Quick Fit with Cassy

- Hello, hello to all my Quick Fit friends from Spring Green, Wisconsin or wherever you're watching from.

If you're new here, welcome.

I'm Cassy Vieth.

This is the place where fitness is fun and enjoyable and never feels like work.

Now, congratulate yourself on making the time to be here and as my friend Jan would say, let's get going.

[gentle music] So we'll be working those loose tricep muscles up the back of the arm.

Have a sturdy chair handy for some of the moves we'll be doing later.

Let's just do some easy presses, press it, press, warming up the triceps, fully extending through the elbow.

I think that's what some people forget.

Now it's the triceps that cause your arm to fully extend like this, so if you want these tighter, do lots of extensions.

Easy arms swings, okay?

Stretching, warming up the whole body, swing it back, letting momentum stretch.

So we'll be stretching all through here.

Your lats are a big back muscle that attaches to your arm right here, and so we want to work on those just a little bit too.

Swing around, swing around and now if you don't have the flexibility quite to go behind the head, doesn't matter, work within your range and with consistency, your ranges of motion will get better.

Good.

And other side, easy swings, soft knees, involve the torso, [inhales and exhales] your muscles don't work in isolation, they work in groups.

All right, so circle around the head, [inhales] stomach's in, breathing, okay?

Deep inhales, working from the belly, and long exhales.

All right, let's stand up.

Now I want you to lift the shoulders, then press them down and pull them back.

Imagine you have a pencil, squeezing, getting squeezed between your shoulder blades, okay?

Shoulders are down and back, squeezing that pencil.

Now stiff arms, press it to the back, press it to the back.

Now don't use your neck like that to move your arms.

Stand up tall, stomach's in, extend, extend, extend, [inhales] inhale, exhale, [exhales] to the back, to the back.

We're affecting the lat, that back muscle that I told you goes up and attaches to your arm as well as the tricep.

They kind of all work together, we wanna tighten up the whole underarm area.

Back, back, you can take a little step forward, a little tilt forward at the hip, lift.

Can you get a little higher?

Shoulders are down and back.

Stomach's in, press, press, hold it here.

[inhales and exhales] Keep it going, lift, small and tense.

Now make a fist and tweak the wrist.

Okay, we wanna get a little deeper, a little higher into those tricep muscles that are up by your shoulder.

If your shoulders have creeped, press them down, pull them back, lift the arms, tweak the wrist.

Think about the whole body, posture, stomach, and breathing.

Hold them here, kind of knock those two fists towards each other.

Go through the inventory of your posture, your stomach, your breathing, a little flex of the elbow and extend.

Tweak the wrist, flex of the elbow, extend, tweak the wrist.

A few more, press it back, press it back, press, press.

Press and press, hold them here, stomach's in, shoulders are down, arms are long.

Hopefully you're feeling them.

Lift, lift, lift, and come down, press it up, press, press, pull the stomach in, lengthen, lengthen through the back and the arm, press, press it further.

Reach, press it up.

Reach, press it up, two arms down, press, down, press.

Tighten all your muscles that you can, [exhales] imagine the ceiling's coming down, press it up, push, all right.

Widen and move the arms to the back as much as you can, stretching the front of the shoulders, the chest muscles, and back, hold it back here.

Remember, any time you're lengthening that arm, press it back, press.

You are exercising and toning the triceps, back, little lower, back.

And if at any point your shoulder isn't feeling comfortable, just adjust so that it feels comfortable and lift and lift and back again, back, back, back.

Good, all right, I want you to press this arm down, this arm resists, you ready?

Press it down, press, press.

So this is again affecting the lats, that big muscle across your back that attaches right here.

So press it down, release, ready?

Press it down.

And if you're not feeling those muscles right now, that's okay, it'll take two to four weeks for you to start feeling those muscles.

Chances are, you've never really thought much about them, okay?

Press, and one more, press and switch arms, ready?

Press it down, shoulders are down and back, trying to feel all through the back of the armpit.

Release, a couple more, press, press, press, release.

[inhales] Last one, exhale, press down, down, down, all right.

We'll be getting to your chair and doing everybody's favorite, chair back pushups.

All right, keep your elbows by your sides, don't let them wing out.

First thing I'd like you to do is just step back, have your shoulders over your wrists, and just let that weight go down.

Push through the shoulders, let your shoulders relax, a little bend of the elbow right by your side, stomach pulled in and extend, push through the shoulders.

Bend about an inch through the elbow and extend.

All right, drop it till you're about an inch above the chair back, stomach's in.

[exhales] Extend, big inhale, [inhales] exhale, lower [exhales] and hold.

Make sure you're a nice line, that you're not just dropping the shoulders and leaving the legs in place, extend, okay?

Try not to do this.

If that's the case, you just need to get closer or use a wall.

Let's do one more low hold, hold, stomach's in, lengthen through your spine, extend.

Okay, now we'll do a tempo, you ready?

So that means we'll be going down for four.

Four, three, two, one, hold, two, three, extend, hold.

Four, three, two, one, hold, two, three, press and down.

Two, three, four, hold, two, three, extend.

Good job, so now let's stretch, step it back, and just let your weight hang off your fingertips off the chair back, stretching the triceps and your back.

Good, now keep your elbows in, pointing at each other, and press it up.

Good, now adjust your feet so that your arms do more of the work instead of you standing up with your legs, press.

Good, hang it down [exhales] and press, kind of got to find the sweet spot between it being too hard and too easy.

Let's do three more, [inhales and exhales] one more, and good job.

All right, dips off the front of the chair.

We'll be doing alternating between dips and holds.

I know not everybody has the arm length or the shoulder position to be able to do these, so find what you can do.

Some people have to just push down into the chair and lift their hips, pull your shoulders back.

Good.

Just pushing and contracting your muscles is the beginning of strengthening them.

So never be too upset if you can't do exactly what I'm doing, okay?

If you're strong enough, extend those legs or pull them in, find the modification that challenges you but doesn't make it too easy.

All right, and we'll scoot our butt back over the chair, shake it off, hands on the corners.

Now, if the dips or the holds weren't too hard, then you can get your bottom off the chair and do the dips.

All right, so down slowly, don't go too low, push it up.

Down slowly, push it up.

Down two, three, now hold, shoulders back, lift through the chest.

Whether you're hovering above the seat or out in front of the chair, either way, hang in there.

And get ready for dips, five, four, three, two, last one.

Good job.

All right, sit back down and we'll do the stretches, everyone's favorite part, press the shoulder down and pull that arm towards you.

That feels so good.

Lift, now don't bring the elbow forward, bring the wrist back.

Now, you feel a nice stretch.

You can even use your other arm, lift the chin, stomach in.

[exhales] That one feels good.

All right, let's bring the other arm across, shoulder down for this one, reach behind the elbow, exhale to encourage the stretch.

And arm up and touch the back of your neck, stomach in, chin's up at least to neutral, one final exhale.

Okay, well, maybe that class did feel a little like work, but it's over and you did it, and now you're stronger for it.

You know, if you're active and want to stay that way, it just takes a little daily effort.

Aging well is possible, and I'm glad you're choosing to do it with me.

I'll see you here again tomorrow at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit for more down to earth workouts you can do right from your home because life is movement.

– Announcer: Funding for Quick Fit with Cassy is provided by Greg and Carol Griffin, founders of ElderSpan Management, Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming, and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.