Quick Fit with Cassy

Welcome back, Quick Fit friends. If you're new here, I'm Cassy. And my goal is to help you feel good and keep enjoying life. Life is movement, and when you feel pain or soreness, you don't want to move and you stop enjoying the activities that used to bring you joy. Let's fight back with movement because that's what helps the body rid itself of the fluid and waste that can make joints feel stiff. Let's get moving.

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We'll be sitting in a chair for the entire class. The chair is just a great tool. And take this opportunity to remove your shoes because that's a great way to ease in to exercising the feet. Start with some nice circles and we'll squeeze the toes just gently, especially if this is one of your first times, and then flex the toes. And if your toes have gotten so stiff from all the years of wearing shoes and you cannot move your toes, then just go ahead and use your hands and start encouraging the movement, okay? So just a gentle squeeze and stretch. See if you can separate your toes. Let's do the other foot, just do a couple circles with the ankle.

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I hope you're sitting up tall; we're not reclining for at least the short time of this class. Use those core muscles and back muscles to hold you upright. Okay, just because we're working the feet doesn't mean we're not working other parts of the body. Okay, gentle squeeze and stretch. Now, try to stretch your toes apart. Okay, we'll switch, if you're mirroring me, this will be your right leg. Extend it and hold. Now, hold it there and point the foot and flex. Now, these are pain relieving classes, so we never work into any bad pains, all right? So if you find that something's certain to make you twinge, just back off of it and don't use any force in those moves. All right, let's bring this leg up and hug it,

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All right. And then slouch and hug, and then see if you can cross your ankle over your leg, and it can be above the knee or below the knee; the idea is to get this thigh open, okay? Maybe a little encouragement with your hand. Okay, and then we'll do the other leg. Extend it, hold it here, squeezing these quadricep muscles, and then point the foot, take your time, allowing the top of the foot and the shin to stretch. These are great exercises too for anybody that runs. Okay, the feet just take lots of abuse, we don't even think about them. We don't hardly ever exercise them in any of our fitness programs, but we do here. If your feet are tight, you'll be exhausted. Okay. Let's bring this knee in and then we'll lift the chest,

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and then we'll slouch and get a deeper hug.

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Enjoying that low back tension relief, and then a nice figure four. Find your way, your best way for doing this. Maybe you have to start here today, but by next year, you'll be having your ankle higher; just enjoy that stretch. All right, turn in your seat towards your right, sitting halfway on, halfway off the chair, hook your arm around the back. All right, and we wanna stretch the quadriceps, so slide your hand down to your ankle. Some people might need a towel or a band or something because they struggle to grab the ankle. Maybe you can grab your pant leg, there's always a way.

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I'd like you to press that knee down towards the floor, inhale,

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exhale, press.

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You can squeeze your hind end too if everything else is easy. All right, so relax the quad for a moment, but now I'd like you to push the foot into the hand. You ready? Press, okay. Everything, it takes all these muscles to do that. Press, press, and you're working the smaller muscles around the knee, okay. And relax. Big inhale, exhale. And one more time, pressing the foot into the hand. Press, press, press. All right, release and switch sides. Half on, half off again. Hook your arm and slide your hand down to your ankle. Hang on while you press that knee down to the floor; this feels really good.

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So I can feel like to about here, but when I squeeze my bottom and pull, I can feel it all the way down to my knee. All right, so release the quad stretch per se. And now I want you to push your foot into your hand. You ready? Go. Press. You gotta use your stomach, the whole leg, press it and release. A couple deep inhales

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and then do it again. Press, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and release. Good job. All right, sitting forward with your feet fairly wide, you can use your feet, push 'em into the floor one and then the other. The idea is to lift one hip off the seat and then the other. Hopefully you're not having to lean away to do it. Okay, pick the hip up and try to actually turn your shoulders, your face towards that hip, squeezing the side. That one's not easy at first, but it will get better with consistency. All right. Let's bring the feet slightly forward, creating a better base because we're going to lift through the chest and do this forward lean, hinging right from your hips, big inhale,

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exhale. So you're lengthening the spine,

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but don't arch your neck, like it might appear like I'm doing that, but I don't mean to. Have a neutral neck,

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twist, come up and we'll switch sides. Inhale, lift, lengthen the spine

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and lean over, twist, dropping one shoulder. Good, come up and let's just tuck that tailbone under it and relieving some of that tension, okay. Widen those feet really, really wide, and then we'll drop, we'll pivot on the toes and drop one knee in.

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Exhale,

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looking, turning your shoulder towards that heel, and open. All right, come up on those toes, pivot that knee, sitting up tall

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and look, doesn't that feel good? Okay, a couple just easy ones, right and left, and then drop that left one in, turn a little bit more in your seat, press those toes into the floor, stretching through your hip flexors,

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breathe.

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And if you cannot completely stretch the leg back, it's all right to move it out a little bit to the side. And then if that's the case, then you'll wanna turn a little bit in your seat until you feel these hip flexors stretch. Good job. We'll do the other side. Start by dropping your leg in, turning in your seat, stretching this leg back, sitting up,

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head and neck up over your shoulders. Good. A little release and extend.

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What a good job, all right. Let's do some nice, easy twists in the seat. At first, our bottom is staying right where it's at, and then we'll open those legs, drop a knee in, and the other way. All right, one more each side, big inhale on your way around

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and exhale.

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You'll see you get a little bit more movement. Come around to the front in a nice smooth move. Do this halo, draw a halo right around your head, involving a little bit more of the torso, and then the other side, good.

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Don't forget to breathe. All right, two arms up, reach it to the back, opening up the chest, lifting your chin. Real good, and overhead. All right, press it.

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Reach up and grab that wrist, pull. Body resists. Good, and now across the front, grab the wrist, pull the wrist across, but you're sitting back. Overhead, reach up, grab the wrist and pull. And then do one where your body resists, and then across the front. Ready, pull, and then sit back. Very good, all right. Lift your chest, extend, and clean a big, old table. Feet have to be in front of you or you won't be able to lean very far. Last one, and then a couple of rainbows as we finish up here. You did great. I hope you feel in your joints how much that helps your body improve elimination, and that with consistency, you will improve exponentially. Find more great joint care classes at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, where you can create easy, new habits that add value to your day, so you can live better, longer because life is movement.