Quick Fit with Cassy

bright music

I'm Cassy, and this is Quick Fit, where a little daily effort goes a long way. Yes, today we will be on the floor, but don't go anywhere. You can do this, even if you need to modify or can't do everything. The floor is a natural stretching tool. So let's have maybe a pillow under your knees. If you have tender knees, have a nice mat and you can do this from anywhere, okay? So let's start on our hands and knees. Have your hands right under your shoulders, and your knees right under your hips, pull in that stomach. And what we're going to do is just draw some circles. Imagine your hips are drawing a circle around the center point of your knees. And go as slow as you need to. Inhale,

inhales

exhale,

exhales

and then reverse, warming up. The floor is a part of our life, and being afraid of it is really missing out. So don't give up that part of your life. Let's stay loose and enjoy it, so we can enjoy our family members. Maybe our little ones, our little grandchildren that are enjoying the floor. All right, let's not miss out. All right, shift forward and back.

inhales and exhales

Definitely breathe as deep as you need to, widen those knees.

inhales

Breathe deeper than you normally do to exercise your lung muscles, your breathing muscles. All right, we'll square it up again into the all-important cat and cow, arching the spine. Humping that back up like a scaredy-cat, pushing the hands into the floor, and a little, a little bit of a squeeze with the hind end.

exhales and inhales

Big inhale as you switch position. And then exhale as if somebody is stepping down in the middle of your back, lifting the tailbone, lifting the head and shoulders. And a few more as you go through this, matching your breathing to the moves.

exhales

You can always put me on pause and do these moves slower. Isn't that the beauty of the internet? You can do it from anywhere, anytime, and you can watch the classes over again and again. All right, so let's shift your hips left and right, and as you loosen up, you can widen the hands, get your hips a little closer towards one heel and the next. Exhale, set it back in one direction and then reach across. And let's go the other way. Shift and reach across, making a nice long line from your hand to the same side hip. Enjoying it all the way down your ribs. Okay, now let's extend that body. You can move your legs back. You can simply walk your hands out

exhales

and enjoy the stretch; half and half. Some of you will love this, some of you will hate it. And then work your way all the way down to the floor and extend your arms, okay? Let's push your hands into the floor to lift that torso, lift one leg and down, and the same leg, and lift. We'll do a few more of these, and then we'll switch it to the other leg. Let's take a little rest. You can push with your hands, lift the other leg, up and down. Lift, lift, and lift, all right. Right arm, left leg. You ready, lift and down, lift, one more. And then we'll switch sides. Lengthen the arm, extend the leg and lift, lift, lift, and lift. Coming up now, onto your hands and knees. Let's just bring the head down towards the floor. Sit your hips back and enjoy a little bit of relief to that low back that just need work. All right, so this would be a great core test. I'd like you to extend, one leg back. On the opposite arm. Let's start by walking it out, make as a long line as you can with that back leg, stomach in. And experiment with lifting that arm,

exhales

trying to focus on one thing on the floor. Is your hand under your shoulder, is your knee under your hip? And down. Really good, all right. We'll extend the other leg to the back. Now that you know what's gonna happen, get your right hand on the floor where you want it. Walk the other hand out, stomach's in. Think about making a nice, long line between the fingers and the toes. Stomach's in.

exhales

Focus on one thing, lengthen your body. Pull in the stomach and down, really good. Now let's do a modified side plank. So I'd like you down on the floor on your elbow with your knees bent. You're gonna focus on pushing this elbow into the floor. So do you see how I went from slouch to long, long lines? Okay, long and strong. Now, I want you to push those hips up off the floor towards the front. And if it feels better for your knees, extend the leg, keep squeezing the hind end, lift. The modification, if this is too hard, is to simply drop and lift, drop and lift. But if you're strong enough, hold it here. If you're even stronger, by all means, get the other leg up. All right, let's do the other side. All right, two knees bent. Get the neck out of the shoulders and lift, push

inhales and exhales

and hold. Feels better for my knees to extend the top leg, reach with an arm, squeeze and hold. Very good, and down. Roll over onto your back. We'll do some vacuums. That's just that simple hold where you squeeze your butt to get your back flat on the floor. You can even push your feet just a little bit into the floor to get the back on the floor. You're pulling your stomach in now. Make yourself as flat as you can, as if there's a vacuum sucking all the air right out of your body.

exhales

Little exhales, keep pulling in, pulling. This hold is very great exercise for those deep abdominal muscles. You should do these during commercials when you're watching TV. All right, now, let's push a little harder until our hips come up off the floor into a nice line from your shoulders, all the way to your knees. Squeeze your hind end and stabilize. If you feel all wiggly, that's your brain and your muscles working together to stabilize those core muscles. Feet closer together, let's lift and press it down. Lift, push with both feet. That gives you a little bit more leverage working through the hind end. Few more. Other leg, lift, press, lift, press, lift, press. All right, this will be fun. Lift your toes, walk out, squeeze up. I love this move, this is a great core move. Walk it out a little bit more if you can. Lift it up and hold. Now, if you're getting a cramp or a charley horse in the back of your thighs, ease off. All right, and roll down. Lift those knees,

exhales

hands to the side. Let's do a little windshield wiper one way and then the other. Lift those hips up as you switch from one side to the other, lift and over, lift and over, very good. Two feet wide, and let's just drop two knees

exhales

and enjoy the stretch as we finish up here today. All right, one more. Right now, my hip is following. The goal would be to have your bottoms as close to the floor as possible while you drop those knees. All right, hands behind your knees, and let's roll up. See, not so bad. Life happens below your knees; let's not give that up. I especially don't want you to feel afraid of being on the floor. So come back and work with me often at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, where my goal is to keep you strong, independent, and pain-free. See you next time.