Quick Fit with Cassy

- Welcome back everyone.

I'm Cassy, and this is Quick Fit , your daily stretch so you can age well and keep doing all the things you love.

In today's class, we'll be using some of the simplest forms of strengthening to relieve knee pain without added stress.

And without further delay, let's get right into it.

[gentle music] As we warm up, you can collect a chair, a band if needed to grab your ankle, and set your feet free from those restrictive shoes if you haven't already.

We'll be using the chair to start with a partial squat.

So I'd like you to walk right up to the chair and just move your hips back.

The chair is going to keep your knees from going forward, which is what I like.

Hips back, hold it.

Lift.

Very good, and up.

Let's reach it over to the side, lift and lengthen, and then over to the side.

Very nice, take your right leg, swing it around behind, sit down on that heel, [inhales] right arm up, exhales.

[exhales] Very nice, let's do the other leg.

So swing your left leg around.

Set that heel down, lift that arm, turn the neck, exhale and enjoy.

[exhales] Very good.

Now, you can use the band to grab that ankle.

If you need to, okay?

Or a belt, sometimes I really like a belt for this move because a belt isn't gonna give, it's going to be tight.

And there you go.

Otherwise, you have to grab pretty close to the leg, but with a belt, it's not gonna have any give.

And I think that's a good idea for this particular stretch.

Pull it up.

Good, let's run through all of those one more time.

So put your legs right up against the seat.

Sit it back, activate your glutes.

One more time, sit it back and hold.

Lift through the chest, pull in your stomach.

All right, lengthen.

[inhales] Exhale, over.

[exhales] Other side, lift, over, and relax.

We always have to warm up a little bit, okay?

Cross that leg behind you, set that heel down, lift, and stretch your whole side from the front of your hip all the way to that elbow, including your ribs.

Swing the other leg around, set that heel down.

Lift, enjoy the stretch, lift the elbow up to the ceiling and reach.

And finally, grab that ankle.

Press the knee back.

Let this hip relax.

Other side, grab that other ankle.

Let the hip relax.

Press the knee back.

Terrific.

All right, let's get your left heel up on top of the seat and we'll press it down into the seat.

You can feel right away your hamstring activating, behind the knee is activating.

[inhales] Press.

Two, three, four, and switch sides.

So it helps to have a cushy seat for this particular move.

If you have a hard seat, a wooden chair, then you can always put a pillow under your heel.

Press, press, press.

Good, switch it again.

We'll do it two more times, ready?

Press that heel.

Three, four, five, six.

Tighten your stomach.

Stand tall.

We're doing other things.

Lots of things all at once.

Ready, press.

Can feel your glutes activate, hamstrings, behind the knee.

Stomach, stand tall, keep pressing, release.

One more time, ready?

And press.

Four, five, six, seven, and switch.

Really like these isometrics.

There's all kinds of tissues surrounding the knee that need a gentle way to be exercised without repetitions of the full up and down, especially if your knees are tender.

All right, let's turn around and we'll do a similar exercise.

Press the knees down into the chair, ready?

Press, press, press.

Now, you can either press with your toes or the top of your foot.

Whatever's more comfortable for your foot.

Press, two, three, and switch.

Take your time.

Ready and press.

Press it down.

I like this kind of work because you've got this immovable object you're pressing against.

You're using about 70% of your strength and activating those tender muscles that are really hard to get to.

Switch.

Ready, and press.

Press, press, press.

And switch.

And go, press it down.

Two, three, four, five.

And last time, each foot.

And press, press, press.

So you should be feeling those muscles activating and it should feel good.

Remember, any kind of knife pain, don't do it.

And last time, you ready?

Press.

You could have something...

If you're feeling a knife pain, you could have something torn or broken that I don't know about.

And I don't want you working through that kind of pain.

And release, good job.

Let's sit down and do a little bit of a stretch here.

So you can either cross your ankle across in front of your shin, or if you're more flexible, get it up above your knee, [inhales] and press it down.

A nice figure four stretch.

And up, twist.

Grab your elbow, your knee with your elbow.

Turn that head and extend.

Now, try to keep this hip on the chair.

Very good, and press that knee down, just using your muscles in your leg.

And switch.

Draw that leg up, [inhales] big inhale and then exhale.

[exhales] Feeling a nice stretch through here.

If you're super, super tight, take a few extra reps and lots of extra breathing to get your muscles to loosen up.

Pull it up, grab the knee with your elbow.

[inhales and exhales] Exhale, twist.

Good, looking down your arm.

Pull.

Lift that chin, enjoy it for a moment, and stand.

Still using the chair, start by standing back a little bit.

Get that foot in the middle of your seat and just exhale.

[exhales] If you're super tight, come right back out.

[inhales] Exhale.

[exhales] Good, until you feel like you're getting your full stretch.

Now, at halfway up, I'd like you to hold.

Just hold.

Exhale, down.

[exhales] Halfway up, hold.

Inhale, [inhales] all the way down.

[exhales] Halfway up and hold.

Very nice.

All right, we'll do that on the other leg.

Big inhale, getting ready.

About partway down, [exhales] right back up, inhale, [inhales] exhale, [exhales] and down as far as you can.

Halfway up with a hold.

Exhale.

[exhales] Halfway up with a hold.

Inhale, exhale.

[exhales] Halfway up, the final hold.

And come out of that and shake it off.

We'll go right back into something very similar, so get your left leg up on top.

In the center of your chair, but then draw it somewhat near the edge.

Make sure you have a stable chair for this, no wheels, and make sure it's not gonna flip over on you.

Just be ready to not fall.

Take your time and pay attention.

You've got your foot behind you.

Lift your heel.

I'd like you to bend that back knee just a little and then lower yourself carefully, making sure the chair isn't going to be tippy.

I haven't had anybody fall yet and I don't want you to be the first.

So come on up.

Okay, sit it back.

And sit back on that back leg for a nice hamstring stretch.

Come up, lift that heel, up on your toes.

Tuck your butt so that your knee bends and lower yourself.

[exhales] This is one of those more complicated moves that will take a little while to get used to.

But that's okay, you'll get it.

Give you something to keep you interested, knowing that you're learning new things every day.

And your body has to get reacquainted with your brain and everybody has to cooperate.

And sometimes that takes a little bit of time.

So be patient with yourself.

Okay, you're ready?

Come up on that, come up with your heels.

Heel's up, you're on your toes.

[inhales] Big inhale.

Tuck your butt.

Lift that back knee, bend, [exhales] and come down beside your chair.

It's a really deep hip flexor stretch.

Come out of it.

[inhales] Sit back on that back heel.

Stretch, shift around, foot down flat, come up on your back toes.

[inhales] Bend that back knee, tuck the hips.

Exhale.

[exhales] Let yourself sink down, stretching all through here.

Come up.

Very, very good.

That is not an easy move.

So like I said, be patient.

You'll get it.

[inhales] All right, really good.

Come right back up against your chair one more time.

Exhale, hold, [exhales] lift.

Step it back.

[inhales] Let's get a little deeper now that you're warmed up.

Come up, exhale, [exhales] using that same form as if the chair was right in front of your knees, okay?

Work your way down and up.

So good.

All right, let's just take this right leg.

Swing it around behind you, set it down.

Enjoy the stretch, lift.

[inhales] And over.

[exhales] Last one, left leg, swing it around, put it down.

Lengthen, exhale.

[exhales] So good.

This is one of those classes you should do two to three times a week to maintain healthy knees as you age.

The holds instead of repetitions may not seem like much, but they get the job done to target and activate those tender muscles around the knee.

So come back here each time to pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, where together, we'll keep you feeling great and doing all the things you love because life is movement.

Have a wonderful day.

– 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.