Quick Fit with Cassy

Welcome back to today's Quick Fit class with me, Cassy Vieth. Working with people every day at my fitness center, I get to observe people closely and see what they need. I create exercises and modifications to help people get stronger and looser, and educate them along the way. By working on posture, your brain can communicate more effectively with the rest of your body, including your digestive system. So let's get moving.

gentle music

For today's class, you'll want to have a chair handy, but in the meantime, just set it aside and let's just reach up nice and tall. Think about lengthening and opening up every single joint.

inhales and exhales

Some great, big, deep breaths. Deep, deeper than you normally do for inhales and longer exhales.

inhales

Think about standing as tall as possible, and definitely don't smoosh forward or push forward from the hips. Stand nice and tall, all right? Good, a few circles with the shoulder. Think about opening up the armpit, and if you're like this with your elbow, do your best to completely lengthen it. Okay, the other side, up. And make sure you're always working in ways that is best for you. So you wouldn't want to work into anything that hurts. Any kind of negative pain. It's supposed to feel good. That's what we're here to do is to relieve pain, and not cause pain. One more. Now, think of, if somebody's pushing on your hand back, okay. Opening and opening. We'll do the other side one more time. Open. Good, two arms up.

inhales

Lengthening through the spine. Still almost as if you're hanging from a bar, lengthening and lifting. Two hands back behind the head, stomach's in, and press back. Good, lifting that chin but supporting the neck. Oh, real good. Now let's press and press, stretching a little bit from the sides. All right, and circling again, a little bit bigger. Lifting, other side, press, reach, and reach. Two arms open. Opening up those tight chest muscles. Now let's arch that back and do this great big swan dive, pulling with the back, and exhale and up.

inhales

Good, lift, one more time. Open, exhale, and relax. Two arms up again. This time, we're going to just do this upper spine rotation. So right up from this part of your spine up, tip first over to your left. Just mirror me, keeping those arms back by your ears. Lengthen. Pull the ribs in. Other side.

inhales

Now you can lift through the rib cage and around to the side.

inhales

Lift, exhale.

exhales

Other way. We're not moving our lower waist or lower spine. Just the upper spine. Very good, open and over.

exhales

All right, a little twist where we're dropping one arm down and reaching up with the other. Come back up. Stomach's in, stick your chest out. Pull the shoulders together

inhales and exhales

and then twist, one arm up, one arm down. Very good, all right. Relax both arms down and we'll roll up slowly. Stomach's pulling in. Chin is tucked. Very good, all right. Let's lift your arms straight out to the side now. Arms nice and wide. Lift through the chest and let's twist, okay. Keep your feet in place. Looking straight down that arm, lift through the rib cage, lift through the head.

inhales

Stomach's in. Try to have one arm straight forward, the other one back. All right, and the other side.

inhales and exhales

Okay, lift. Looking down your arm,

inhales

lifting, lengthening, stomach's in. Very good, let's just relax those arms for a moment. Circle right through the shoulder. All right. One arm back, one arm forward, turning towards your left, let's reach back with one leg and lengthen through the spine. Make your body as long as you can from the front of your fingertips, all the way back to that back heel. All right, reach, reach a little further. Up, reach, reach a little further. Opening the shoulder. Good, let's switch sides. Reaching across. Okay, ready?

inhales

Big inhale, exhale. Widen those legs so your knee is above your ankle. Lengthen, other side. Inhale, exhale, lengthen. Not too fast.

inhales

Caring for those knees. Open the shoulder joint. And one more time,

inhales

exhale. Really good. All right, come up again. Lift, and lift. Let's have two arms up overhead. We'll do those upper waist rotations one more time so that we can...

inhales and exhales

Go over to the side. Ready, inhale,

inhales

and extend. Feel everything stretch, all the way down the one side, okay. Care for your neck, try not to let it hang. Extend.

exhales

Inhale.

inhales

Stomach's in, supporting that spine.

exhales

Good, and up.

inhales

Ready, exhale.

exhales

Breathe it in.

inhales

Lengthen. Stretch forward. There's something just out of your reach you're trying to get to. All right, very good, arms open. One more time with the dive,

exhales

and relaxing down. Roll up slowly again. Elbow lift. Other side, elbow lift. One more, lift and lift. Very good. Grab your chair and we'll use the back. We'll do modified downward dog just like you've probably done in yoga class, but instead of being on the ground, we'll have our hands elevated up onto the back of the seat. So you just take a nice step back.

inhales

Big inhale. All right, and exhale.

exhales

Think about pressing your armpits open. You can bend your knees to make this a little easier.

exhales

Good, inhale.

inhales

Exhale.

exhales

Try not to have your back all rounded, okay? Stick your chest out and try to lengthen the spine and the upper back. One more.

inhales

Exhale.

exhales

Good, we can release one arm. Work a little bit more on one shoulder. Two hands up, inhale.

inhales

We'll exhale,

exhales

and let the other arm drop. Good. There's no need to rush through those. Take your time. And then we'll just finish up here with some easy circles. With the leg, press the heel down. Lift. Reach one more time up, and then exhale.

exhales

Even letting the neck relax and the head turn. Let's do that one more time. Circle your leg. Let it cross behind you. Sit down into that back heel, lift,

inhales

and then exhale.

exhales

Good. Let's move this chair to the other side and balance everything up. All right, swing that outer leg around. Sit down on that back heel. Lift, touch the ceiling. Exhale.

exhales

One more, more time. Just love the way this one feels. It's one of my favorite ones. Lift.

inhales

Lift, turn the face, exhale.

exhales

Oh, and that's it. I hope you found that helpful and enjoyable. Think of these exercises and cues throughout your day and little by little, it will become easier to stand up tall with less effort. Then come back here regularly, because consistency is the number one key to getting great, well-rounded results. Find more classes to help you live better, longer at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit so you can continue doing all the things you love because life is movement.