- Welcome to today's Quick Fit class.

I'm Cassy Vieth.

Pain comes from weak muscles.

Back pain is often caused by unbalanced and weak glute muscles.

The muscles in your hind end.

Did you know your gluteus medius muscles also wrap around your hips?

In today's class, we'll stretch the overly tight low back muscles and also work on strengthening those lesser-known glutes.

[gentle music] We'll be working on the floor today and quite a bit on our knees.

So have a pillow handy for your knees if your knees are tender, or a nice cushy mat.

All right, first thing we're going to do is we're going to come up on your knees into a partial standing position, all right.

And lift your right arm.

Just mirror me.

Big inhale.

[inhales] And over.

[exhales] We're going to run through that again, so don't worry about getting it too deep.

Next move is yoga child pose.

Just stretch down to the floor briefly.

Come on up and squeeze your behind, and lean back.

Not trying to go too far or too deep, or hold these too long.

No grimacing, okay?

So first thing, overhead side stretch.

[inhales and exhales] We'll do the same side.

Getting a little deeper with each move as we repeat.

Rolling it up, chin coming up last.

Hands behind the hips, squeeze your bottom, lean back.

Very good, all right.

Other arm up.

[inhales] Inhale, exhale, [exhales] Not too deep since that's the first time on that side.

But you can go deeper now with this child's pose.

[inhales and exhales] Roll it up.

Hands behind the hips.

Squeeze your hind end, and back.

Just flowing.

Lift, [inhales] exhale.

[exhales] Really allow that hip to sink to the side, the ribs to stretch.

Flow back down.

[inhales and exhales] Shift a little bit while you're down here, hips left and right.

You can even cross one arm past the other if it feels good for you.

You'll come up with your own moves as things start to feel better and looser.

And up.

[inhales] All right, lean it back.

Squeeze your hind end.

Pull your shoulders back.

Get into it.

All right, one more time with the overhead side stretch, with each arm.

Over, [exhales] and the other side.

Over.

[exhales] Child's pose one last time.

Shifting your hips left and right.

Reaching with your arms.

You can even add a shoulder lift.

[inhales and exhales] Deepen your breathing, your muscles need that oxygen.

Hands on your hips, stomach tight.

Lean it back by pushing your hips forward.

Lift your chest.

Very good, all right.

Next we'll be down on all fours.

[inhales and exhales] Okay, make sure your knees are right below your hips and your wrists are right below your shoulders.

We'll be doing these hydrants.

We'll just lift the knee straight out to the side.

But take care to make sure you're lifting your ankle as high as the knee.

And trust me, it's probably not what you think.

Our mind thinks we're being strict, but our body's cheating.

So you gotta take a peek and look.

And if your ankle is lower than your knee, your quads are trying to do the work because your hips are weak, okay.

Lift, lift and hold.

And if you're too tired to do the reps, just do a hold.

Or if you're burning already, just take a three-second break.

All right, lift and kick.

Lift and hold and kick, these are hard.

Lift.

[inhales] Stomach's tight.

[exhales] Keep your hands under your shoulders.

All right, and down.

I know that's hard.

So now we're going to do the opposite.

I want you to press this foot right hard into the ground.

Press, feel these muscles light up.

They're activating.

All right, now this is the more advanced.

Try to lift.

Oh, I know, I hear ya.

Some of you are like, "What, no way!"

Lift.

It's okay if you can't today, there's always next week, and the week after that.

Lift, all right, and shift it back.

We're gonna do all that on the other side, all right?

[inhales] All right, square up again.

Wrists are under your shoulders.

Knees are right under your hips.

Stomach's pulled in.

A long neck.

All right, everything's in nice, strong positions.

[inhales] All right, hydrant out to the side.

Check that ankle, no cheating.

And if you can't lift it, or you can't lift it as far, do what you can, but be strict.

If you're not strict, you won't strengthen the weak muscles.

The other ones will take over.

And like I said, that's part of what leads to pain.

Stomach's tight, lift.

Long neck, don't get sunk down.

Lift.

It's a workout for your entire body, not just the one you think you're moving.

Lift.

[inhales] Lift, [exhales] take a three-second break.

One, two, three.

Lift it and kick straight out.

Stomach's tight, long neck.

Not much longer.

You can do it.

Lift, stretch, kick, and drop it down to the side.

All right, reorganize.

[inhales and exhales] Long neck, hands under your shoulders.

Now press, press it down, press.

Engage your belly.

Feel your abs and your leg working together.

Press it into the floor.

Moving against an immovable object is a great way to strengthen muscles.

All right, release that.

Try to lift.

Try to lift out to the side.

Charley horse, right?

I know, I've heard it.

Lift.

And if you can't lift it today, that's okay.

Just trying to lift is waking up those muscles.

You're engaging and tightening these muscles.

That counts.

All right, bring that in.

And we'll just sit it back, shift around.

And then we're gonna lay on our side.

If you mirror me, this will be your right side.

All right, legs are stacked, slight lean forward.

Trust me, you need to do that otherwise your hips will scoot back, and the quads will try to take over again.

But we must work these muscles.

If you start lifting your knee higher than your ankle, your quads are doing the work.

Don't do that, don't cheat.

Even if you can't lift your leg up off the other, just trying to do it counts.

You might be a person that actually needs to do these.

All right, lead with the ankle and then lift.

Oh yeah, lift.

[inhales and exhales] Slight lean forward.

Keeps you in the right position.

Check your ribs.

Bring that elbow in, long neck.

Let's move around to the side.

Lift, lift, lift, all the way down, lift.

Check that foot.

Don't let the foot drop lower than the knee.

Lift, belly in, lift.

A couple more.

I know these can get tough.

You can take a three-second break and then rejoin.

That makes a big difference.

That's how you get stronger.

All right.

Extend that leg.

[inhales] Let's reach.

[exhales] Stretch, so we're stretching.

Very good, and lift.

Stretch, full-body move here.

Stomach's in, lift.

One more.

[exhales and inhales] Lift, elbow to knee, extend, and down.

Up, touch, stretch it further, and down.

I love it.

Lift, oops, lift, and good.

Very good, one more, stretch it, lift it, and touch.

Good job, switching sides.

Move quickly, it's part of the workout too.

[inhales and exhales] All right.

Don't let your elbow get too far away.

Keep it fairly close, that way you can push.

Have a long line here, long neck, long ribs.

Let's lift, lift.

Slight reach forward.

If you don't reach far enough, remember, the cheaters will, the stronger muscles will start to take over and the weak ones won't get a chance.

Okay, lift.

Check that ankle.

Is your ankle as high as your knee?

[inhales and exhales] All right, start moving it around towards the back and drop it a little lower.

And lift, a little lower.

Whoops, I was starting to get slouchy.

Lift.

[inhales] Stomach's in.

Press that elbow into the floor.

Keep going more towards the back.

[inhales and exhales] I hope you're breathing as heavy as I am.

Lift, lift, lift, lift, and lift.

All right, get ready for the nice stretch.

Stretch it out.

Reach a little further.

[inhales and exhales] Reach over the head.

This is wonderful.

Lift, lift, extend, extend.

[exhales] Lift, lift, extend, extend.

Lift and lift.

All right, elbow to knee.

Touch, extend, and over.

Lift, touch, stretch further, and over.

Up, touch, and over.

Last one, lift, whoops, lift, and lift.

Good job.

All right, lay on your back.

And we'll finish up with a really, really great stretch for your psoas.

It's that tiny, hard-to-get-to muscle that attaches top of your thigh to the bottom of your spine.

So let's open up the knees and keep your foot in place.

Just move your right knee towards the center and out.

Do it again.

Now I know many of you, your hips are following, okay.

As soon as you move the knee, the hip follows.

Try not to move the hip.

Just go as far as you can before the hip wants to come off the floor.

It's that tight psoas muscle that's causing that.

So it's good to know if you're tight, right?

That helps you to narrow down where your pain might be coming from, so that you can zero in on which muscle is the culprit.

The tight or weak culprit.

All right, [exhales] inhale.

[inhales] All right, let gravity hold it, okay?

Try to keep as much of your hip down on the floor as possible.

And we'll do that same thing on the other side, all right.

Just let gravity pull the leg down, inhale.

[inhales and exhales] I like this one.

This one can be done in bed.

It can be done during commercials.

And it feels really, really great.

All right.

I can see some of those leg lifts were really hard for some of you, and you're probably even surprised how much strength you've lost and didn't know about.

But don't be discouraged.

By performing the moves strictly, your muscles will quickly wake up and actually be happy to perform.

So be encouraged.

You will see improvements quicker than you expect.

So please be patient, but be consistent.

And return again tomorrow to pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, where you will see measurable improvements at about four weeks.

I know because I see it all the time.

Hang in there, so you too can live better, longer.