- Hello, I'm Cassy Vieth.

Thank you for logging in for another Quick Fit class.

I am so glad you made it.

Today's foot care class is short and sweet, yet super effective for making your entire body feel great.

Because as you well know, if your feet hurt, it affects your entire body.

So please remove your shoes and get ready to join me.

[upbeat music] You might've noticed I have a vitamin bottle with me.

You can use a soup can or a vitamin bottle, and I'll show you what to do with that in a bit.

We're started the class seated, just gently lifting and lowering the heels.

And by removing your shoes, you're allowing full range of movement in all of the ankle and toe and foot joints, giving the muscles an opportunity to get stronger.

And if you haven't gone without your shoes for a while, I'd suggest you only do a few reps of each move I show you.

This will allow your feet to get stronger without becoming sore and causing you more grief.

All right, simple heels up.

We're going to press straight down through the ball of your foot and push that straight down from your knee.

Okay, and don't let the foot go sideways, tweaking your ankle like that.

I want strong ankles in a nice, straight line.

Feel the stretch in the top of your foot, feeling your toes stretch.

Doesn't look like we're doing much, but we are.

Start breathing nice and deep, and then exhale.

This helps everything to stretch and relax.

And now press that heel down.

Hopefully now your heel is behind your ankle, and your heel is behind the knee a little bit.

Stretching that Achilles tendon.

And let's do the other one, press it down.

And if you're not sure exactly what I'm doing.

So I'm, I've pulled the heel back, and we're stretching right down through here.

Very good.

Let's do the other one again.

All right, now let's curl the toes a little bit more, back and forth.

They get very stiff in our shoes.

Got to loosen them up.

All right, and the other one.

Back and forth.

And you can control how much weight of your leg that you're putting down through your toes.

I don't want you to get a charley horse; that's kind of common.

[inhales and exhales] Lots of breathing.

And if at any point you think a charley horse is coming, just stop, okay?

Extend that leg, and let's do your best to rotate that ankle in and out.

And if you don't feel like you're getting any movement, you can put the side of your foot down on the floor [inhales] and gently put a little bit of weight down there to stretch the side of that ankle.

Okay, inhale, [inhales] exhale.

Lots of breathing to assist.

And the other one.

So try it in the air and on the floor.

See how close you can get to the top of the foot on the floor.

All right, and a little circle.

And we're going to get ready to stand up.

Hopefully you've got that vitamin bottle or that soup can handy.

Okay, first let's just start by stepping back, okay.

Take your left leg and press that heel down behind you.

A nice straight line from your hip all the way down to that heel.

Your front leg should be in front, supporting you.

Okay, lift that heel up.

[inhales] Press that heel down.

[exhales] Taking care of your feet means stretching the other muscles upstream.

So the calf, the Achilles.

Enjoy that for a moment, okay, don't rush.

[inhales] All right, very good.

Now comes the soup can or the whatever bottle you've got, not too big.

Just put that down at the floor, right at your chair leg.

You could also have it right in the corner of a doorway, on the corner of the floor and the doorway, and press the top of your foot against the chair leg and against your soup can.

And now, I'd like you to push the hips forward.

I've done this exercise with people so often without, and what happens is, as they move the hip forward, the foot slides down.

So I really, really like having this lift under the front of the foot.

So once again, push the hips forward.

We're reducing that angle between the shin and the foot.

[inhales] That's a stretch, isn't it?

[exhales] Good.

Now let's take the other leg back, a big inhale, [inhales] and then exhale as you do the stretch.

Nice.

[exhales] Now your other foot should be in front of you, supporting you.

Nice, long line between the top of your head and the back of your heel.

Lift the heel up.

[inhales] Big inhale and then exhale to help deepen the stretch.

Great.

All right, let's do the soup can stretch again.

So you've got your weight on your back leg, and now I'd like you to have a straight front leg and just push the hips forward.

It's easy to push your shoulders forward.

That's not gonna do anything.

So stand up and push the hips forward.

Very good.

And as always, nice, deep breathing.

[inhales] All right.

Good.

All right, let's go down into our pliés.

So you're either in a nice, wide plié, or you might be in the toes forward, more of a pony squat, like you're on a big, fat pony.

Either way, toes and knees in the same direction.

Knees are over the center of your foot.

Let's lift one heel.

And keep it going.

Good, allowing lots of weight to go straight down through the knee, into the ankle, and straight down into the ball of the foot.

The ball of your foot is the big pad under your big toe.

You can grip the mat with your toes and lift the heel up and down.

Really working those muscles.

Take care if you're new, though.

I don't want you to overwork your muscles.

I'm sure you can see that just these simple exercises are really going to help strengthen those weak or atrophied muscles.

Athletes that wear tight shoes for hours and hours find great relief and then they'll get their energy back because they released their foot muscles.

All right, so we're down, lift one heel, lift the other.

You can use the chair to help steady you.

We're pushed down through the ball of the feet.

Balls of the feet, down and up, [exhales] down and up, heels down, heels up, heels down, heels up.

[inhales and exhales] Take a break if you need to and join us again.

All right, hold it here, down two, three, four, and up, really good, get a leg workout at the same time.

All right, extend that leg.

Let's work that ankle.

Catch your breath.

[inhales and exhales] Very good, now point fast.

And flex.

Good, other, other ankle.

A few circles, circle the other way.

Point fast.

And all right.

Flat feet.

Just lift the toes.

We're not, the ball of the foot we're still pressing down, we're not lifting the front of the foot.

So just the toes, lift, lift, lift.

And if you're not able to get them up much today, that's something to work towards.

As your arch gets stronger, those muscles in the bottom of your feet, you'll be able to lift these toes.

This will definitely help your plantar fasciitis if you have that from tight arch muscles.

All right, we will be going down to the floor next.

All right, so we'll work our way down to the floor gradually, just shift around, the feet are wide enough to allow for your hips to come down.

If you need to use the chair to put part of your weight on because you can't get all the way down, then by all means, use the chair.

[inhales] But the idea is to get down as low as you can before lifting those heels.

Shift around.

[inhales and exhales] Nice.

At least get one heel down at a time.

All right, and now all the way down.

So we've got the top of our feet on the floor.

And if you're new to this, gradually move your hips back towards your heels.

It's common for people to get a charley horse when their muscles are very unused to doing these exercises.

So go as slow as you need to to be careful.

Stretching the top of the feet and the shins.

If you run, this is just, you know, a miracle stretch for you.

All right, let's lift one heel, knee, this is my knee, right?

And then the other knee.

Good, again.

[inhales] And you decide how much weight you're going to be putting down through your heels as you lift your knee.

All right, let's get those toes back up under, use your hands, push your knees off the floor.

All right.

[inhales] Big inhale and exhale, and just rest your weight against your thighs, and give time to the back of your heels to loosen up, and they will.

All right, very good.

All right, let's go ahead and stand up again.

Very good.

Work those toes.

All right, now, please remember your foot muscles.

Like the rest of your muscles, they need to be flexible to be strong, but they can get sore if you do too much, too fast.

So work up to more reps gradually.

Take your shoes off for longer periods of time if you can.

And come back here daily for more gentle classes at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, where aging well is possible and enjoyable.

See you next time.

- 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.