- Welcome everyone to another great Quick Fit class, where you're the star of the show.

And I totally mean that because you're here making yourself exercise when there are so many other fun distractions.

I'm Cassy, and I appreciate having you along for today's balance training.

Take off your shoes, have a flat mat, and we'll get right at it.

[gentle music] Do your best to challenge yourself and not use a chair to hold on to.

If you know you are quite wobbly yet, then have a chair handy, but keep a light hand on it, making your legs support your weight.

All right, we'll stand and I want you to start putting all of your weight down through your right leg, just mirror me, and then extend your other leg out to the side.

Your toes are touching, but put as little weight down through those toes as possible, continually putting them down through your right leg.

We're warming up your sensory motor system.

That interaction between what your body is experiencing, how your brain interprets, and then the communication back down to your muscles and joints.

[inhales] We're just gonna go through this nice and slow.

Remember, your toes can be touching, but try not to have any weight going down through them.

Focus on one point on the floor or on the wall.

Now we'll lower that, [exhales] very good.

And then we'll switch sides.

You can already feel the joints in your hip, knee, and ankle, they're wobbling, they're getting a little hot, all right, they're working hard.

Now let's switch sides.

[inhales] All right, stabilize on your left leg.

Go ahead and put out your right, toes are just barely grazing the floor.

[inhales and exhales] And if any extra movement of the arms makes you feel like you're going to have to put two feet down, then just stop, just pause wherever you feel like you're going to have to put two feet down and let your brain and your muscles work it out, okay.

[inhales] No need to rush, you don't have to copy everything I'm doing.

If today you can't lift your arms, next week you'll be able to if you practice this every day, so be patient with yourself and you will get better.

Okay, it just takes patience and practice.

[inhales and exhales] Okay, let's bring those arms back down.

Those joints are starting to get warmed up for sure.

All right, shake that off and we'll switch legs.

All right, once again, put all your weight down through your right leg, we'll have your arms out at the side, and slowly, now if the last exercise where we just held it worked out for you and you were able to move your arms, then you'd be ready to start slowly lifting and lowering.

And if you feel like you are constantly putting your weight down through this leg, then just leave the toes down because this leg needs to be conditioned more, okay.

All right, remember, this is training and by repeating this training, you'll perform better in your daily activities or in your more rigorous sports.

All right, and we'll switch legs, stabilize, extend, and if you can, then start moving the leg, but remember, don't move on to something harder until you've mastered the step before it.

You'll know, because your leg will just lift up without you really having to force it or think much about it.

All right, and back down.

Good job, shake that off.

[inhales] All right, one more time.

Stabilize down through this right leg, and if those first two moves you were able to do, then let's move on to the next challenge.

Good, and don't be frustrated.

If it's already getting too difficult, be encouraged that you have found something that you can work on and know that by being consistent, you will get better and you'll just have a good marker, a way to see that you are getting better.

Nice and slow.

This type of training is good for everyone who wants to perform better at anything.

It reduces your injury risk and has been proven to aid quicker recovery when you do get injured.

All right, switching sides.

[inhales and exhales] All right, find your balance, nice and slow.

Once again, if you think you're gonna have to put your leg down, just stop.

Good.

Find something to focus on.

[inhales and exhales] Oops!

[laughs] All right, take your time, no rush.

The more tired you get, the harder it's going to become.

As you can see, I look like I'm surfing.

All right, back and forth, and sometimes one side will just be weaker than the other, sometimes you'll just be tired, maybe you've had stress in your life, that can make your brain tired.

Okay, so be easy on yourself, but don't give up.

All right, one more, one more, all right, shake 'em off, you guys are doing good.

All right, this next move we're going to do a partial squat, so make sure you're just moving your hips back, see my knees didn't go anywhere, I didn't do this.

I pushed my hips back.

Okay.

[inhales and exhales] So hold it here, stabilize once again on that right leg, and we're going to just do these little side reaches.

Now I'm not putting my weight down through my other leg, okay, I'm not doing that, I'm not shifting my weight, I'm keeping my weight here and sticking the leg out to the side and back, very little weight, just my toes are just barely skimming the floor over here.

All right, you have all these receptors in your body that provide info to your brain, like your vision, so if you closed your eyes right now, it would be really hard.

There's vestibular organs in your ears and then you have this whole system in your skin, your muscles, your joints, your tendons that's telling your brain what's going on and then your brain's got to tell your body how to react.

It's super cool, so there's a lot of things we have to work on all at the same time.

All right.

[exhales] That's why we can even work on your balance from a chair because there's muscles and joints that we work on even from a chair that have to all cooperate for your whole body to be efficient.

Okay, [inhales] couple more.

I probably said that a while ago, right?

All right.

All right, stand up and shake it off.

All right, this next is gonna be more of a dynamic, kind of imitating life, maybe if you're out playing softball out in the field, you know, you've got all those divots and imperfections in the grass, all right, and your ankles have to, and your calves all have to know how to react, so practice.

Working on these sensors and muscles that have to slow you down, like from going all the way to the floor and stabilize the joints, just a little bit, a little bit each day.

It will keep you happy, your whole body happy and working efficiently.

All right, couple more.

Good, little faster, hop, hop, hop.

Good.

And this isn't a lot of impact, but it's enough to help your bones kinda fight back, build back stronger.

All right, good job guys, it really is.

Have your feet about shoulder-width apart and we'll just finish off with some nice hip circles to cool down, bringing your breath back down to normal.

Very nice and circle the other way.

Good job, well done everyone, and as I like to preach, if you want to improve your balance, you can, but it takes systematic practice, which you can easily accomplish by coming back here for more great balance improving classes at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, where together, we'll get you performing better, reducing risk of injury, and recovering quicker when things do go wrong.

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.