- We use them all the time, yet we forget to care for them.

Hello, I'm Cassy, and in this Quick Fit class, we'll be focusing on the muscles and tendons that are responsible for movement in your hands and feet.

I want your entire body to feel great, so let's get moving.

[upbeat music] This class can be done standing or seated, but I find I have more energy the less I sit.

We'll begin by massaging down your forearms.

Just take your fingers and your thumb and roll those muscles down the length of your arm.

There you go, and we'll do the other arm.

Just kind of grabbing those muscles and rolling the muscles between your thumb and fingers.

Take your time, it feels really good.

I imagine if you work at a computer all day and you're using the mouse, that this is something you'd wanna do pretty frequently, especially if you golf or play tennis, forearms have to work a lot.

All right, let's take your left arm and reach it to the back, palm down, and extend that wrist.

Hold that there for a nice bicep stretch.

So it's your biceps that are getting stretched.

[inhales] Breathe in and out, exhale.

[exhales] Release that and we'll do the other arm.

So straight arm, reaching right back next to your hip as far as you can go.

And extend that wrist, good, breathe it in and out [exhales] as you hold, no need to rush.

Good job, all right, extend your arm right at, out to the side, right out from your shoulder, palm down.

Now let's flex that wrist, fingers pointing down.

So we're stretching all those muscles right up here.

Good, now let's rotate that arm.

So now your palm is up, we'll extend that wrist, fingers going down, so now we're stretching all those muscles in this part of your arm.

Good job, let's do the other arm, arm out, palm down.

Then bend that wrist, fingers pointing towards the floor.

Hold that there, is your elbow straight?

Deep inhale, long exhale, [exhales] and then rotate.

Palm is up, bend that wrist, point those fingers towards the floor, keep that elbow straight.

Hopefully your posture is nice.

Good, wrist circles.

Just make fists, circle nice and big with the wrists.

Flex and extending, right into a big hand stretch, separating those fingers as wide as you can from each other, and also completely extending those fingers.

Let's just do a little bend of the wrist each way.

Pressing against a wall.

And now make some claws, just the fingers, we're not making a fist.

So you're just clawing.

I always make faces when I claw my fingers.

Okay, open, close, open, close, open, work those fingers and rotate.

And we'll just do some thumb circles.

Continue to extend the fingers as much as you can, at the same time, opening the palms, circle, opening the palms, open that thumb.

Now, reach it all the way across, open and reach.

Are you continuing to extend through the fingers?

Open and cross, open and cross.

Good, one more, press, good job.

Now, let's work the feet.

You can use a towel and just put that on the floor and practice gripping the towel with your toes.

If you get good at it and you drop a towel in the kitchen, you don't even have to bend over.

You can just pick it up with your foot.

All right, so extend to release and grip.

You might get a charley horse if you haven't worked your feet in a long time, so go at it slowly.

If you get a charley horse, just stop and join us next time.

Grip and release.

All right, let's do the other foot.

So grip that towel, release, grip, and release.

Now practice stretching your toes, and then grab the towel and release.

Good.

All right, we're done with that towel, let me just get that up out of the way.

And now your feet are side by side, a slight, just a slight bend in the knee.

And I'd like you to lean your weight back so you can lift up the front of the feet.

Okay, and just a slight bend in the knee and down.

Do that again, lift and release, lift and release.

All right, feet are side by side once again.

And I just want you to lift the heels up and down.

You can just use a chair to help keep you stable.

I've been doing this so long, I get nice crackling in my joints as I do this; it feels very good.

Down and up, but I remember when I first started exercising my feet, I didn't have much strength in my feet and I would do certain moves, and just felt I was lifting my leg instead of actually using the strength of my foot.

And I think after about a year, I could tell the difference.

All right, I'm gonna slightly bend my knees and now lift those heels up, get them as high as you can.

I've had some clients that couldn't really lift their heels up, but once they bent the knees, they got more movement.

Really working those toes as well.

Good, if you're new, you do not want to do the whole workout, just do a few of the repetitions.

All right, now here's a new challenge.

Let's try just lifting the big toe and pressing the other toes into the mat.

Okay, again, lift.

You notice I'm only doing one foot at at time.

I need all my concentration to do this.

All right, lift and down, lift and down.

Okay, now for us, the big toe into the floor and try to lift the other toes off.

Now, sure you can just lift your foot, but try not to do that; just lift the little toes.

Okay, lift, press the big toe down.

Let's try that on the other foot, so big toe only.

Again, now if you're running and you're starting to have ankle pain, this is a good exercise to do.

And now press the big toe down and just lift the little toes.

Keep the foot down.

I was starting to cheat.

Healthy feet are really important to the rest of the body.

All right, let's turn and just gently fold and tuck those toes.

Making sure they're loose.

You know, we wear shoes from the time we're so young that it's like wearing casts on your feet for so many hours a day and it really causes problems.

So people start getting different kinds of flat feet or fallen arches and other issues, shin splints.

So healthy feet is the beginning of making sure you've got healthy knees and hips.

All right, let's try to get a little more into the top of the feet and shift that heel left and right.

Other foot, get more of the top of the foot than just your toes, and shift the heel left and right.

You're not putting your body weight down through that foot, okay?

It's all on your other foot and on the chair.

All right, let's try this tricky move with the ankle.

Okay, inversion, eversion.

So we are not rotating the hip.

It's just the ankle, inversion, eversion, sorta like you're sweeping in and out.

Good, and now other leg, in and out.

Go as slow as you need to, doing your best to control that movement, watching that foot so your brain and your muscles can get reacquainted and learn how to do this move.

All right, put your weight all on your left leg.

Okay, and gently put a little weight down through that ankle, just gentle.

If you've had numerous ankle injuries, you're gonna wanna be very careful or avoid this.

A lot of times people get ankle injuries, they get recurring injuries and it can often be related actually to the hip.

All right, turn and put your hands on the back of the chair and we'll finish with some nice calf stretches.

So press that heel down, your back knee is straight.

Hopefully you've got that heel on the floor, little extra leverage by pushing down into the chair.

That feels great, big inhale, long exhale.

[exhales] Terrific, switching sides.

All right, make sure your body is nice and straight from the top of your head down to your heel.

I'm gonna get a little closer, so I can push down into the chair.

[inhales and exhales] One more, inhale [inhales] and exhale.

[exhales] Nice and long, long exhale, and that's it.

Simple moves, but who says fitness needs to be complicated?

Gentle daily movement has proven effective for keeping you strong and fit for the life you want to lead.

So take advantage of this technology here at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, where you can repeat this particular class as often as you like, along with all the others.

In fact, share it with a friend and I'll be seeing you here again soon.

- 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.