Quick Fit with Cassy

- This is Quick Fit , and I'm your host, Cassy Vieth.

I love doing these classes with you and hearing how much they help you.

We've got more great stretches for the hips, and we'll be performing them on the floor, since it's one of the best pieces of equipment to get the job done.

So let's get started.

[gentle music] Solving people's pain points is very rewarding.

That's why I'm so glad you're here following along with these classes.

Let's lay on back to begin.

Cross your legs at the ankles or the knees and lift them up over your body, pulling them towards you and release.

Let's start your breathing.

Nice, big inhale, [inhales] and then exhale.

[exhales] And see if you can grab your shins and just twist through the hips, right and left.

[inhales] And release and pull them back in.

And let's uncross.

Recross the other way and shift.

[inhales and exhales] Very good, pull 'em in.

And release one more time, pull it in.

And release, warming it up.

All right, let's bring that left knee up towards your left armpit.

A nice, gentle squeeze.

We're not jamming.

We're not pulling as hard as we can quickly.

We're just squeezing, working on those hip flexors.

And then let's go towards the other armpit with that knee.

Feels slightly different.

[exhales] Inhale.

[inhales] Pull that knee gently.

Squeeze it towards your armpit.

Now I'd like you to press your knee into your hand, but your hand doesn't let it go anywhere.

Just press, press, and release, [exhales] pull the knee towards your body.

Very good, now let's point that knee towards your other armpit with a gentle pull towards the body.

And now I'd like you to press the knee up into your hand.

Press, you can feel your whole body engage as you try to move against your hands.

Release.

And pull in again towards the body.

Very good, let's switch legs, bringing your other knee, right knee towards the right armpit.

Pull it in with a nice exhale.

[exhales] Switch it over towards the other armpit.

Blow it out, [exhales] nice and gentle, and let's bring the knee once again, right knee, right armpit.

Pull it in.

[exhales] And now press the knee into the hand.

Your stomach and your core engages, your arms and chest engage.

[short exhale] Release.

You'll probably get a little bit more range of motion now.

Let's move that knee across the body towards your other armpit.

[inhales] [exhales] Exhale on the stretch, and now press the knee up into your hands.

Press.

The hands aren't letting it go anywhere, and exhale, [exhales] release.

One more time.

Press the knee into the hands.

Press, press, press, release, and get a little bigger stretch.

Very good.

All right.

Two feet on the floor, knees are fairly wide.

We'll start by letting one knee drop towards the center.

Now not everybody is as flexible as I am.

So if you find that you can only move about an inch and your hip starts coming off the floor, then just stop where your hip starts coming off the floor and just let gravity pull that knee down, [inhales] big inhale and then exhale.

[exhales] Just enjoy it.

And if it doesn't feel good on your knees, I mean if you feel like a bad pain, not just that you can feel it, but a bad kind of a knife pain, then you'll want to not do this.

But if you just feel a stretch in your knee, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Inhale, [inhales] exhale, let gravity pull it down.

And now a little press.

[exhales] Super, all right, two knees together and we'll let your knees fall to one side.

Look the other way, [exhales] and if it feels real tight, come up, inhale, exhale, [exhales] and adjust.

Letting gravity pull you over, stretching your spine, your hips, and your neck as you look down your arm.

Okay, inhale, [inhales] long inhale and then an extra long exhale, [exhales] letting the knees go the other way.

You can add a little weight of your arm, [exhales] bring them up a little bit and then exhale, [exhales] looking down your arm.

Terrific.

This is so nice.

All right, let's get those hands behind your knees and we'll explode up into a nice sitting position.

We'll just stretch a moment and then we'll go back down.

I just wanted to stretch out that spine a little differently.

[inhales] Big inhale, and we'll roll back down.

Use your stomach to roll your back down, arms up.

Let those knees fall open.

I call us a nice frog stretch.

Lengthen through your arms and then extend the legs.

Good, reach, reach, reach.

Then bring those knees back up.

Inhale [inhales] and let the knees fall open.

Very good.

Just let gravity open the groin.

If it's too intense, come back up with an inhale and then let the knees go down again.

Exhale, adjusting.

If something feels like it's catching or not comfortable, you can move your legs, your feet a little further away, slowly into a nice, nice, big stretch.

Very good, okay, one more time, hand behind the knee.

And we'll explode into a sitting position.

Very good.

Pull on those legs, lift the chin.

All right.

Extend one leg, let's extend.

If you're mirroring me, this will be your left leg.

Bend the right.

Okay, lift.

I'd like you to press that foot into the floor.

Press against the floor with your hands.

And remember, you can always have a couple blocks.

If you can't quite get enough leverage, you can have a couple blocks here to help you lift.

Remember, they're tools.

All right, and twist so you can get the inside of the foot against the floor, inhale, exhale, [exhales] and reach.

Very good, all right, let's roll out of that and switch sides.

Bend that left leg, extend through the right, sitting up tall.

[inhales] Big inhale, exhale, take a moment.

Pull those toes toward you and then get your leg out of the way enough you can twist through your torso and the hips, pressing the inside of that foot into the floor, lengthen through your spine.

[exhales] Breathing feels so good.

All right, let's come out of that.

Going up onto our knees.

All right, nice and tall.

[inhales and exhales] Good.

Have your knees maybe about shoulder-width apart so you have a nice, wide base.

Lift up, mirror me now, this will be your right arm, reach it over your ear.

Good, now imagine you have a wall in front of you so you're not twisting through your shoulders.

You're extending, [inhales] and exhale.

Just look towards the side, pull in your stomach.

Let those hips shift.

Very nice, stomach's tight, supporting that spine.

Lift, [inhales] other side, and exhale.

[exhales] It's tight the first time, so we'll stop, inhale.

[inhales] Go back at it, shifting through the hips.

And stomach's in, lengthen through the spine.

Exhale.

[exhales] And up, so good.

All right, hands on your hips, twist through your shoulders.

And then we'll do this diagonal dip, right, first towards the front elbow, which is going towards the floor kind of towards your knee.

And then up, back elbow dipping back towards your back heel.

All right, up, again, dip it forward, dip it back.

Stomach's in, [exhales] twist the other way.

All right, on this nice diagonal through your shoulders, dip it forward.

Dip it back.

Stomach's tight.

[exhales] Inhale, [inhales] dip it forward.

[exhales] Dip it back.

Real good, all right.

Face down on the floor now.

Okay, take your time getting down.

Feel it in your triceps, hands under your chin.

Let's bend that right knee and flex your ankle, as if you could clean the ceiling with the bottom of your foot.

We're going to let it drop to the outside of your body and then across towards your other knee.

Okay, out and towards the knee.

Wide towards the knee.

Very good, and don't jam it, okay.

Just let gravity gently pull and stretch.

Cleaning that hip, one more, open and the other way.

Switching, bend that knee.

Think of it as a 90 degree.

Hopefully it is what you think.

Cross and open.

Good.

Getting as much movement through the hip as possible.

Let's do about two more of these before we finish up.

One more.

And very, very good.

All right, you know, combining this with the other great Quick Fit classes will assure you of a well-rounded fitness program that will balance out your muscles and keep your entire body strong.

Find all the Quick Fit classes right here at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit.

And please share with your friends the gift of health by sending them a link so they can keep up with you.

Until next time, keep on moving.

– Announcer: Funding for Quick Fit with Cassy is provided by Greg and Carol Griffin, founders of ElderSpan Management, Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming, and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.