Quick Fit with Cassy

- Some of the fittest people I know are in their 80s, and what do they all have in common?

They walk every day.

They're as quick and coordinated as anyone half their age.

Hello, I'm Cassy, and in today's Quick Fit class, we'll be performing stretches and exercises that will be a great addition to any activity you enjoy.

[upbeat music] Even my friends who walk several miles a day find these classes necessary because we work on the muscles that typically get tight and the muscles that move you sideways, across, and backwards.

You know, we need to be able to move in every direction, not just forward.

And we need to keep ourselves strong and limber enough to get down to the floor.

So let's head there now.

Simply draw a leg back, start bending at the knees and the hips, hands on the floor for a soft landing, and we'll immediately go right onto our side.

The first muscle we'll stretch is the quadricep, and I'll show you how to do it with a band just in case it's not easy enough for you to reach with your hand.

So, loop that band down around your ankle.

And first thing I'd like you to do is just pull the heel towards your bottom.

Take a nice, big inhale and exhale, pushing that leg back as far as you can, enjoying the stretch.

If it's just too tight, remember, you take some of the pressure off, breathe in, [inhales] and exhale.

All right, now I'd like you to press the foot into the band and hang on for three, two, one, and release again, pulling the heel to the butt.

That's called neuromuscular stretching.

It's just a technique to use the muscle while it's lengthened to help it stretch.

All right, one more time, press it, but really don't let the leg go anywhere, hang on.

So we're just activating it.

Five, four, three, two, release, and pull that heel towards you.

Good job, little stir.

And we'll go to the other side.

Swing it around.

Now make sure you sit nice and tall with your elbow under your shoulder.

All right, spine nice and tall, grab your ankle, your pant leg, or use the band.

All right, pull the heel to the butt and stir.

[inhales] Don't hold your breath.

Remember to breathe.

To deepen the stretch, you can squeeze your bottom.

Now, press the foot into the hand, go.

Do it for about five seconds.

Four, three, two, release, pull.

Press the knee back and let's do that again.

You ready?

Press the foot, squeeze the butt.

Hang on, five, four, three, two, and final stretch.

Good job.

Let's lay on our back for a few stretches to the hip flexors and the hamstrings.

So roll it on back.

Grab that right knee and pull it towards your right armpit.

Okay, inhale.

[inhales] Exhale.

[exhales] Now try to press the knee into the hands, go.

More of this neuromuscular stretching.

So you're activating it.

Press, press, [exhales] release.

Let's bring that knee across the body towards your other armpit.

Nice stretch.

Kind of stir that knee around a little bit.

Find those tight spots.

Good, now you've got it pulled towards you.

Keep it there with your hands, but try to press the knee into the hands.

Five, four, three, two, release.

Pull it towards your body again.

And let's switch legs.

Left knee to left armpit.

[inhales and exhales] Now press the knee into your hand.

The hand keeps it there.

Five, four, three, two, release.

Stretch it a little closer to yourself.

Now let's move the knee across, towards the other armpit.

Do a little circle.

See if you find some extra tight spots.

And now try to lift the knee into the hands.

Hands resist.

Maybe just about 50% of your leg strength.

Just enough to activate that muscle.

And stop that and just pull the leg closer to your body.

All right, let's extend that left leg straight up to the ceiling.

Flex your foot.

[inhales] A couple circles just to loosen it up and a gentle pull towards you.

Good, now your other leg, straighten it out along the floor.

And I'll have you rotate your leg right in the hip socket so that the toes go across your body.

And then let's let gravity pull this leg across while you're maintaining that twist in the leg.

Try to keep your hip close to the floor.

So the leg won't go very far.

And come out of that.

Let's switch legs.

Extend that leg up.

Flex that foot.

[inhales] Couple little circles.

Now rotate that leg so the toes go across the body and let gravity pull it across.

Just a few inches; you should be feeling that pull on the outside of the back of your leg.

You don't need to twist through your torso.

Keep that hip on the floor.

Great, now bend this knee and put the foot on the floor, and then just let gravity take that leg out to the side.

Just letting gravity pull it over.

Pause, inhale, exhale.

See if you get a little bit more movement.

Let's switch legs.

So we're stretching your adductors.

Those are the big muscles on the inside of your thigh.

And open as far as it's comfortable for you.

Inhale.

[inhales] And one more time, let that leg fall open, exhale.

Great, straighten that leg and roll over onto your belly.

Face down, we'll do a couple glute exercises so you can rest your chin on your hands.

And now, I'd like you to lift your entire leg off the floor.

So not just from the knee, like don't just bend the knee.

I'd like you to lift right from the hip.

However, if that's just not happening, then you can bend the knee and then try to lift from the hip.

That might be an option, okay?

Otherwise, straight leg and lift, lift.

The goal is to get the thigh off the floor, but try not to overarch your low back.

So it's gentle squeezes to lift.

We're not throwing the leg around.

And let's switch legs.

Lift, lift, lift; squeeze to lift.

That's the key, squeeze, hold and down, lift and lift.

Good job; roll over onto your side.

On this elbow, we've got our leg extended and lift.

Reach slightly forward.

This will prevent your hips from opening up.

If they do this, then you're gonna be using the quads.

We wanna use this glute medius.

It's one of your glute muscles that comes around your hip.

And lift; let's do ten, nine, eight.

Oh, try to be tall.

I was getting a little saggy.

Now I lost count; let's do 10 more.

No, I'm kidding.

Out to the front.

Okay, extend that leg, touch the toes, and lift.

And down and lift, lift.

All right, keep reaching towards your face with that leg.

It wants to keep going back.

Five; these are hard.

Four, three, two, and swing it around to the other side.

All right, get down on that elbow.

Make sure your ribs stay nice and long and your elbow doesn't come up around your ear, okay?

And extend that leg, reach slightly forward, and lift.

[inhales] Pull your stomach in.

Keep taking that inventory that your long neck, you're not slouching, lift.

You're not using your quads, you're using your hips.

Now, hold it up here for 10, good job.

These muscles are notoriously weak, and they let all kinds of bad things happen to your knees and ankles.

So, and even your low back.

So let's keep them strong.

And now let's bring this to the front.

[exhales] And down and up.

This one's really hard.

You can have the knee bent if you need to.

Give it a try if you have to, or just take a little break and join us again.

[inhales] Good job, and bend that knee, place it on the floor.

Big inhale.

[inhales] Final stretch.

[exhales] Feels so good.

Thank you for doing that with me.

I pick those exercises for injury prevention and to reduce soreness based on what I know of predictable problem areas.

Moves that are particularly difficult may be an indicator of weaknesses that are causing you pain.

By working on them, you may even prevent a future injury.

So come back to these moves right here on pbswisconsin.org/quickfit and invite a friend so they too can live better, longer.

– 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.