Unlock Hip Flexors; 6 Long Term Fixes Self-Treatment
♪ Bob and Brad ♪ ♪ The two most famous
physical therapists ♪ ♪ On the internet ♪ – Hi, folks, I'm Bob
Schrupp, physical therapist. – Brad Heineck, physical therapist. – Yeah, the most famous physical
therapist on the internet. – In our opinion, of course, Bob. – Today, we're gonna show you how to unlock your hip flexors. We've got six longterm fixes. They're self treatment. I wanna say right now,
Brad, three of them involve no equipment whatsoever. And three of them involve equipment. We're giving you both options. We're not saying, by any
means, that you have to go out and buy this equipment. – Absolutely. But it can be helpful. Otherwise, we wouldn't say you can use it.
– They're tools I use. – Those hip flexors, that
can lead to weak glutes as well as hamstring problems– – And lower cross syndrome where you get tight on one side, and then weak on the other side. – Exactly. So you get weak glutes, your hamstrings start
to give you problems, then your low back. So it's a whole train of what– – What throws your whole system off. Even the head of the femur
doesn't stay in the socket like it should when those are not working.
– Little clunky clunky.
– I know. This is the problem I've dealt with. – Say no more. – By the way, if you're
new to our channel, please take a second to subscribe to us. We provide videos how stay
healthy, fit, pain-free, and we upload every day. And in case you're wondering
why we're holding this, that's 'cause if you go to bobandbrad.com, we're giving away this week a Booyah Stik. – [Brad] That's right. – So, there was somebody that
was looking for a red one, I believe. Don't we sell red ones on our website? Yeah, Bob and Brad. That kind, that should be red there. – I told her that.
– Oh really? – She said she didn't– – Well, we'll just have to check into it.
– Otherwise you can go to Facebook. It'll be pinned to the top
of the page, the contest. Go to Twitter, Instagram, or Tik Tok if you want a 60 second
version of our program. All right, right hip flexors, that's very common because
people sit a lot, Brad. – So the hip flexors is
that muscle group that's… I always tell people when you
put your hand in your pocket at the high part of the pocket, they're in there, they're deep. And that's why they can be hard to stretch and hard to work with, but we'll show you some
nice ways to do it. And they're responsible for lifting up your femur or flexing the hip. And if they get tight,
then you're not allowed to go backwards, which
is really important, particularly with walking or running and some other activities. So you wanna keep your
hip flexors flexible. – Right. And, again, they tend to
tighten up when you sit a lot. And who doesn't sit a lot nowadays? I mean, there's a lot of people that with their job and watching
TV, or watching their– – Sitting in the car.
– Yeah, sitting in the car. You're flexing all day long. I mean, for most people, this
is stretches you need to do. – Yep. Okay, Bob, let's get into it. – All right, which one
do you wanna do first? – Well, let's follow the
instructions. (laughs) – Okay, off the edge of the bed? – I think we should start
with the one on the knee. – All right, so I do
this one every morning, did it this morning. I usually do throw a
pad down or something. It's just a lot more comfortable. – [Brad] On your knee. – On my knee, yeah right. – [Brad] You'll see. – So I'm gonna stretch
this hip flexor here. – [Brad] Do the left one. – Yeah, the left one. And I'm just gonna keep good posture.
I'm gonna move forward like this. Now some little idiosyncrasies here. I usually take my hand and
I pushed the pelvis forward. like this just to give
some stretching like this. – [Brad] You can tell
you've been stretching, 'cause this is a good
extension of the hip. See how vertical it is from
his hip to his shoulder? Now, the tendency is for some
people will naturally wanna lean forward and do it. – Like this. – [Brad] And that does not
put as much stretch on, – Not on the hip flexor anyway. It might stretch the hip
on this side a little bit. The other thing I do is
I actually take my foot and turn it out a little bit, just that internal rotation of the hip gives me a little more stretch too. – So he moved his foot.
– From here. – Towards you with the camera.
– I moved it out that way. – [Brad] That's one of those little things you don't have to do, but
once you start stretching, I think you should add it in.
– Right. So, obviously you wanna do both sides. – [Brad] So you go
pressure on pressure off, or hold it for 30 seconds? – I usually do pressure on pressure off, especially when I put
my hand on the pelvis, that works really well,
pressure on pressure off. It's not unusual for me
just to sit there too. I'll do a mix.
– You get a feel for it. – You can see how your muscles respond. One that's tighter for me is this side. And this is the one that
gives all the problems, but it's completely under control. I've had episodes in the past, like 20 years ago, where I
literally had to stop running for a month, because it got so bad. But now I know what I'm doing, smart. – Hence the title longterm. – Right. – Okay, let's go to the next one. – You want me to do this one too? – Yeah, this one is laying
on your bed you can do this.
– Or lying on your bed. – [Brad] Ah, my goodness. The English majors are out there. – So you're gonna make sure you don't fall off the bed first. Always safety first, but you're gonna bring
this like off the edge, and this one's gonna lock the pelvis. – [Brad] There you go. – Now, watch what happens to me. This just shows you and you
know my hip is pretty flexible, but watch this. I bring it up and it comes up. So there's still some tightness there – [Brad] If it wasn't tight,
his knee would not move up towards the ceiling. You can see how I locked the pelvis. The pelvis gets locked back by this. You grab here. You grab underneath here. You can take a towel if you
have trouble doing that. – [Brad] And now the job on this one is just to completely
relax and let gravity pull this leg down, which is gonna
stretch that hip flexor.
– I also bend the knee a
little bit, Brad, back. I'll get the quadricep. – [Brad] Yeah, that really works that– – Rectus femoris. – [Brad] Yeah, that rectus femoris muscle. That's a biarticular muscle. It goes from the ASIS
as down to that patella. – Biarticular, wow.
– Biarticulate. Yeah, I did my homework last night, so I'm to snuff. – Isn't there an old joke
about rectus, rectum? – [Brad] Bob, it's a family
show, let's carry on. – Rectum damn near killed
them, or something like that. – [Brad] (laughs) Let's carry on. Ever since you turned 60, the
filter's starting to leave.
(Bob laughs) So you wanna do both legs. Obviously the tight one you can emphasize, but maybe they're both tight. One thing you can do is if
you wanna have some tools to make this a little easier to do it, maybe a little more effective
and maybe a little faster is if you warm up a muscle. – You forgot the strain,
counter strain, Brad. – Oh, I did, didn't I? – Yeah, wanna show that,
because this one is not so much a stretch, is it?
– No. – It's as much as a pain reliever. And I was surprised, Brad. This shocked me how this does help. – Sure. – So if you're having some
discomfort in this area, you wanna try this.
Brad's gonna show us.
– Discomfort or tightness. – Or tightness. – So this one is the
easiest one of all by far You're gonna lay down in bed. If this is the hip that's
involved, the right side, you're gonna take the left. Did I say lie or lay, or something? – [Bob] You said lay. – Yeah. (smacks knee) Left knee up. That's not being stretched, but that's a good place to put it. Now you're gonna take the right knee. You're gonna pull it like this. – [Bob] You're working on
the right knee right now. – Yeah, around the right hip. Pull it up, and we're looking for the most comfortable position you can. So you pull as far as it
starts to feel comfortable. You're gonna stop, and then
you're gonna rotate your foot right and left. And you'll find one position
is more comfortable. – [Bob] It's a lot more comfortable. You want to find the spot
that feels really good.
– And then you have to hold
it at a relaxed position, put a pillow under your head, so you completely relax and breathe. – [Bob] Once you find that spot, then you go ahead and… – My fake pillow. And you're gonna hold it for 90 seconds, and you have to look at a clock. You're not gonna guess that 90 seconds. You need at least 90 seconds. They showed studies that that's important, up to a minute or two
minutes, 120 seconds. And once you do that, that allows that muscle to
relax and get blood flowing in it, which is gonna help.
And it does feel good when I do this. And then you're gonna get up slowly. This isn't something you're
gonna get up and start doing that hip stretch and be aggressive. Then you are done, give it a few minutes. – [Bob] I would probably
finish with this, wouldn't you? Maybe? – It all depends. I would try it and see
how you respond to it. And that's the thing,
we got six options here. – [Bob] It might make
the muscle more respond to the stretch, but sometimes stretch
tightens it back up again too a little bit – They always say don't do
anything real aggressive after this. Give it a 20 minute break or whatever. I would just… – I was, again, surprised. It bought me a couple of days of like, I kind of forgot about it. – Yeah, that's exactly right. Bob, we gotta get going.
– All right, keep going. – There's four things to look at. Okay, so that's the
strain, counter strain.
Now we're gonna get into… – [Bob] Using products here. – Right, using some extra, we'll call them modalities, if you will, in the therapy world. We're gonna use some deep heat. Now, if you put a regular
hot pack on your hip, it's never gonna go to
the hip flexor muscles. That's superficial heat, a standard hot pack that
you buy off the shelf. If you get a infrared hot
pack, like this one, it'll go, they've done studies, 2.36 inches, which is enough to get
into that hip flexor, unless you're a very large person, then that's not gonna help. But if you're thinner,
you will get into that. Well, if you use this, and this is a Thermotaxis,
the platinum model. We do promote this,
'cause we really like it. We've used them for years. – [Bob] I had it on my back last night. I just leave it in my chair. And it's cool enough now, again, then. – He's always gotta get a word in.
We're in the middle of something here. Anyways, you gotta put it
over this, over like this. Don't sit down and try
to get it into there. It won't do it. You have to get flat so that
it can get to that muscle, and leave it there for
20 minutes at least. Okay, it takes a lot longer
for these to get deep. – Yeah, it does. It takes a little bit to heat up. It is one that you wanna do
while you're doing relaxing and then something else. Like I said, before I
was rudely interrupted, I put it on my back every
night when I'm watching TV. I mean, you do too quite often, right? – Right.
– It's a treat. Sometimes I leave it on and I forget, even though that's not
a problem, because– – Bob, there's a point where they say we're babbling. (laughs) – I know, but I think
this is a good point. I leave it on. It was like so warm already
right where I got it. (Brad laughs) Okay, go on. – So you could use this
and then do your stretches. Heat that muscle out, get it
more plastic, if you will. – It'll respond better. – Exactly. The next one is, a lot of people are buying
these now, the massage gun. We like using a massage gun, the ones that reciprocate and pulsate, and they get deep. On this one, I would probably use, we'll try the round headed one. This gun, actually, we like it so much, we've got our name put on it at the top, and Brad massage gun. The quality is good enough. We said, "Let's promote it." And I'm gonna get it moving here. – [Bob] We've been real
happy with this company. We've been dealing with
them for quite a long time. We didn't have a professional association.
We just kind of had a loose
association with them, and we decided to actually
do some things with them, because they do such a good job. – Can we go now?
– Yeah, go ahead. – I've got it going here. I've got it turned up on high. There's six adjustments on
it, but you can see this. So your round one is what
I think is gonna work best. I'm gonna get in here, and you can feel this get in deep. There we go. Ooh. And you're gonna work it not on the bone, but into that muscle. You'll feel it. Now I feel like doing this for a while, but I know we should
quit, but you're gonna– – [Bob] You said it never
hurts, Brad, though? It should never hurt? – No, it should not create any pain.
– For me, this is what I do before I run. – Oh, you do?
– Yeah. It hurts so good. It feels really good. You know what I mean? – And then when it's done, it feels– – Yeah, even better. – Yeah, there's a reason
why people are buying these, because they work well. – They're awesome. My wife uses it. I use it. I mean, you just pass it around. – Bob, do you wanna show the next one, which is the six inch roller? – Sure. – And this is one that
you've done in the past. – Yeah, this is similar to… I actually do both, Brad,
believe it or not. (laughs) – Oh, you really work that hip. – I really worked that hip. So this one, too, has
different intensities and go higher, higher, and higher. – So this is a vibrating six inch roller. – Yeah. Now this is, what can you say? This is a family show, but you do have to get on it like this.
And I get right on the hip flexor, and I just roll back and forth like this. So it really does the same
as the massage gun, Brad, to a large extent. – [Brad] It's not as specific
as you have that point. – It's not as specific. What I do is I hit the hip flexor, and I go right into the
hip abductor like this. – [Brad] Oh, wow. – That probably doesn't show very well. – [Brad] You don't have to show it, Bob. – Well, no, I'm like this. I hit the hip abductor, and then I go right to my hamstrings. – [Brad] Oh, good. – See, and then I go to my– – [Brad] Do you do both at the same time? – Yeah, I do both at the same time, and then I do – [Both] Calves. – And the reason I do
both at the same time, these aren't problem areas for me. If it's a problem area,
I focus on one at a time. – If you got a tight knot,
you wanna get rid of it.
– Right, and that's why the
hip flexors, I do singly. I roll right on them like that. That feels good right now. – [Brad] I believe it. – That's pretty intense, Because this is loud
and sounds like a truck, I have to use it in the basement. – Oh right, you don't
wanna wake your wife up. – That's exactly right
if she's sleeping in, because she had a long day.
(both laugh) I mean, it really does. It sounds like a cement truck
is pulled up in your yard. – Oh, up on that wooden floor? – But it works well. – Yeah, well good. – All right, remember Brad and I can fix just about anything. – Except for. – A broken heart. – There you go. Thank you. – If we could stretch the
heart, we probably could fix it, 'cause we could unlock the heart. (Brad laughs).
