hang for more than 30 seconds.
Bob: Less to start.
Brad: Yeah, once you get used to it. It might take you a week or two weeks or three weeks before you can. I personally hang for about 20 to 30 seconds.
Bob: Right. He also has testimonials in his book. People who had an impingement or a rotator cuff tear or were scheduled for surgery and they got better. A lot of them didn’t hang that long. They would go 10, 20 seconds. I didn’t hear of any that went a minute or anything like that.
Brad: Now, there’s that on guy, remember?
Bob: Oh, that big, heavy guy.
Brad: He had special things for his hands, so he didn’t have to use a grip. He would hang for up to five minutes, I though. Which is extreme.
Bob: Well, there was that former weightlifter that was a thick guy.
Brad: So, that’s the shoulder issue. Again, the decompression on the spine, my back always feels good when I do this. I have spondylolisthesis. If you have problems or pain when you do this, the shoulders will hurt initially, but after a few days of doing this for short periods of time, you should see the improvement and it should clearly feel better than two days ago.
Bob: Well, you say 30 seconds. We mean 30 seconds throughout the day. Right?
Brad: Right.
Bob: I don’t think we can get rid of your shoulder problem by doing 30 seconds once.
Brad: Yeah, but when I had impingement problems with mine, I did it once a day and that was enough.
Bob: Oh sure, prove me wrong.
Brad: No, well I’m saying I probably should’ve done it more, but I just didn’t have these handles handy. You know, if my shoulders weren’t hurting, I’d kind of forget about it. But again, you can go 30 seconds. As you see, I’m going completely off the ground. I think 30 seconds is more than enough because my hands get tired and it’s not like I don’t do grip strengthening.
Bob: Mine got stronger when I first started it, but when I first started, I got 10 seconds and I was starting to lose my grip already.
Brad: You can do this throughout the day and Bob has these in his house so that he can just go from working at the desk to these.
Bob: In my office and I’ll take a little break and every time I do it, my back cracks, which means it was kind of crunched together. It’s given a little traction to it.
Brad: And it really helps with the breathing. I do want to address one more point. For your back in particular, put a stool out in front of you and do your hanging. You can experiment with this. I put my feet here and that changes the compression or decompression on my spine, especially my low back. If I go up a step, in my case, this feels good. I’ve got spondylolisthesis with some stenosis, and I think anybody with stenosis is going to find this to be more comfortable with their feet up rather than on the floor.
Bob: So, it’s basically pinching on the nerve almost. And by stenosis, you’re separating the bones.
Brad: Yeah, so this flexes the back and helps open those facet joints.
Bob: Right, even more.
Brad: The other thing, Bob, you do this one. I don’t because this one doesn’t feel good on my spine, but if you go like this and rotate your hips left to right, you’re only going to do this if it feels good. Like a good stretch.
Bob: I only do it one direction too. It might feel good going to the right and that might open the facets or the foramen on that side, but it might hurt going the other direction.
Brad: So, listen to your body. Do it the ways that feel good. You’ll feel like right now, you know, I did this, this morning. I always do this on mornings before I swim, for sure, to stretch my shoulders out. You just feel you can breathe better. You feel stretched out. It wakes you up in the morning, it’s a wonderful stretch.
Bob: So, our advice to you is, listen to your body and listen to your spouse.
Brad: That’s a good one.
Bob: You’ll get through life.
Brad: That’s exactly right. I did that last night. My wife was grateful. And so was I. Good luck with it. Again, the hanging handles work well. Anything that gets you up against the wall is a little bit better, but still, you can hang without that.
Bob: Right.
Brad: Very good. Be careful!
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