Quick Fit with Cassy

- Protect the health of your hips by regularly decompressing the joints.

Hi there, I'm Cassy Vieth.

Today's Quick Fit routine is designed to soothe the joints and keep them fully mobile.

Tight joints are weak, and weakness often leads to pain.

Thankfully, a little self-care goes a long way.

So let's get started.

[gentle music] The hours we spend seated can cause compression in the ball and socket joints of our hips.

These daily routines are meant to soothe and rehydrate them.

We'll begin standing.

You can have a chair just for a little bit of stability, and we'll just swing the leg around, cross it in front of you, big inhale, [inhales] exhale, [exhales] set it down.

One more time.

Cross, open, and then press that heel down behind you.

As you press the heel down, straighten the knee, open up the hip, take a great, big belly inhale, [inhales] reach it up, exhale.

[exhales] Let that head and neck relax.

In fact, look down at the floor.

All right, feels so good.

No need to rush it.

Another big breathe in, [inhales] and exhale and we'll do the other side.

Three nice, big swings around, warming up that hip.

[inhales and exhales] Cross it in the front, swing it around, cross it behind you, press that heel down.

Nice, straight knees, squeeze the glutes, open up the hip.

Ready, breathe it in, [inhales] reach, and exhale.

[exhales] I just love this one.

Good job, all right.

Some simple hip openers.

Let's just lift that knee up and if you're mirroring me, this is your left leg.

We'll just simply cross and open, cross and open.

[inhales and exhales] Don't forget to continue that breathing.

Don't accidentally hold your breath.

Now go ahead and drop that knee.

So the knees are side by side, and you have a nice 90-degree bend in the knee.

And just do a little bit of a windshield wiper action here.

Still moving that joint, letting all those oils and fluids lubricate the soft tissues in there.

Now extend your leg to the front.

Check your posture.

Is your head and neck up over the top of your shoulders?

Is your stomach pulled in?

[inhales] Now reach a little further, pick a dot on the floor, and go for it.

Reach, feel the joint open, good.

And now slowly swing it around to the side, stomach in, check the posture, and extend a little further, reach, reach, reach.

All right, let's do all of that on the other side.

So just move your chair around.

[inhales and exhales] Bring that knee up nice and high, cross and open.

Now take care that you're not moving the hips with the leg.

This is just the thigh moving across and open.

It's easy to follow it, but try not to.

Stomach's in, standing tall, and now bring the two knees down side by side with that foot straight behind you, and do the windshield wiper.

Have your foot flexed.

Keep it going.

Let's do one more and then extend your leg straight out to the front and reach a little further.

Keep extending through the foot, the toes, and now bring it around and reach, reach, reach, actively stretching.

Feels really good.

I can feel things opening up deep inside around that hip socket.

Good job, all right, shake that off.

Let's get your foot up on your seat.

So you use your outside foot, the foot that's closest to the front of the chair.

Good.

And have your other foot right underneath your hip and turn towards that leg, okay.

Use your opposite arm to press against the leg so you can get a little more twist in the spine.

Come halfway out, breathe it in [inhales] and then exhale.

[exhales] See if you can get a little more movement.

Good job.

All right, hop it back just a little bit and let's get a bend in both of your knees, okay.

A soft knee slightly bent forward from the torso, and let's get some movement in the pelvis, which is attached to your lumbar spine.

So we wanna make sure we use the pelvis to loosen up the low back.

[inhales] All right, tuck it under, and it works really well for your hips.

One more, tuck it under.

[inhales and exhales] And usually for most people, one of these directions is easier than the other, and you're questioning yourself whether you're doing it right.

So if you just gently rock as best as you can in each direction, it'll begin to loosen up.

All right, now you can let your knee fall open and then lift the hip and do your best to let it drop.

You really have to sit in to that other hip.

And don't forget, your standing leg needs to have a little bend in it.

You'll get more movement that way.

[inhales and exhales] Do several of these, as you'll get looser as you go.

This is probably one of the harder ones to figure out, but the more you do it, the better you get.

All right, now let's switch legs.

So you'll put this one down and get the other leg up on top, and then just walk out slowly.

We want to stretch the inner thigh.

So at first, the inside of your foot, the instep is, yeah, inside where your arch is, is against the chair.

And you can just do a little bend at the hip and knee to stretch a little deeper, especially if you feel stable.

If you don't feel stable, then just get used to this.

And now let's rotate the leg.

[inhales] Trying to keep the hips forward and just rotate the leg.

And of course, you can always have another chair nearby if you don't feel quite stable.

All right, good job.

Let's do all of that on the other side.

So leg down, swing your chair over to the other side.

Good, and we'll start once again with that leg that's closest to the front of your seat.

Get the foot up there.

We'll start with that pretzel twist.

So twist your spine towards this leg.

Opposite arm crosses for a little leverage, [inhales] and I like to take that big inhale right before I need to stretch.

[exhales] And I usually get a few more inches, centimeters.

Come halfway out.

Breathe it in [inhales] and exhale and twist.

Feels good; don't rush it.

And slowly come around and hop that standing leg back a little bit.

Two soft knees.

Soft knees help you get more movement through the pelvis.

So start by tucking the tailbone under.

Some of you might think of it easier if I say, "Think of your hip bones."

We're pulling those hip bones back.

Good.

And now pushing the hip bones forward towards the thigh.

Good, breathe it in, [inhales] exhale.

[exhales] Breathe it in when you go to change, [inhales] exhale.

[exhales] Good, one more.

Breathe it in [inhales] and exhale.

[exhales] Okay, now you can let this leg relax over to the side, and we'll lift the hip and lower.

Make sure your standing leg is slightly bent.

[inhales and exhales] You'll work the quadriceps at the same time as you're getting more movement in the hips.

And drop it, breathe it in, [inhales] and exhale.

[exhales] Good.

Oh, that feels good.

You can even lean forward and pull on the chair a little bit to deepen that stretch.

All right, let's stand up and we'll switch legs.

Get the other leg up on top, and then you can continue to hang on while you get this other leg out a little further.

So your leg is nice and straight.

You've got the inside of the foot, the big toe, and the arch against the seat.

[inhales] Good, all right.

Move the hips back, bend the knee so you can get an nice inner thigh stretch, and then stand up nice and tall.

And then without moving the hips, as best you can, just rotate through the leg.

Let's do about three more.

Don't move my hips, one more.

And maybe this feels good to you, and you feel like if you sit down, you'll get a nice stretch.

So go right ahead.

Make things up as you go.

If it feels good, you know you'll need it.

So you do it.

And you invent a few more stretches along the way.

That's quite all right.

All right, let's just do a few easy squats.

I like to swing my arms, get a little momentum, let the hips go back.

And if using your arms just confuses you, then don't.

But let's warm up those quadriceps, those calves.

[inhales and exhales] All right.

Let's do three more, two, one.

And now we're going to go a little deeper.

Have your chair nearby, if you need it for getting down and back up.

Let those knees open, get those heels down to the floor.

Maybe you're only getting partway.

That's okay.

If you're consistent, you'll get looser.

And make sure there's no bad pains.

Okay.

[inhales] Breathe in and exhale.

[exhales] Be your own advocate.

You know what's right for you.

Okay, last one.

Exhale.

[exhales] Good, good job.

All right, and back up, wonderful.

All that pelvic mobility work is meant to restore muscles to their original length and tension ratios to keep the joints properly aligned and feeling good.

So return here daily to pbswisconsin.org/quickfit to take a proactive approach to your health so you can live better, longer, and keep doing all the things you love.

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