- A strong base of support is important for any structure, and your body is no exception.

Hello, I'm Cassy, and in this Quick Fit class, we'll be focusing on your feet and calves.

Have a chair handy, remove your shoes, and we'll get started.

[upbeat music] Let's start by warming up your feet with just a few alternating heel lifts, pressing your weight down through your knees, ankles, and into the ball of the foot.

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

And later on, we'll be using a band, so have one handy.

Few more.

Start your deep breathing, okay?

Breathe it in [inhales] and out.

All right, extend one leg, okay.

And I'd like you just to point and flex.

And if you don't think you have very good balance or you're worried you might topple over, it's fine to have a hand on the chair, but do your best to not have a real death grip.

Okay, have your hand maybe just hovering above it where you can always just put it back on the chair.

This way, your arches in your feet get woken up and get stronger as well.

This wobbling of the ankle is a good way to strengthen your feet.

And you have muscles that go from your calves and shins down into your arch, and they support that arch.

So this single leg work, balance work is really helpful for that, good, point and flex.

And don't forget about your posture.

We're pulling in the abs.

We have our head and neck up over top of our shoulders.

Okay, just a few more.

All right, two feet flat.

Let's just start by lifting only the toes.

Okay, you have the rest of your foot down, the ball of the foot's down and you're just holding the toes up in the air.

And now, one of your feet, make just real gentle fists of your toes.

Careful with those; if you don't exercise your feet much, that's a, people get charley horses there.

So avoid that, don't grip too tight.

[inhales and exhales] All right, we'll do the toe hold, lift again.

So press the ball of your feet down.

Lifting all those toes.

Okay, we're activating those arches.

Now again, toe fist, alternate it with toe lifts.

And other foot, gentle fist and toe lift.

You can have your heel down or in the air, whatever suits you.

But if you have it in the air, remember, you're getting a little bit more work on that other foot.

All right, two feet are flat.

We're going to just press the toes down into the floor.

This is another arch activating move.

Try to press the toes and the ball of the foot down into the floor.

Finding and waking up those feet muscles, that does take a little while.

So be patient.

All right, we'll do one foot at a time here.

I'd like you to try to lift just your big toe.

Do your best, and now do your best to press that big toe down into the floor and try to lift your other toes.

Not easy.

Do that again, big toe and big toe down.

Let's do the other foot.

Okay, press the big toe down.

Try to lift the others and now, press the four little ones down and lift the big toe.

And this is when you surely can use your hands.

You can sit down and use your hands to help wake up those muscles and to do the exercise.

And over time, you'll get stronger.

And perhaps you'll be able to do this without your hands.

All right.

All right, standing again, evenly.

Spread your weight evenly onto both your feet.

And I'd like you to try to spread your toes out on the floor.

This is something you can't do with shoes on, and you might really struggle spreading your feet out because you've just worn shoes for many, many hours of every single day of your life.

And so your feet might be very stiff.

So this is another one, you could sit on a chair and you could gently put your fingers between your toes to try to get them to stretch out.

All right, put your weight on one leg and reach forward with the other.

Okay, so we're gonna do a little balance work.

If you cannot lift and hold your leg in the air for a few seconds and do the moves without hanging on, feel free to just keep your toe down.

That's going to activate your other leg's arch, your other foot arch.

And it's gonna strengthen your hip and your knee.

If you have good enough balance to do a few lifts, by all means, do that.

All right, and let it's switch legs, extend.

Find your balance and lift.

Use your stomach muscles to help you lift this leg.

Let your standing foot wobble, that's excellent.

You're waking up those muscles in your arch, lift, lift.

All right, stabilize.

If you think you're going to have to hang on or put your foot down, just pause.

[inhales] And now let's bring that leg out to the side, okay?

Once again, you have the option of just keeping your toe down or doing a few lifts.

Lift, lift.

[inhales and exhales] Don't forget about your posture.

And then we'll make it even one stage harder by moving your leg across in front of you.

And you can put a hand on a chair seat if you need to, but just lightly.

Very good.

Let's move the chair over to the other side.

Good, extend your other leg out to the side and lift.

Good, take your inventory, stomach in, head and neck over your shoulders.

[inhales and exhales] Standing nice and tall.

And now move that leg across in front of you.

Go as slow as you need to.

If you move too fast and you just have to put your foot down, then move slower.

Find something that's not moving to stare at.

All right, next, let's stretch our calves on the chair seat.

Simply put the ball of your foot and toes up on the chair seat.

Let the rest of your foot hang off, and just lean down on your thigh here.

Letting a little bit of gentle force going down through your calves and your Achilles tendon.

Come up a little and then exhale.

Come up again.

Exhale.

[exhales] Now this time, try to lift the foot, but make resistance with your body weight so that the foot can't come up, okay?

So we're activating your calf muscles in a lengthened position, okay?

Press down with your body so the heel can't lift.

All right, and lift it.

And then exhale, stretch.

You might get a little bit more movement.

Those PNF stretches, neuromuscular stretches, it's a technique of activating your muscles when they're in a long position.

All right, let's switch feet, half that foot up and put your weight down through it.

Enjoying the stretch.

Lift, [inhales] exhale, [exhales] and lengthen.

Lift and lengthen.

All right, try to lift it up, but press down with your body weight so the foot can't lift, the heel can't lift.

And it doesn't have to be making you shake with the force.

Just a little bit of force.

All right, and let the heel come up and last time, stretching it.

We'll go down on into the chair next and grab your band.

Okay, we're gonna strengthen your calves.

So wrap that band down around your toes or the pad of your foot and do a few forward presses.

Press, good.

[inhales and exhales] Let's do about ten more, nine, eight, seven, four, three, two, last one.

And cross your knees and hang onto the band off to the side and turn that ankle.

So the bottom of your foot turns towards the center of your body.

Okay, move it across.

It might take a little while for your brain and your muscles to do what you want them to do and press, press.

Hold it there, a little more pull, and other foot.

Okay, all right, press it forward.

Press, press.

[inhales and exhales] Sit nice and tall.

Try not to slouch like I just was.

Press it forward.

[inhales and exhales] Good, make that foot work.

Let's do about five more, four, three, two, and we'll cross the knees.

Hang on to the band from the side again and turn, turn.

The whole foot, the heel to the toes is moving together.

It's not a move you go around doing, but your foot's capable of doing it, so let's work it.

Gets certain calf muscles.

Last one, hold.

Five, four, three, two, and you can put your band away.

And I'd like you to turn in your seat, turn to your right.

And we'll just stretch the top of the foot and the top of the toes.

[inhales] Big inhale, exhale.

[exhales] Shift that heel left and right.

And now, let's do a fancy quad stretch, okay?

For these muscles, if you actively press the top of the foot into the floor and squeeze your bottom, you'll feel that stretch all the way down to your knee, okay?

Press it for three, two, one.

Let's do the other side.

We're sitting half on the chair, half off.

You got your arm hooked around, and press the top of the foot into the floor.

Shift that heel, stretching your shins and the top of your foot.

And we're even getting into your toes a little bit.

And now to get the top of the leg, the quad, press, actively press that foot into the floor.

Squeeze your hind end, sit up tall.

[exhales] And you should feel that clear down to your knee.

Last inhale, exhale, and release.

The foot and ankle joints have a profound effect on the rest of your joints and mobility.

In fact, tight ankles and calves can make it very difficult for you to get down to the floor and back up again.

Soon, you'll avoid it, which leads to more tightness and weakness.

To prevent this downward spiral of poor aging, join me again right here at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit and tell a friend so you can age well together.

Until then, 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.