“Leg Exercises for a More Powerful You” Transcript

Hi, I’m Cassy, and welcome to today’s Quick Fit. In this class, I’ll be showing you easy and effective movements to stretch, strengthen, and balance your muscles. If you want to feel youthful and move with confidence and energy, you need strong legs. That foundation helps reduce back pain, keeps you independent, burns more calories, and creates energy, just to name a few things. So, let’s get moving!

[gentle music]

In today’s class, we’ll be seated, and then, we’ll get up partway through the class to stand. All you’ll need is a chair. So I also recommend that you take your shoes off because we will be working the feet a little bit, so bare feet help you to get much more movement in your feet, so consider taking your shoes off, have a cushy pad under your feet if you’re concerned about foot pain. Let’s have a nice, tall spine. We always begin with a nice, tall spine. Think about lengthening and lifting through the head, the neck, opening all your vertebra. And now, let’s arch and round through the pelvis in particular. Since we are working on legs, we need to have a nice loose pelvis and hip area. So as you tuck your tailbone under, think of a dog tucking its tail between its legs, and roll back on your hind end and let your chin tuck down towards the base of your neck. Then, we’ll sit up and we’ll do the opposite, sticking that chest out. Think about pulling the hips back and bringing your elbows back. Inhale, and do it all again. If you’re familiar with yoga, this is actually just like the cat and the cow that you would be performing on the floor on your hands and knees. Big inhales and exhales to facilitate the stretch. Breathe it in and out, roll back, and take as much time as you need to really feel the muscles loosen up and lengthen.

Very good, now for the next part, I’d like to practice getting up out of the chair. We need to use our legs to get up from a seated position. That’s why we’ve got all these muscles between our knees and our belly button. It’s not so we have to push with our arms. So, let’s strengthen these legs. These legs are what’s going to keep us independent much longer. So I have my knees about, I don’t know, shoulder-width apart, a nice V right from my hips, and my heels are under my knees. If you have your toes pulled back like that, it’s not gonna be easy, all right? So sit up nice and tall and hinge forward right from your hips. Long spine, and now let’s do a tentative press down through the heels. You should feel your bottom coming up a little bit off of the seat with every press. You can even reach forward and do a little press, big inhale, exhale, make sure you’re pushing through your heels. That’s going to activate all of those muscles in the back of your legs and in your bottom, your glutes. Inhale, exhale, and we’re getting just partway up.

The next time, I’d like you to actually kind of hover over the chair if you can. And if you can’t, don’t worry. Just tensing your muscles is getting them stronger and conditioning them to do more. We’ll do that one more time, hover up over the seat. Make sure you’re pushing through your heels. That’s gonna put your butt over the chair, so that when you go to sit back down, you don’t miss it, all right? And sit back.

Good, now let’s turn towards your right and do a lunge, a one-legged lunge. All right. So, get your heel under your knee and then do your best to have this knee under your hip, find your toes, and even stretch this leg back as far as you can. All right. Lean it over. Push through this heel into the floor. Feel your legs activating. And sit back down, inhale, exhale, now use two feet, press, press, press! As you get up, try to lengthen this leg, it makes it easier, and then back down. If you’re struggling getting up off the chair, be patient with yourself. It takes time and practice to develop these muscles that have been ignored for so long. Exhale, good job. Let’s turn and go to the other side. All right, get that heel under your knee, stretch this leg back as far as you can. I teach these classes at my fitness center and I see a lot of people trying to get up with their legs close together, and it’s harder. So, as you start getting up, lengthen this leg to the back. Press, now hands on the chair for balance, not for pushing, okay? And if you’re thinkin’, “Well, I can’t get up if I don’t push with my hands,” so what. We’re not here to strengthen your hands today, we’re here to strengthen your legs, all right?

Lean out over this knee, press and hold. Lengthen this back leg. Let’s get this torso up, head and neck up over your shoulders. Let’s do about three or four bounces. Remember, we’re here to strengthen your individual legs. Having individually strong legs will make your balance better, because balance isn’t only in your inner ear, it’s in your body, too! Making sure your right and left sides are as strong, and your front and back sides of your body, are the right tension ratios that they’re designed to have. Okay, this one last time, we’re going to be doing this reverse squat, or a get-up right from the chair, only this time, we will ultimately be getting all the way up, so press.

I’ll let you know when, inhale, exhale. We’ll do a press and hold first. [exhales] Then we’ll lower your bottom until you just feel the seat behind you, hang on, hang on! And then, we’ll go ahead and get all the way up, you ready? Explode, very nice. All right, so let’s take this chair and move it over towards your left side, and we’ll do a few more moves from here. You can hang on to the seat or not. It doesn’t really matter. We’re going to lift one heel and then the other. Okay, heels up and down. This is where it’s really beneficial to not have shoes on. Shoes are like wearing a cast all day long. You take them off and you have reduced joint movement. And you’ll also have some atrophy in your muscles, and that leads to pain. So, let’s lift and lower. [gentle music] All right. Now let’s get up and down like this. So, you’re getting up on two toes and then down. We’re actually pushing through the ball of your foot. That’s the meaty part underneath your big toe.

All right. Turn and face the chair for these next exercises. So this will be for your glutes and your low back. The chair is here to hopefully prevent you from leaning over too much. So take one leg and press it to the back. Now, I like having the seat here ’cause it prevents this forward swing. We’re going from right here, ankle to ankle, to back, squeeze and hold. And if you’re not sure if your butt muscles are doing their job, just give a little push and wake them up. So, touching your muscles that you’re trying to work helps the brain and the muscles become connected again. All right. Now let’s do that other leg.

Let’s do a few pull-backs, so pull and squeeze, and down, pressing to the back, and hold, trying not to swing. Do a purposeful press and hold. Inhale, exhale, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and release, very good. All right, now for the pli or a wide, wide squat. So, in these, I like you to really be careful with your knee placement, because I don’t want you to reinjure yourself. This is about strengthening your muscles and not having any pain. So, I’d like you to look at yourself and be critical. Make sure that your feet and your ankle is under your knee. If you’re in this position, that’s no good for the knee, so you have to get a little brave and trust your legs to hold you up. Make sure your knees aren’t falling to the front, to the forward. Stretch them open as wide as your toes. And if you can’t get your knees open as wide as your toes, move your toes, so that they go in the same direction as your knees.

I know that’s a lot of instructions. It’ll get easier with the doing. Let’s go down and up. I know I was talking and you’re in this position, and your legs are burning and you’re like, “Can ya get on with it? “I’m running out of strength here!” But that’s okay. Sometimes just holding is what I’m really after. So, down and up, all right.

Well, I hope that felt good! With these simple and effective exercises, we used energy, burned calories, and created more energy for the rest of your day! It’s a win-win! So keep that energy going by checking out more of our Quick Fit videos online at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, and I’ll see you next time!

[upbeat music]