Quick Fit with Cassy

- This is Quick Fit .

I'm your host, Cassy Vieth.

Find relief in two of the most commonly painful areas: your hands and feet.

A little thoughtful stretching and some creative exercises will easily bring relief in just a few minutes.

Imagine that, in just about 10 minutes from now, you'll be improving the rest of your day.

So let's get right at it.

[uplifting music] All right, we are working our feet and we are working without shoes.

If you can possibly take your shoes off, they will find much greater relief through the greater freedom of movement.

Exercising your feet with shoes on is sort of like exercising your arm with a cast on.

And I know many of you have to deal with things like plantar fasciitis and very tender bottoms of your feet, so I would suggest a nice mat underneath your feet, a nice cushion.

Really even if you don't have foot pain, a nice cushion under your feet is nice.

But do your best, and if you are new to exercising your feet, please only do a few reps. Don't do all the repetitions that I do here.

We need to give your muscles in your feet an opportunity to get stronger.

All right, so let's just take your toes and rock them back and forth.

And I have a chair here, but it's really only for about one of the exercises for the hands.

So try not to reach out and support yourself when we work the feet.

Give yourself an opportunity to well, work your balance at the same time today.

All right, so we're just curling the toes forward and back.

I've seen so many people with such stiff toes that they can't even move them.

And so it's really no wonder that you end up having foot pain or walking and shuffling.

So we need to keep our feet fully mobile.

All right, let's extend a leg and we're going to point and flex.

So here's a little opportunity for balance work.

All right, you don't have to have your leg very high in the air for balance work.

All right, point and flex.

Why don't you just start breathing really heavy or deeply, in and out.

[inhales and exhales] While we do this, we'll do more than one body part at a time.

Let's do the other leg.

All right, stabilize, extend, point.

Make sure you're pointing all the way down through to your toes.

We're stretching the top of the foot and the shin as well as the toes.

[inhales and exhales] And once again, if you have shoes on, you won't be able to get a full, complete stretch or flex.

All right, so now let's keep your foot pointed, but try to pull your toes towards you.

And I know some of you might be getting a charley horse, so you just pause.

Go at it with a little less force.

Okay, so pointed foot.

Oops, I'm cheating.

Pull your toes towards you.

Put the ball of the foot on the floor, relax the toes, and pull them up.

Relax and pull up.

We'll do the other leg.

So once again, stabilize, extend the leg in front of you, try to pull the toes up.

Keep the foot pointed.

So now your brain is trying to work that out too because your brain has to keep the foot and leg long, and yet pull the toes.

Point and pull.

You can put the ball of the foot down on the floor now, relax the toes, pull them up.

[inhales] Relax the toes and pull them up.

So your brain is exercising and growing right now as well.

All right.

Whenever you are asking it to do things it hasn't done in a while, it's gotta wake up all of those sense receptors.

All right, toes down and up.

[inhales and exhales] Good, and let's open out to the side.

Oops!

You have a chair close, you end up grabbing it.

So step away from the chair.

Turn.

All right.

All right, with your feet flat, let's try to make just a little gentle fist, not tight.

I mean, as if you had a butterfly in your hand and you close your hand.

You know, you're not killing it or squeezing it.

Do the same thing with your toes.

You're just closing and opening, closing and opening.

All right.

Now this time, use a little force.

If you've been exercising with me a while, feel free to use some force and try to grip the mat with your toes.

Good.

Lift and grip.

All right, one ankle, turn it to the side a little bit.

You can bend the knee.

[inhales and exhales] Keep your weight on your other leg.

All right, other ankle, you're gonna let it turn to the side and move the knee.

Good, stretching the side of that ankle.

All right.

Up again, a couple circles of the ankle.

Good, let's go the other way.

And if you're not too keen on doing all these exercises because you're very new, you know, just standing with your shoes off is a new challenge to your feet and the arches.

All right, you can try to go for longer and longer extensions of time without your shoes off, with your shoes off.

Just letting your feet do what feet do.

All right, let's turn and use your chair and start exercising the hands.

So just some simple finger stretches.

All right.

[inhales and exhales] Add some oxygen to those muscles.

Let's do the thumbs.

I know this doesn't look like it's very exciting, but our hands need care.

They do a lot for us.

And arthritis is so common.

And I think a lot of the pain as we age and arthritis as we age can find relief in simple exercises like this.

It's joint care, stretching overly tight muscles, strengthening weak muscles.

I think you'll find activities like opening jars begin to become a little easier, less painful.

All right, now the wrists.

Okay.

All right, one wrist and then the other.

Good.

All right, let's use one hand to pull the fingers slightly back, but don't forget to extend through your elbow.

Don't just stop here.

[inhales] Good, and the other way.

Good.

Pull across.

Nice, let's do the other one again, pull it across.

[inhales] All right, open those hands, press.

Make sure you're getting a nice bend in the wrist.

You could just do a little, gentle pull.

[inhales and exhales] Oxygenate those muscles with extra deep inhales and exhales.

All right, now right hand.

Put your right hand towards me.

And I'd like you... We're going to try to open the palm.

So you'll need to kind of grip your hand like this so you get some leverage on the back of your hand.

Using your thumb at the base of your pinkie, open the palm.

Now don't let your hand follow along.

Your hand and arm will resist to try to get this palm opened.

Okay, so remember, I'm gripping it like this and I'm opening the palm.

All right, now reach under.

With your fingers, try to get the meaty part of your thumb.

I have one hand on top of the other, and I want to pull your palm open from this side.

And stretch your fingers open as far as you can.

We're trying to open up that hand across the top of the bottom one.

So we'll open up the hand.

This one can take a little practice.

Let's just reach up and grab that thumb now and pull that.

Now as you can see, I've got the leverage of my other hand beneath.

And it's just a gentle pull, we're not trying to break our thumbs.

All right, shake it off, we'll do the other hand.

So put forward your left hand.

We'll use your other hand.

Thumb is at the base of your pinkie.

I'm gripping like that.

Now open up the palm, your top hand resists, fingers trying to open.

Good, this one will get easier with practice.

Now, reach under, grab the meaty part of your thumb, and try to open the palm from this side.

Good, the other fingers are bending back.

Okay, this is great one.

I have so many people asking me to show them this who have taken my classes and then they see me on the street, they're like, "Show me that move again."

All right, let's get that pinkie, or that thumb, that's not your pinkie, it's your thumb.

All right.

All right, shake it off.

Middle finger reaching, reaching down, reaching down.

Now, if all your fingers are following, then just use one hand.

You can hit pause on the video or you can just do it again and again.

Okay, so now let's try to reach down with the first finger and all the other fingers need to go up to the ceiling.

And if it's not really working too well, use that thumb.

Good, pull the one finger down and the others go up, and just make your way across, breathing and doing these holds.

These are such simple moves that you can do anywhere while you're...

I was gonna say driving, but I guess passenger, or watching TV or talking on the phone.

These feel really good.

Now, you got a finger, let's press forward and down and you feel it all the way down through the back of your hand.

Now, kind of grab one finger at a time.

Good, and then up, stretching the muscles in your forearms as well.

All right, fists down, rotate, bend those wrists.

All right, and I call these cobra.

Cobra wrists, cobra fists.

All right, one more time, press.

All right, now don't make a fist for this move.

I'd like you just to close the finger joints.

So kind of like claw hands, where you're trying to touch the tips of your fingers to the inside of your knuckles, the pads there.

Pull them down.

Now, I want you to use force, okay?

Oops.

Poor butterfly.

You're gonna let him go first.

All right, pull it down, pull it down, pull it down.

So you're holding your fingers down, using some force, reach across with the thumb.

Reach.

All right.

This class is so important as we sit more and use our hands more with our computers and devices.

And because you can do it most anywhere, try implementing some of these moves throughout your day.

Most fitness classes don't involve exercises or stretches for the hands and feet, but we do, so come back often to pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, where we take care of your entire body each day so you can live better, longer.

See you soon.