Quick Fit with Cassy

gentle music

Hello, I'm Cassy. And this is Quick Fit, your place to stretch and strengthen with easy and effective at-home mini workouts. Today's class is for those trouble spots we all love to hate, the saggy upper arm. Believe it or not, weak triceps affect men too. So let's begin with some warm ups. Some nice halos right around the head.

inhales and exhales

Inhale and exhale, as always. Make sure you're lifting that elbow nice and high. And as always, if anything doesn't feel quite right, make an adjustment, maybe more to the front of your body, or maybe not quite so high.

inhales

Inhale, exhale.

exhales

These are a really great way to just warm up, loosen up, and get ready for the workout. Next thing, let's just do some gentle figure eights. Now, imagine that there is an eight lying on its side and you're tracing it with your hand, rolling the shoulder forward, rolling the shoulder back. I think about the palm, palm down, palm up, and then you can move a little further in front of you, starting to involve a little bit more of the body.

inhales

Inhale, exhale.

exhales

And switching sides, so real small and easy, right at your side. Palm up, palm down. And remember, if anything doesn't feel right, adjust it. Make sure your doctor says it's okay,

exhales

we're all about healing. Not causing pain.

exhales

Living better, longer means pain-free or less pain, all right. All right, so now let's come up, go from one shoulder towards the other. Take your time, trying to get that elbow up nice and high.

exhales

I really just like using breath to help the body to relax and lengthen.

exhales

And if you need to do this in front of you, by all means, but think about lifting the elbow, other side. One shoulder

exhales

to the next, one shoulder to the next. We're beginning already to stretch those triceps, that's those big muscles on the back of the arm that we don't like unless they're tight, all right.

inhales

All right, nice big arms, okay, extend maybe a little higher.

exhales

The key here is to fully open that elbow because it helps you tighten up this area. All right, now lift the shoulders.

exhales

Now, think about pushing two walls away at the same time, lift and extend. And also remember about your posture. We're not pushing the hips forward, we're not dropping the head and neck. Lift the shoulders, extend. Think about making yourself as tall as possible. All right, now we'll pull and extend. Pull and extend, straighten, every single time, straighten, a little higher, pull the elbows to stretch the chest, extend the arms. Shoulders are starting to get a little warm from holding your arms up. So we'll drop it a little bit and pull, open. Pull, if you have to take a break, by all means do so. Count to three and join us again. It's actually a nice little break that will help you continue. All right, we're still doing it. Arms are wide.

exhales

Push as if there's a force fighting against your hands, fingertips are up, teeny intense little circles.

inhales and exhales

Breathe heavy as you need to, to supply oxygen to those muscles that are working hard. Reverse. Keep it going.

exhales

Good, all right, now fingers are still up. We're going to press down, down. Imagine there's like a beach ball, big beach ball under your wrists and you're pushing into it and it's resisting. Now to the back, squeeze the back muscles. Stomach's pulled in, supporting your spine, head and neck is tall. Now rotate those fingers towards the back. Right, now push forward, forward, forward. Something's resisting, somebody's holding your hands back. Push, push, push a little higher.

inhales and exhales

Keep it going. Push, push, squeeze the chest, squeeze the arms, squeeze the back. All right, not done yet.

inhales and exhales

Squeeze those elbows together. Or as close together as you possibly can, squeeze, squeeze. Feel all of this through here as you're doing it. Squeeze, a little higher, try not to drop them down.

inhales and exhales

And down, very good. Press, press, press. All right, get ready. We're going to move on to using a chair. It's just a great tool, we'll be doing more of the triceps. All right, so there's a couple modifications. We'll go from easy to hard. I'll have you put your hands right behind you, slightly behind you, and then lift your chest so that hopefully you can completely straighten those elbows. Have your feet out in front, enough that you can use them, but not too hard, and we'll lift those hips. All right, right away, your arms are having to do a lot of work to hold you here. You can do a hold, but if that is still too hard, just drop and lift. Think about lifting the chest. And if this just isn't working for you because your shoulders or your elbows aren't as mobile, then just concentrate on pushing down into the chair with your bottom in the seat. That will begin to condition your muscles. All right, down and up. All right, now we'll go a little harder. Some of you need a little more challenge. Put your hands near the edge of the chair and just slide your bottom off the front of the seat. Make sure your elbows go straight behind you instead of out to the sides. So you pull the shoulders back, lift the chest, and the further your feet are away from you, the harder it is. If you need your feet under for a little assistance, do that, but try to figure out what is challenging for you. Try not to get the bottom too far away from the seat.

exhales

You can always take that three-second break and join us again. That's how you get stronger.

inhales

All right.

exhales

And up, hold, hold.

inhales and exhales repeatedly

I hope you're breathing as heavy as I am. Maybe I'm just making this look harder than it is. All right, now let's do some biceps. So the long muscles here on the front. Make a fist and squeeze. If you don't feel like you can feel your muscles, you can push into them. Lift, lift, lift, lift, and lift. Good, let's use one hand. Lift into the hand as it resists. Try not let your shoulders come forward, put 'em back. Lift, lift, lift, lift, lift, lift, switch sides. All right, ready? Shoulders back and down, you ready? Lift, lift, lift.

exhales

So many things we can do for the arms. All right, lift, and now two arms together. Nice big move, open and squeeze, open, squeeze, open, squeeze.

inhales and exhales

Squeeze, squeeze, and squeeze. Very nice, let's do a nice stretch. All right, move those hands so that you can feel the stretching. Very good, let's do a little bit more for the triceps. All right. You can use your chair, and you can actually lean one arm on your legs and extend. Now, if you don't fully extend, you won't be able to quite work the muscle quite as well, so completely extend. You can see I'm just doing this tiny, intense little move. Now let's make it a little better. You see my wrist? Tweak it, there you go. Tweak that wrist. You can really feel almost like a knot up here. Tweak, tweak. All right, don't drop the elbow, but bend it. Press, squeeze this upper arm, tweak that wrist. Let's do about a hundred more of these.

exhales

We really gotta work hard on these arms. All right, keep it going. What's awesome is you can repeat these classes as often as you like, having it online. And you can do it from home, the privacy of your home. Getting your workouts done every morning really makes sure you have a great rest of your day. All right, so we'll lean here, get that elbow nice and high, and extend. It's a tiny move, so you can really feel. Press, press, press. Let's use that wrist to get really up in there. Up extend, press with the wrist, bend the elbow. Straighten, tweak the wrist. Tiny, tiny move, feels good. Feels good to feel these muscles. They want to work, but we don't think about them very often. Press, good. All right.

exhales

Let's just stretch these arms. All right, let's drop one hand behind the head. And don't worry too much if you're a little sore tomorrow in your upper arms. It means you challenged yourself, and consistency is the key to making changes in your body. So come back often to pbswisconsin.org/quickfit so you can live better, longer and keep doing all the things you love.