Quick Fit with Cassy

- Pain relief involves caring for your joints.

Hello, I'm Cassy, and today's Quick Fit focus is on opening tight joints and stretching the muscles that pull on them.

We'll work from your neck to your calves, and before you know it, you'll be feeling much better.

Take your shoes off, have a chair handy, and we'll have you loose and ready for your day in no time.

[upbeat music] If you're new to the program, we work without shoes to improve our reflexes and allow the muscles and joints in our feet to move freely.

If you have tender feet, just work on a mat.

We'll begin with some simple arm swings right across the front of your body, and start breathing nice and deep.

Say, four swings, breathe in, and four swings, exhale.

Now widen your feet, and we'll start to involve the torso so we can stretch the ribs.

[inhales] Exhale.

[exhales] Nice and loose, letting momentum pull you over and swing the arm.

All right, couple more.

As you loosen up, widen the legs and get a little deeper.

Good, we're stretching your ribs, the muscles, the fascia, the skin.

Now let's switch sides.

Okay, so we'll start a little tall at first, just letting the arm go.

[inhales] Try to let it be loose as if it's really not attached to you.

The wind's just blowing it, okay?

So let it go, let momentum take it.

Widen those feet.

Involve the torso.

Stretch the ribs.

[inhales] Exhale.

[exhales] Good, have your stomach pulled in, supporting the low back.

Last one.

Very good.

And now you're a little bit more upright, and let's just start alternating directions.

Letting your arm pull the torso across, involving the spine.

[inhales and exhales] Good.

A few more.

Reach and reach.

And now two arms are going to sweep by in front of you, and let's just lunge it right and left.

Getting deeper as your inner thighs stretch.

[inhales] Exhale.

[exhales] Exhale.

Breathe it in.

[inhales] And exhale.

[exhales] Good, a couple more.

[inhales and exhales] Press it down and lift, and press it down.

Good, come on up.

And we'll start twisting a little further.

Arms are up at shoulder height.

[inhales] Make sure you're lifting the heel of the back leg so you can get a little more movement, protecting that knee.

[inhales] And I like to exhale [exhales] when I think I'm done turning.

And I usually end up getting a few more inches in movement.

[exhales] Good, all right.

Let's work with the neck, so turn it one way and then the other.

And when you think you've used all of your range of motion, use your eyes and look a little further.

Good, and go the other way.

Breathe it in.

[inhales] And the exhale.

[exhales] And look with the eyes a little further.

Again, each way.

[inhales and exhales] Look and check your posture.

Make sure your head is up over the shoulders, not pushing forward.

Good job.

Now let's take your fingers and push your chin so that it goes in towards your neck, making this lovely double chin.

Okay, and now relax that a moment.

Do it again.

Pull the chin in.

Gives a little relief to the hinge at the top of your spine that allows your skull to lift like this.

You know, when we have our heads forward so much, it's a real strain on that top.

So pull it back in, strengthens those muscles in the back.

All right.

Have your feet next about shoulder-width or maybe even a little wider.

Have your knees slightly bent.

We're going to work on the pelvis.

So I'd like you to take your hip bones and push them back, which lets the tailbone kind of push under.

And we'll hug a barrel, okay?

Feel those shoulder blades open nice and wide.

This is very much like the cat position in yoga where you're flexing the spine.

Now let's do the opposite.

So you're gonna push your hip bones forward.

You can see how that tailbone would pull back.

Open those arms nice and wide, stretching the chest.

Involving that upper spine, middle spine, and lower spine.

All right, do it again.

Hug that barrel.

You're making like a big letter C with your spine from your head to your tailbone.

[inhales] Squeeze your butt a little bit to deepen that stretch in the lower spine in your lumbar region.

All right, stand up.

And we do the opposite from top to bottom.

Pull the elbows back, exaggerate, stick the chest forward, and arch your lower spine.

All right, and relax.

[inhales] All right, let's lift your arms up overhead.

Grab your left wrist and then shift your weight to the left.

And you have this lovely stretch from your wrist to your hip.

Come up, we'll do that again.

All right, pull your wrist over the ear.

[exhales] And shift.

Good, switch arms.

[inhales] Pull over the ear and sit down into that hip.

[exhales and inhales] Again, inhale.

Exhale.

[exhales] Oh, that's just a lovely stretch.

I love that one.

All right, let's use your chair just for a little bit of balance, and we'll work on the hips.

Swing your leg freely forward and back.

[inhales and exhales] Just let momentum carry it behind you, but pull your stomach in so you don't overarch in your lumbar spine.

And if you'd like to get a little more height, let that knee bend in the front.

Now often, to get a little bit more movement, people end up bending their knee to the back, but you don't need to.

Just have a straight leg in the back so you get a nice stretch through your hip flexors.

That's what we're trying to stretch here.

Now let's go across the front to the side.

Good, and once again, when you go in front, you can let the knee bend so you can get the thigh a little higher, but go directly out to the side.

Good, stomach's in.

Last one.

And now do it diagonal.

So I rotate my toes out a little bit, and the inside of my foot goes forward and then diagonal behind me.

So not straight back and not straight out to the side.

[inhales and exhales] Stand up nice and tall.

Few more.

By now, your standing leg's getting a little bit of a workout with all this movement.

And one more.

Good job, all right, let's switch sides.

[inhales] Stand up nice and tall.

[exhales] And swing that leg.

Let the knee bend to the front, straight leg behind you because we wanna stretch the hip flexor.

When you bend the knee in the back of you, you're not necessarily getting the hips to stretch.

[inhales and exhales] And now go across, out, across and out.

A little bit of work for this glute medius muscle, that comes around the side of your hip.

[inhales and exhales] And now we'll do the diagonal.

So I rotate my toes out and let the leg go across, and out to the, diagonally behind me.

So not straight behind me and not straight out to the side.

It's a little bit of a cross move, diagonal.

Let's do three, two, last one.

And now just place that heel on the floor in front of you and rotate the toes out and then across.

Out and across.

You can even lift the heel up off the floor.

Either way, whichever way allows you to get a little bit more movement in the hip socket.

All right, and switch sides.

Move that chair across.

And open the foot or the whole leg, actually, and across.

Open and across.

Good, hold it here.

[inhales and exhales] And cross and hold it here.

Couple more, one.

[inhales] Don't rush it.

And check yourself that you're not actually moving the hips.

Okay, it's just the thigh.

We're trying to move it in that ball and socket joint.

Okay, next, we're going to put our foot up on the seat to stretch your inner thigh.

Okay, so take a big inhale and then exhale, [exhales] and put those hands on the chair inside your foot.

And then take another breath in, a big one.

And then exhale.

[exhales] Seeing if you get a little bit more stretch.

You can shift forward and back a little bit.

And for those of you that are flexible, you can even pull on the seat to deepen the stretch.

Okay, but make sure you're not making yourself grimace, okay, especially if you're new.

Inhale and exhale.

If you've been doing these classes a while, then making the stretches deeper feels good to you, but not at first.

[inhales] Exhale.

[exhales] And then we'll come up, and get that standing foot back just a little bit.

To stretch those hip flexors, I'd like you to squeeze your bottom and just push the hips towards the seat.

Keep your chest up.

[inhales] Exhale.

[exhales] Keep that heel on the floor.

Come out of that and then go back into it.

Keep the heel on the floor.

Squeeze the bottom to push the hips forward.

And good job.

All right, now we're going to stretch this IT band.

You can let the leg fall open, okay.

And soft knees, okay?

This will get you a little bit more movement through your pelvis.

Shift the hip up and then let this hip sink down.

Not an easy move.

So if you don't quite think you're doing it right, don't worry.

Just move your are hips around.

[inhales and exhales] It's all good.

All right.

One more.

You know, the more you do these, the better you get at it, of course, because you're loosening up and your brain and your muscles are communicating better.

All right.

Let's do these stretches on the other side.

Okay, get that foot up there, and then [inhales] big breath in and exhale.

[exhales] Hold it here for a few seconds.

Big breath in again.

[exhales] Exhaling extra long really helps those muscles to relax and lengthen.

[inhales and exhales] And to deepen it, you can pull on the bottom of the seat and try shifting your weight forward and back.

It really feels great.

[inhales and exhales] Good job, okay.

Let's work on the hip flexor.

Get that standing foot back just enough so that you can push your hips forward 'til you feel that stretch in the front of your hip.

And come out of it, breathe it in.

[inhales] Squeeze your hind end and press forward, but be careful that that heel doesn't come up.

This one feels wonderful.

So many of us have tight hip flexors.

All right, now we can let this top leg fall open to the side.

Make sure your standing knee is bent a little bit.

And start by lifting the hip so it makes sense about dropping the hip.

Good, lift and lower.

And you know, by having your standing knee bent a little bit, you exercise that quadricep.

[inhales] You're conditioning it.

[exhales] Good, lift the hip and lowering it.

Feels really good.

I'm starting to feel more stretches as I keep repeating this move.

[inhales] Okay, a few quick calves before we finish up.

Press that heel down, up and down.

Switching to the other one, press it down.

And up, and press.

Up and down.

And a few ankle circles.

Go as slow as you need to to get large of a circle as you can.

And for some reason, doing it with my hand helps me do it with my ankle.

Let's go the other way.

And the other one.

Circle.

[inhales and exhales] And reverse.

After doing these classes for so many years, it's just amazing how good this feels.

All right, feet are on the floor side by side.

And you can use the chair a little bit.

Let's lift those toes and then rock forward.

Lift the toes and rock forward up on your tippy toes.

One more.

And finally, let's just grip the mat.

Find those strength in your toes and gently grip the mat and release.

Grip and release.

[inhales and exhales] Very good.

I hope you feel better and ready for your day.

If you've discovered one side is tighter than the other, make sure you address it to improve your overall muscular balance.

This will help prevent future injuries.

Plan tomorrow's workout now to keep yourself loose and strong.

Log in again at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit for more easy, pain-relieving workouts so you can keep doing all the things you love.

See you soon.

– Announcer: Funding for Quick Fit with Cassy is provided by Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programs and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.