Quick Fit with Cassy

- Hi there, I'm Cassy.

I sure hope all of you are doing well today.

For this Quick Fit class, we'll be focusing on the upper leg muscles, particularly the quadriceps.

Because when these muscles are tight, they can affect the knees and slow you down.

Have a sturdy chair handy, and get ready to join me.

[gentle music] If you're new here, we do work out without our shoes.

We'll be standing for this entire class, and you may need to grab a towel if you don't have a band, so maybe have a short band handy and I'll give you time for that later.

Let's just start with some easy knees swinging across, just to start loosening up and warming up.

[inhales] Don't forget your breathing.

[exhales] Try not to twist your hips with your leg.

Okay, try to twist towards the hip, not towards the knee.

All right, let's start with some kick-your-butts.

We're still warming up these leg muscles.

We wanna make sure that you have free range of motion.

So that's why we want to get as much motion in every joint as possible.

Now let's lift the knees, lift, lift.

Let your heart rate start to get up, your breathing start to get a little heavier.

Don't hold your breath.

I'll be giving you more instructions today.

[exhales] All right.

A little swing across and across.

More instructions so that you can get the hang of some of the more complicated moves, swing across and then wide, and a little squash lunge.

Now with this one, you wanna make sure, if you can notice that my hands are between my knees, I'm going wide and keeping my body between the legs.

You don't wanna do a short step and have this knee go past.

You want the knee to land above the ankle.

All right, exhale, now let's explode.

We'll land on the toes to heel.

Good, make sure your hips are going back across, and land.

Now take a moment to actually look and see how you're lined up.

Sometimes what we think isn't really what's happening.

So let's widen that foot if you need to and get that knee above the ankle.

And if you've started to turn and get past the knee, let's push through that heel.

Lean slightly forward.

You can start to your quads get warmer.

Now, push, land, adjust if you need to.

Push, land, adjust as you need to.

The good thing about this format is you can stop the video, practice, practice in front of a mirror, and start again.

[inhales] All right.

Let's do the other side.

So swing, nice for the hip.

Land, catching yourself.

Swing, toes to heel, and land.

Double check that you're not getting your shoulders past your leg, land.

Sometimes people don't allow their hips to go back far enough.

And then they don't allow their shoulders to come forward.

So let's do both, push through the heel.

Get that knee above the ankle, hips back.

[inhales and exhales] And if it doesn't make sense today, that's okay.

Give yourself some time; in about four weeks, some of those muscles that may have been sleeping and not really communicating well with the brain will wake up and it'll be like, huh, why was this so hard?

[exhales] All right.

I see a lot with people, after about four weeks, things just really seem to click.

All right, now, if you started with a narrow move, you can go a little deeper and a little deeper.

Good job, all right, a few final butt kicks just to finish, [inhales and exhales] that move and to help us catch our breath.

I think you guys ought to be pretty well warmed up by now.

[inhales] Nice.

All right, we'll be grabbing a chair next.

So if you don't have one handy, go ahead and take this moment to get it and make sure it doesn't have arms or wheels.

All right.

The other thing you might need is a band.

So the move that we're going to be doing is a quad stretch where we grab our ankle and we pull the heel towards our behind.

But if you can't quite grab or reach for the pant leg, you can use something like a band.

And if you don't have a band handy, I find a pillowcase works really well.

It's just thin enough that when you get it folded up and it's still long enough.

The idea would be to just reach down, hook around that ankle, and pull.

All right?

[inhales] All right, let's do the stretch now.

So for some of you, just pulling the heel up is enough, but some of you might be able to really enjoy squeezing the hind end to deepen the stretch.

Okay, pull.

Pull.

[inhales and exhales] Okay, so squeeze the hind end, press the knee down, and I can feel it all the way down to my knee.

It's allowing for some space in that knee joint.

All right, very, very good.

Let's switch sides.

Okay, move the chair around.

So you can still grab it with one hand and then either grab your ankle or your pant leg, or have your band.

Okay, [inhales] inhale, exhale, [exhales] pull.

And then release some of the tension, inhale [inhales] and pull, and at the same time, press the knee.

[exhales] Good job.

One more, little release, inhale, [inhales] exhale, press the knee down.

[exhales] Squeeze your hind end.

And now, stir.

I always do a little bit of a cringe on this one even though it doesn't hurt bad, but it is deep and it feels really good.

And it doesn't actually hurt at all.

I don't want you to do anything that feels like bad pain, but I can definitely feel that one in a very good way.

All right, we're still using the chair, but let's just turn it so you can use it from the side.

And once again, this is where you really need a sturdy chair, no wheels.

This next move takes a little bit of time to learn, so be really patient with yourself.

All right, the trick is to figure out how far back or forward your back foot needs to be.

All right, we'll get that back heel up so that then I can bend my knee.

Squeeze your hind end.

[inhales] Now we're going to allow your weight to fall down.

[exhales] Keeping your weight centered over the top of the chair.

Don't go over the other side, okay.

That's, that's just not stable and it doesn't really work that well.

Right now, we're stretching from my hip flexors all the way to my knee.

So let's just come out of that.

'Cause it's a super deep move.

[inhales] Up again.

[exhales] Tuck the tailbone under, allow the knee to bend.

Adjust if you need to, and exhale.

[exhales] Remember, you don't have to keep up perfectly with me.

You can adjust.

Take your time.

[inhales] One more time, and go down.

[exhales] This is about you stretching and you feeling better.

It's not a competition.

All right, shake that off and let's switch the chair around and do the other leg.

All right, get that leg up on top.

[inhales and exhales] Other leg, up on top.

Other foot back, and lift the heel so you can bend the knee.

Exhale.

[exhales] It's a really deep stretch.

Come up and out of it.

[inhales] Take a nice little moment to breathe.

Lift the heel, tuck your butt, and drop straight down towards your knee.

Good, we'll do one more.

[inhales] And down.

[exhales] This one really does get better with a little bit of time.

All right, come on up and turn yourself away from the, from the chair so that you can hook your foot up onto the top of the seat.

All right, so this one is still for the quads, but it's gonna work them in a little different way.

We're going to press the foot into the top of the seat.

It's pressing into an immovable object, and this is gonna work smaller tissues around the knee.

Pressing down, push the hips forward, release.

Let's do that again, all right?

So inhale [inhales] and then exhale, press.

Squeeze the hind end, press the foot, hips forward.

That's a lot to think about.

You'll get it.

And relax, shake that off.

We'll just stand here and do the other leg.

Hook it up to the top.

Ready, and first, just press the foot down.

Then engage the hind end.

Push forward.

[inhales and exhales] Breathe.

Don't forget to breathe and relax.

[inhales] All right, so we're just relaxing.

Get ready again.

Press the foot down into the top of the seat.

Squeeze your hind end, push the hips forward, [inhales and exhales] and release.

[inhales and exhales] One more time.

Push the foot down, squeeze the hind end, push forward, [exhales] slight lean back to get the hip flexors, and done.

Good job, good job, all right.

We'll finish off with a nice little ballet stretch.

So take your outer leg.

If you're mirroring me, this would be your right leg.

Just swing it around and then sit down on that heel.

Lift your arm.

[inhales and exhales] Let's do a little bit for the neck.

Turn your face.

You can feel that all the way down your spine.

[exhales] Come partway out, inhale, [inhales] exhale.

[exhales] That's just beautiful and it feels wonderful, but we're not done, one more leg.

All right, same thing.

If you're mirroring me, this will be your left leg.

We'll just swing it around, cross it behind you, and then sit down on that heel.

Lift, inhale.

[exhales] Exhale, enjoy it.

Pushing your hips slightly forward.

Inhale.

[inhales] One final breath before we're done, exhale.

[exhales] Nice and long.

[exhales] Feels so good.

And that's it.

I hope you can see how these simple exercises, all done from the convenience of your home, are effective to relieve your stiffness and pain.

I hope you'll plan on joining me again tomorrow at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, where aging well is possible and enjoyable.

Have a great day.