Quick Fit with Cassy

- Hello, I'm Cassy, and welcome to my Quick Fit balance series.

This is the second video of the series, still at the beginner level.

Now that your individual legs have become conditioned enough to carry all your body weight for one to two minutes, you're ready to move on.

Remove your shoes, clear a space, and we'll begin working on the next progression.

[upbeat music] As you may have noticed, we no longer have a chair nearby.

And that's because A, you've taken the time to strengthen each of your legs individually.

And B, because we're not going to be trying to stand entirely on one leg, yet.

However, I'd like you to stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart.

[inhales] We'll lift your heel so your weight shifts over your other leg, and get comfortable.

Right now, your toes and ball of your foot are remaining on the floor.

We aren't trying to lift the toes off the floor.

At this point, we're still working on the motor control and reflexes.

Your brain has a lot to learn.

We're going to hold this for about two minutes, so it'll be just fine for you to hit the pause button and set a timer.

Once your two-minute timer goes off, you'll want to place that same foot a bit in front of you.

Let's shift your weight forward and back.

Stay here.

And once again, lift the heel, keeping your toes and your ball of the foot on the floor.

This may be more difficult, as we've really narrowed our base of support.

And if this is just too difficult for you yet, you can have a slightly wider base of support.

And narrow it as the days go by and you get better.

But I'd like you to continue with this same standing leg because we are still improving the individual leg endurance.

You'll pause and set that two-minute timer.

And once that is done, you'll move that same leg behind you with just the toes touching.

But I'd like you to do a little shift first.

I'm sure that standing leg is really talking to you by now.

I know mine's burning.

But it's not a bad pain.

This is just weak muscles being pushed past what they're used to, and that's okay.

Once again, we'll continue here for two minutes.

And it's a good idea to just focus on something stationary and think about your breathing.

Just let your brain deal with learning to stabilize.

Once the two minutes are done, we're gonna just shake it off and switch legs.

I'd like you to march in place for a bit.

Lift, give those hips a little bit of a break and do a few hip circles.

Breathe in nice and deep, [inhales] and an extra exhale.

[exhales] Okay, once again, let's get our feet shoulder-width apart and get our other heel lifted to shift your weight onto the opposite leg.

Same routine.

Find something to focus on that's not moving and let your mind wander.

[inhales and exhales] Remember, the point is not to get your toes off the floor.

The point of this progression is to continue conditioning your individual legs to support your entire weight and refine your motor control to respond without over-correcting.

You can hit pause, set that two-minute timer.

Once that's done, it's time to place that foot to the front, deciding how wide your base or how narrow your base is gonna be.

You may shift your weight, just to get a little bit of relief.

[inhales] Lift that heel.

Let your focus glaze over as you think about a breathing pattern.

We haven't talked about your posture.

Your brain can communicate more effectively and quickly when the lines of communication are open and straight.

So think about lengthening your arms, pulling your shoulders back, pulling the head over the shoulders, chin back, long neck and spine.

What about your belly?

Lift the ribs and pull in your abdominals.

Good job.

[inhales] All right, so, once two minutes have passed, we'll want to do all that again with our foot to the back.

All right, move your foot to the back.

Let's just do a little shift quickly.

There you go.

You can have your toes and the ball of your foot touching.

Find your focus.

Go through the posture inventory, head and neck, shoulders back, arms long, ribs up, abs in.

Breathe in four seconds.

Hold four seconds and out four seconds.

You ready?

Like this.

Breathe it in, two, three, four.

Hold, two, three, four.

Out, two, three, four.

And again.

Repeat that about five times while your timer's running.

Let's say your timer's done, you've done your two minutes.

Now let's shake that off and do a few marches.

Lift those knees and a few hip circles as we finish up.

Good, good job.

I hope by now you can see that by taking your time and systematically progressing, you are giving both your muscles and your reflexes the time they need to improve.

You can improve and I'm here to help you.

I'll see you here again tomorrow at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, where every day, you become stronger and take back control of your health.

Until then, remember to keep on moving.

– Announcer: Funding for Quick Fit with Cassy is provided by Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programs and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.