- Welcome to today's Quick Fit class, I'm Cassy Vieth.

Weakness and muscle imbalances in your back is a common cause of back pain.

Fortunately, there are easy exercises and stretches that you can do right at home to bring relief, and no special equipment is required.

Just to have a sturdy chair handy and get ready to feel better.

[gentle music] Let's take your shoes off for today's class.

That way you get your feet used to being without shoes, and the muscles in your feet and the joints get used to supporting your body weight and doing all the things they were designed to do.

All right, let's take a few nice, big, deep inhales and exhales.

Count to four, inhale.

[inhales] And exhale, counting to about five or six, expelling as much air as possible.

All right, one more time, inhale deep.

[inhales] And exhale.

And then as we warm up, we're going to just sit really deep into your one hip and push away.

All right, inhale.

Let's do the same side again.

Sitting to one side and pressing, twisting a little bit, stretching those ribs.

One more time, sit it deep, [inhales] exhale and enjoy that.

Let's lift that elbow and let's do the other side.

Nice and slow, inhale.

[inhales] And exhale.

[exhales] Bringing the nourishing blood to your muscles to help you warm up, [inhales and exhales] carrying nutrients and carrying away waste.

So it's really important to have nice, deep breathing and not be a shallow breather.

All right, now the next one, we're going to do these nice, wide side lunges.

Imagine you have a couple dumbbells up on your shoulders.

Have a little wider stance than you normally do, and have that knee wider than your shoulders.

This is a real common one where I see people have trouble widening their legs, and what they'll end up doing is really torquing the knee, getting their weight past their toes.

It doesn't feel good and your knees don't like it.

So let's do our best to have good form.

So widen those feet.

All right, little wider than your shoulders.

Your weight goes backwards.

Your knee purposefully moves wider.

If your hands hang down, they should be inside your legs.

Okay?

[inhales] Inhale, exhale.

This is one of those wonderful body awareness exercises.

But until you can imagine and be correct about where your joints are, you need to look.

So look and get used to it.

[exhales] Stretching the inside of the legs.

But this leaning forward also makes your back do work, so pull the stomach in to support it.

[inhales] Inhale, exhale.

[exhales] Very good.

All right, let's do a little bit of a twist at the bottom.

Push, a little bit of a twist.

[exhales] Very nice.

Grab your chair, and we'll be using the seat, but not sitting.

And just hands on the chair seat.

[inhales] All right.

Have a nice box from your feet, hips, shoulders, and hands, and draw your leg up.

Okay, so I've got my right leg up.

Let's extend the left arm.

Imagine, and hopefully it's true, you have a nice, horizontal line, long, pretty line, from your fingers to your feet.

[inhales and exhales] Now, slow as you need to, to keep your balance, let's draw that elbow towards the knee.

Now pull the stomach in and extend.

[inhales and exhales] A little bit of balance work here.

And strengthening that back.

[exhales] [inhales and exhales] Pull it in.

A little relief to that back, stretching, and extend, stomach in.

Very nice, all right, let's switch sides.

Two hands on the seat.

Okay.

Ready, and draw the other leg back.

And then the other arm, extend.

[inhales and exhales] Let's bring that elbow to your knee as slow as you need to, allowing your feet and your legs to stabilize.

[exhales and inhales] Good.

Bring it in tight.

Stretching the back.

[inhales] Exhale, [exhales] holding it in a nice, pretty line.

One more time, pull it in.

Exhale.

[inhales and exhales] Good, that looks nice.

All right, come on up out of that, and then just turn the chair.

I'm gonna make use of the chair back here.

Step back a little bit.

You can either keep your feet together or you can have one leg back.

It depends on how tight your hamstrings are, but this exercise is for the upper back.

I'm gonna push down with one arm for a little leverage, and the other arm is gonna lift.

All right, and lift.

[inhales and exhales] Lift and hold.

You can feel those muscles in your upper back working.

A weak upper back is really overlooked so much.

Inhale, exhale.

All right.

And a little stretch.

Weak muscles become painful muscles.

That's why it's so important to make sure all our muscles are strong the way that they were intended to be.

So your other muscles don't have to make up for the weakness 'cause that's where the pain comes in.

Lift.

[inhales] And lift.

Lift, lift.

And lift, hold it here, stomach's in, arms nice and high.

Lift, lift, lift.

All right, and then round your back.

[exhales and inhales] Exhale, lifting your shoulders up to relieve the muscles that we were just working.

And now, two feet together.

A nice slight bend in the knee.

Hands back, stomach's tight, lift, lift.

I like this angle for working the back.

It helps us get to a wide range of the upper back muscles, not just the top of the shoulders.

All right, lift, from about your mid back to here, lift.

And if your hamstrings are too tight in that position, just take a little step back.

Lift, stomach's pulled in, supporting your spine.

Lift, lift, lift and hold.

All right, now let's bring this arm around the clock.

Lift and squeeze.

Switch arms, bring it around the clock.

Lift and hold.

Very good, let that back relax.

All right, very nice.

Let's get the chair out of the way.

We'll be moving on down to the floor.

[inhales and exhales] Nice, easy-breezy squats.

Just warming it up.

And then we'll get all the way down.

Come on down on your hands and knees.

And we'll do a few more of those pointers, but right from our hands and knees.

So let's extend your right leg and left arm.

Just find a spot on the floor to just focus on so you can balance, but we're holding, stomach's in.

Long, long arms, long leg, lift.

Opening the shoulder joint, the hip joint, pulling the stomach in, and hold.

Very nice.

And release.

Shift around a little bit.

[inhales and exhales] All right, other leg, let's extend that leg, opposite arm, opposite arm.

Very good.

[inhales] Extend the arm, lift the leg, make it nice and pretty, hold, stomach in to stabilize.

Very good, and shift, shift and shift.

Sit it back a little bit.

All right, let's do a few hydrants.

So we're still on our hands and knees, and nice box, stomach's in, and lift the leg out to the side.

Down and lift.

[inhales] Now don't forget to squeeze together and then lift, squeeze together and lift, squeeze and lift.

Let's do about five more, lift, lift, lift, straight out.

Other leg, good job, and lift and hold.

Get used to it and squeeze it together.

Lift.

Squeeze, lift, [inhales] squeeze, lift.

Four, three, two, and done, good.

All right, stretch your body out now.

Let your hips come down to the floor and relax.

Hands under your chin and push.

Let's do a few Supermans, but we're just gonna do the legs.

So lift the right leg up, trying to get it up off the floor right from your hip.

So not bending the knee.

Okay, keep that leg straight and hold.

Let's do a little bounce, but it's a squeeze, okay?

We're not throwing the leg up in the air.

We're not trying to jerk it or cause any sort of injury, just a squeeze from the low back and hind end.

Other leg, ready, lift and hold.

A little lower and squeeze.

[inhales] You're pushing against the floor for leverage.

[exhales] And you can have a neutral head.

You don't have to look up.

[inhales and exhales] And if it feels more comfortable to be completely down, chin on your hands, that's just fine too.

All right, done with that.

Let's push into a nice back stretch.

[exhales] Very nice.

Those are some of my very favorite moves.

I hope you can feel a difference already.

But don't stop there, your entire body needs to be cared for to keep you feeling great.

So come back here again tomorrow to pbswisconsin.org/quickfit and I'll show you more healing moves to help you age well and keep doing all the things you love.

See you soon.