Quick Fit with Cassy

- This is Quick Fit , your daily routine to keep you loose, strong, and independent.

I'm Cassy Vieth.

This class is one of the most important ones you can take to remain strong and prevent pain.

When your hips are weak, it directly affects your knees and ankles, and it's a common contributor to low back pain.

So have a mat and possibly a pillow for your knees, and we'll get started.

[gentle music] We'll begin standing, since it's a great way to warm up, and it gives us an opportunity to practice getting down to the floor, in one of my favorite ways that stretches the tight toes, calves, and hips.

Let's just start with some easy hip circles.

Now, your legs are straight and your shoulders are right above your ankles.

It's only the hips that are moving around, all right.

Try not to lean forward with the torso, so just the hips.

Easy circles, start with your feet under your hips, and then gradually make them wider.

The other way.

Now, if you need a chair handy for a little bit of extra stability, that's just fine.

So we'll balance most of our weight on that right leg, and then just lift the hip up in the air and lower it, sinking into this leg.

The floor's kind of in the way, so just slightly bend that knee.

All the weight's in your right leg.

Lift the hip and drop it down.

One more time with this leg, lift and lower.

Switching legs, all the weight is now in that left leg and lift through the hip, and drop it.

Remember, this is a hip stretching and strengthening move.

Got nothing to do with the knee.

The knee's just bent 'cause there's not enough room, floor is in the way, lift and lower.

I also show people how to do this standing on like the bottom step.

Right, extend your leg, few circles, touch, swing it around, warming up that hip socket.

And switching legs, nice and loose.

Standing nice and tall, by the way, remember, nice posture.

And let's reach this leg to the front.

Slow, controlled lifts.

Lifts, lift to the side, lift, reach it, lift.

Reach, and lift to the back.

Extra reach before you lift.

And remember, we're not throwing that leg.

We're not using momentum, you're using your glutes, your behind, to lift that leg, other side.

[inhales] Stabilize, extend your leg.

Reach a couple more inches, lift using your abdominals.

Reach, lift.

Out to the side.

[inhales and exhales] Extend, lift.

Down.

Extend, lift, back to the side.

Your backside.

Extend and lift, and down.

Reach it back, squeeze the hind end, and lift.

Good job.

All right, now let's work our way down to the floor slowly.

Here's the strategy.

Just exhale, reaching towards the floor, and as your hips or your calves get tight, just reach out, letting the hips slightly bend.

The heels come up if they need to, down on your knees.

And if you cannot tolerate being on your knees even with a pillow, do as much as you can from a standing or seated position, or try the exercises on your mattress.

Hands are right under your shoulders.

You've got this nice box, all right, from your wrist, shoulder, hips, down to your knees.

And lift that bent leg straight out to the side.

Slowly squeezing that imaginary balloon between your knees, lift.

Try not to let the knee come towards your elbow or back, all right.

Knee is straight out from the hip and your shin is horizontal, okay.

Take a look, see that your ankle and knee is the same height, that's not like this, okay.

Lift, lift.

[inhales and exhales] Stomach's in, neck is nice and long, okay, we're not sinking down.

A few more of these.

Nice posture, the whole body.

[inhales and exhales] The body works better when you have good posture.

Lift, stomach's in, we're not arching the back, we're not rounding the back, lift and lift.

Good, switching legs.

[inhales] Ready, and out to the side.

Lift, stomach's in.

Lift, lift.

Lift with a extra squeeze, squeeze the balloon between the knees.

Lift out, brief hold, squeeze between the knees.

Good job, lift.

[inhales] Check that posture, make sure your neck is nice and long.

Try not to overarch the neck or the back.

Keep your shoulders down and good job.

We'll switch sides, but this time, I'd like you to extend the leg out to the side.

This is a little harder.

First thing I'd like you to do is press the inside of the foot against the floor.

Press, press, press.

Stomach in and lift.

And one more time, down, ready, press.

I know this is an extra hard move, the lifting part.

So just squeeze the leg, the side of the leg.

Even if you don't get it off the floor, you're still waking that muscle up.

One more time, press the foot into the floor.

Press, press, press, and lift, even if it's brief.

And relax.

Good job, other side.

[inhales] Extend that leg out to the side.

First thing, press that knee down.

Foot's into the floor.

And relax.

Lift.

And, get ready, press the foot down, go, press.

Two, three, check your posture.

Stomach's in, long neck, release and lift.

Good job.

And, down, last time.

Nice straight leg, and press.

Use your stomach muscles, contract your leg.

Everywhere is nice and straight, good form.

Release and lift.

You might find that those presses actually give you a little strength for the lift.

And release, good job.

All right, laying down on our sides now.

Let's get that elbow right underneath your shoulder.

You don't wanna be extended, because I want you to keep those ribs up, nice, long neck.

All right, your legs are stacked.

Legs are slightly in front of you.

Let's just lift through the heel, lift.

Rotating that ball and socket joint, right in your hip.

Lift, lift, and lift.

Good, now I'd like you to lift the whole leg, keeping this nice and even from your ankle to your knee.

Slight reaching forward and down and up.

So if your hips are weak, your quadriceps on the front of your thighs try to cheat, which means the ankle will drop, and basically you're just using your quads and your hip flexors, but I don't want you to do that, so keep lifting, using these glute medius muscles.

The glutes that come around the side of your hip.

They might be weak, maybe you have to take a break, that's okay.

You're making them stronger with every repetition.

And now line up that leg, down and up.

[inhales and exhales] All right, take that inventory.

Nice, long spine, nice, long neck.

Slight reach forward to keep the hips in good alignment, and push it back a little further, down and up, down and up.

Stomach's in, try not to sink down with the ribs.

Lift and lift.

Press, press, press, and press.

Swing it around to the other side.

Part of the workout is moving around quickly.

Elbow right under your shoulder, legs are stacked.

Start just with the ankle, lift, not a big move.

One side might be a smaller move than the other, that's normal.

Keep your shoulders down, nice, tall neck.

Lift, lift, lift.

All right, normal, to the front.

So you've got your ankle and knee at the same height, none of this business, all right, down and up, slight reach forward, stomach's in.

[inhales and exhales] Inhale, exhale, breathe as heavy as you need to, supplying oxygen to all those muscles.

[inhales and exhales] In fact, I want you to breathe nice and deeply in and out.

And get that knee in line with the hip, down to the floor and up, up.

Take that inventory, stomach in, long spine, long neck, hand slightly forward.

Good, a little bit more to the back, down and up.

Flex that foot and hold it, and squeeze to the back, press.

Now, if you get a charley horse in your hamstring, just stop and you'll try that another day.

Press.

[inhales] Press, press, and press, all right, swing around.

We've got more to do yet.

All right, same position, only the top leg, we're going to extend it.

All right, lift.

Don't forget to slightly lean forward, otherwise you'll roll back and you'll use your quads again.

All right, lift.

Touch the toes each time, making sure we're using the right muscles.

I'd rather you did a teeny tiny move correctly than doing it wrong and strengthening the wrong muscles.

Lift, now more to the back.

Lift up.

Long neck, I was starting to sink down, lift.

[inhales and exhales] Let me hear you breathe, I'm sure you're hearing me, lift, lift.

All right, now the hardest one, to the front.

Extend that leg.

[inhales and exhales] Touch the toes, lift, touch the toes, lift.

Oh, just about 20 more.

Just kidding.

Lift.

Let's do, five, four, three, two, last one, good job.

Bottom of your foot on the floor, stretch that leg.

I love that stretch, it feels so good.

Come on out of that and we'll finish with the other side.

All right, extend that leg.

Check your posture, lift, touch those toes.

Slight reach forward, stomach's in.

Is your shoulder away from your ear?

[inhales and exhales] Big breaths.

Lift, lift, lift.

You can even squeeze on the way down; it makes you stronger for the next part of the move, the lift.

Good, squeeze, lift.

Move that leg more towards the back.

Touch the toes, lift the heel, okay.

Oops, my shoulder was coming up.

Lift more to the back, to the back, and knee forward, reach it to the front.

[inhales] Check your inventory, touch your toes.

Lift, down and up.

Press that elbow into the floor.

Lift, lift, almost done.

How about five, four, three, two, and stretch, stretch, stretch, it feels so good.

Big, long, extra exhale.

[exhales] Halfway up inhale, [inhales] and exhale.

[exhales] All right, now that we're down here, we have to practice getting up.

So let's practice that strategy.

Same strategy that we got down.

We'll just do the opposite to get up.

So on your hands and knees briefly, get those toes under you.

Start walking those hands closer to your knees, push the knees up, all right.

Letting those heels get closer to the floor, hips up.

Tuck that chin.

[inhales and exhales] Very good.

Now, please be encouraged, that even if the moves were very difficult, you were making progress.

As long as you're strict and don't allow the body to cheat, the weak muscles will wake up and respond.

Just repeat these moves regularly by joining me here daily at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, where together, we're gonna deal with those problems spots so you can keep doing all the things you love, because life is movement.

– 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.