Quick Fit with Cassy

gentle music

Hi, there. Welcome back to Quick Fit. I'm your host, Cassy Vieth. Great balance requires many physical mechanisms working well together. Today's Quick Fit class is for balance, but from the perspective of improving the stability in the joints of the hips, knee, and ankle. Make sure you have a chair for today's class, and let's just start by rotating on your toe, a little bent knee, moving that knee in and out. Nice and easy. Do the other side. Come up on your toe. Rotate the knee in and out. All right, nice base, do some circles. Start your breathing, in and out. It helps everything to stretch. Oxygenates your blood and your muscles, and it's just a good way to be exercising the muscles of your lungs. All right. Widen those legs yet again, and let's just sit back on one heel and then the other. Don't be afraid to lean forward with your chest so you can really start activating those muscles along the backside of your legs and hips and butt.

inhales and exhales

All right, now grab that chair and we'll stand to the side of the chair. I'm going to have the chair back in my left hand and stand right next to the seat. And let's bring that leg and foot up over the chair, trying not to have your foot on the seat resting. We want to work these muscles and working that standing leg. Now, lift that knee into your hand. Lift, lift, lift.

inhales

Very good.

exhales

And let's do some out and ins.

inhales and exhales

Hold on to the chair lightly if you're good with balance, and if you're not very confident of your balance, don't be afraid to hold on to the chair lightly just to give yourself a little confidence.

exhales

All right. Reach and lift, reach and lift. And for those of you that are shorter and are struggling getting that foot off of the seat, you can do this out to the front. The point is to challenge this as well as your standing leg. Let's reach it to the back. Now, that feels good.

exhales

inhales

And up. Back and up. One more. Back and up. Good, we'll take a little break before we do the other side. Let's do those knee in and outs. In and out.

inhales and exhales

We can sit into this hip a little bit, and then we'll switch knees. You ready? Find the toes, sit into this hip, open and across.

exhales

Open and across. Enjoy that. All right, hip circles again. I'm gonna scoot this over. Hip circles again.

exhales

Isn't it great just to get your workout done right away in the morning? Right from the convenience of your home. All right, widen those feet again one more time, sitting it back on one heel and the other.

exhales

Make sure your body's lined up between your legs, that you're not trying to do this. That's hard on the knees, and it's just mechanically not easy. All right, take a moment.

exhales

Enjoy the inner thigh stretch. Let's do the other side. I'm gonna put the chair back in my right hand, and we'll be standing on the right leg, moving the left.

inhales

All right, first thing, let's get it up over top, not resting on the seat, holding it here, making sure that your standing knee isn't bent and it's not necessarily locked out either. Nice and tall. Let's lift that leg into your hand, your hand's resisting.

short exhales

You're doing some work, heavy breathing's okay.

inhales

Don't hold your breath.

exhales

And now, let's out and across. Out and across.

inhales and exhales

Remember, we're really working that standing leg. It's having to communicate with your brain about all the stabilizing tissues. Okay, out and up. And if you hold lightly to the chair or even release the chair, it'll be even a little bit more challenging to all those stabilizing structures. All right, now to the back. Take your time. The back and over. To the back and over. Almost done.

exhales

All right, and we're going to sit down for this final stretch. So first I have to do this. I feel like I needed it, so I had to throw that in there. If I needed it, chances are you did too. Okay, now we'll sit sideways on the chair, one leg right off the side, and we'll just do a slight angled stretch.

exhales

So I'm flexible enough to get my leg straight back, but I know not everybody is, and we just worked this, so let's not be too intense yet.

exhales

Good, and now we'll move it back a little bit more. The goal being to straighten the knee and stretching these muscles we just worked. All right, let's let that knee hang straight down from your hip.

exhales

Lift and sag down over, letting your hip hang off the front of the chair, balancing yourself by leaning into the chair back. All right.

exhales

Lift.

inhales

One more time over.

exhales

Exhale. Getting deeper with every repetition, with nice, deep breathing. Let's go to the other side.

inhales and exhales

All right, let's extend that leg. I like to even reach towards it a little bit. Maybe you'll enjoy that too if you have some very flexible joints. Maybe a little bit more to the back.

exhales

Finding really your tight spots. The things that feel good for you. Side of the foot.

exhales

All right, let's bend that knee. Let the weight fall off the front of the chair, but lean into the chair. And turn your face and neck, bring that elbow up over. Let's sit up.

inhales

Doing it again,

exhales

and over.

exhales

All right, let's come out of that and finish up some stretches. All right, let's bring that ankle up on top of your knee. Little figure four stretch. So if you don't have quite as much flexibility as I do, you might need to drop this leg a little lower, or you may even have to drop the ankle below the knee. Just find some way that you can open

exhales

and stretch these hips.

inhales

All right. Then we'll pull this across. Now you can feel that down the back. Inhale, exhale.

exhales

Lift and lower, and let's do the other one. Nice figure four stretch, pressing it down. You can even do it without the extra pressure of the hand, and then across. Pull across, enjoy this.

inhales

exhales

Twist into it.

exhales

And let's relax the leg and go the other way.

exhales

Well done. Remember, great balance requires balanced muscles and joints. So repeat this often if balance is a particular concern for you. And find more great classes at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit because aging well is possible with a little daily effort. See you next time.