[gentle music]
- Hi, there.
Welcome back to Quick Fit.
I'm your host, Cassy Vieth.
Great balance requires many physical mechanisms
working well together.
Today's Quick Fit class is for balance,
but from the perspective of improving the stability
in the joints of the hips, knee, and ankle.
Make sure you have a chair for today's class,
and let's just start by rotating on your toe,
a little bent knee,
moving that knee in and out.
Nice and easy.
Do the other side.
Come up on your toe.
Rotate the knee in and out.
All right, nice base, do some circles.
Start your breathing, in and out.
It helps everything to stretch.
Oxygenates your blood and your muscles,
and it's just a good way to be exercising
the muscles of your lungs.
All right.
Widen those legs yet again,
and let's just sit back on one heel
and then the other.
Don't be afraid to lean forward with your chest
so you can really start activating those muscles
along the backside of your legs and hips and butt.
[inhales and exhales]
All right, now grab that chair
and we'll stand to the side of the chair.
I'm going to have the chair back in my left hand
and stand right next to the seat.
And let's bring that leg and foot up over the chair,
trying not to have your foot on the seat resting.
We want to work these muscles and working that standing leg.
Now, lift that knee into your hand.
Lift, lift, lift.
[inhales] Very good. [exhales]
And let's do some out and ins.
[inhales and exhales]
Hold on to the chair lightly if you're good with balance,
and if you're not very confident of your balance,
don't be afraid to hold on to the chair lightly
just to give yourself a little confidence.
[exhales] All right.
Reach and lift, reach and lift.
And for those of you that are shorter
and are struggling getting that foot off of the seat,
you can do this out to the front.
The point is to challenge this as well as your standing leg.
Let's reach it to the back.
Now, that feels good. [exhales]
[inhales] And up.
Back and up.
One more.
Back and up.
Good, we'll take a little break before we do the other side.
Let's do those knee in and outs.
In and out. [inhales and exhales]
We can sit into this hip a little bit,
and then we'll switch knees.
You ready?
Find the toes, sit into this hip,
open and across.
[exhales] Open and across.
Enjoy that.
All right, hip circles again.
I'm gonna scoot this over.
Hip circles again.
[exhales]
Isn't it great just to get your workout done
right away in the morning?
Right from the convenience of your home.
All right, widen those feet again one more time,
sitting it back on one heel
and the other. [exhales]
Make sure your body's lined up between your legs,
that you're not trying to do this.
That's hard on the knees,
and it's just mechanically not easy.
All right, take a moment. [exhales]
Enjoy the inner thigh stretch.
Let's do the other side.
I'm gonna put the chair back in my right hand,
and we'll be standing on the right leg,
moving the left.
[inhales] All right, first thing,
let's get it up over top,
not resting on the seat, holding it here,
making sure that your standing knee isn't bent
and it's not necessarily locked out either.
Nice and tall.
Let's lift that leg into your hand,
your hand's resisting.
[short exhales] You're doing some work,
heavy breathing's okay. [inhales]
Don't hold your breath. [exhales]
And now, let's out and across.
Out and across.
[inhales and exhales]
Remember, we're really working that standing leg.
It's having to communicate with your brain
about all the stabilizing tissues.
Okay, out and up.
And if you hold lightly to the chair
or even release the chair,
it'll be even a little bit more challenging
to all those stabilizing structures.
All right, now to the back.
Take your time.
The back and over.
To the back and over.
Almost done. [exhales]
All right, and we're going to sit down
for this final stretch.
So first I have to do this.
I feel like I needed it, so I had to throw that in there.
If I needed it, chances are you did too.
Okay, now we'll sit sideways on the chair,
one leg right off the side,
and we'll just do a slight angled stretch.
[exhales]
So I'm flexible enough to get my leg straight back,
but I know not everybody is, and we just worked this,
so let's not be too intense yet.
[exhales]
Good, and now we'll move it back a little bit more.
The goal being to straighten the knee
and stretching these muscles we just worked.
All right, let's let that knee hang
straight down from your hip.
[exhales]
Lift and sag down over,
letting your hip hang off the front of the chair,
balancing yourself by leaning into the chair back.
All right. [exhales]
Lift. [inhales]
One more time over. [exhales]
Exhale.
Getting deeper with every repetition,
with nice, deep breathing.
Let's go to the other side. [inhales and exhales]
All right, let's extend that leg.
I like to even reach towards it a little bit.
Maybe you'll enjoy that too
if you have some very flexible joints.
Maybe a little bit more to the back.
[exhales]
Finding really your tight spots.
The things that feel good for you.
Side of the foot. [exhales]
All right, let's bend that knee.
Let the weight fall off the front of the chair,
but lean into the chair.
And turn your face and neck, bring that elbow up over.
Let's sit up. [inhales]
Doing it again, [exhales]
and over. [exhales]
All right, let's come out of that
and finish up some stretches.
All right, let's bring that ankle up on top of your knee.
Little figure four stretch.
So if you don't have quite as much flexibility as I do,
you might need to drop this leg a little lower,
or you may even have to drop the ankle below the knee.
Just find some way that you can open
[exhales] and stretch these hips.
[inhales]
All right.
Then we'll pull this across.
Now you can feel that down the back.
Inhale, exhale. [exhales]
Lift and lower, and let's do the other one.
Nice figure four stretch, pressing it down.
You can even do it without the extra pressure of the hand,
and then across.
Pull across, enjoy this. [inhales]
[exhales] Twist into it.
[exhales]
And let's relax the leg and go the other way.
[exhales]
Well done.
Remember, great balance requires balanced muscles and joints.
So repeat this often if balance is a particular concern for you.
And find more great classes at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit
because aging well is possible with a little daily effort.
See you next time.