- Let's warm up those cold muscles and joints.

I'm glad you've decided to join me for today's Quick Fit class.

I'm Cassy Vieth.

As we sleep and lay still all night, the fluids within our tissues become more viscous, but gentle movement will work to warm up the fluid, making it easier to move and be ready for our day.

[upbeat music] Let's begin with our feet under our hips, and I hope you've removed your shoes so the muscles in your feet have an opportunity to work.

Now with your hands on your hips, let's just start with some gentle hip circles each way.

And make sure it's your hips that are moving as opposed to your shoulders moving around your hips.

So keep your shoulders above your ankles and just push your hips to the back, the right, forward, and left.

And now let's go the other way, forward and right.

[inhales] And don't forget your breathing.

Let's start breathing in nice and slowly and exhaling.

Good job.

And if you think your reflexes have become a bit sluggish, you'll be happy to learn that without your shoes on, the sense receptors in the bottoms of your feet are being stimulated, which works to improve reflexes.

Now let's do a cat and cow.

We're just going to do it standing as opposed to on your hands and knees like you often do in yoga.

So your hip bones, let's move those back.

Tailbone tucks under.

You can move those elbows forward and tuck your chin.

And this way, we're making a big letter C with our spine.

And now you'll take those hip bones, and they'll move forward, and the tailbone comes back.

So hips forward, tailbone pulls back, and hips back, tailbone tucks under.

So just work on that movement through your pelvis, and don't worry about the rest of your spine if you're struggling with this move.

It'll start to feel good very quickly as you get used to it.

[inhales] Good.

Now let's shift your hips.

Okay, you can bend one knee, shift to the other way.

And then bend your other knee, shift the other way.

As you start to loosen up, you can widen your legs and start getting a little lower.

[inhales and exhales] Dropping your elbow towards your knee.

Good, breathe it in.

And then exhale.

[exhales] Shift the hips.

Drop that elbow towards your knee.

All right, let's bring those feet a little closer again and just start twisting through your spine and letting those arms just flop around you as if you can't feel them.

Okay, breathe it in [inhales] and out.

[exhales] Nice, big twists.

These feel really good.

Try not to control the arms.

And now some big circles, reaching.

[inhales and exhales] Good, and down.

[exhales] And again, reach it up, lifting through your spine.

Nice and tall, and widen those legs and start bending the knees.

A little more, and up.

[inhales] and down.

[exhales] One more time.

These feel great.

[inhales] Using your whole body, good.

And now let's sweep those arms across the front.

Your hips move back so your arms can really sweep out and reach around.

Good job.

All right, and really reach it as if you're cleaning a big table that's all the way around you.

And stay here and let's press.

Good, and pull and press.

And the other side.

Press and pull and press.

Now one hand reaches across, press, feeling the stretch from your hip all the way up to your elbow, press.

One more, and then we'll do the other side.

Big inhale and exhale.

Press.

Press, pull in with your abs, that bearing down where you're contracting your abs, squeezing your hind end all at once.

[inhales] And now let's reach over the ear.

Make a big circle, reach over the ear.

Bend the knees, big circle.

[inhales] Exhale.

[exhales] Let's do the other side.

Okay, reach it over.

[inhales] And a shallow dip with the knees.

Reach over, a little bit deeper.

[inhales] Inhale.

Oh, exhale; that feels good.

Good job, guys.

All right, let's bring your feet back under your hips.

Lift your knee.

Stabilize and open.

All right, you can drop it.

Kind of making a little circle, lift, open, lower.

Face the front with that foot.

Lift, face the side, and down.

One more, lift, open, and switch legs.

Stabilize onto your other foot.

Go slow as you need to.

You don't have to lift it very high.

And down.

Up, [inhales] out, and down.

Last one, up, out, and face the side and get into a fairly wide lunge and just do a little backstroke of the arm.

Reach forward with the other arm.

Lift, backstroke, twisting through that spine, reaching with the other arm, pull it back.

Breathe it in, exhale.

[exhales] And lift, twist, and reach.

Let's switch sides.

Okay, come across, lift, twist, reach, lift.

[inhales and exhales] And make sure you're breathing nice and deep.

And the exhales will help you get a little further each time.

Good.

[exhales] All right, bring that arm up.

And now we'll sweep down towards the floor.

Arms come up and open that chest.

Now relax your spine, sweep the floor.

[inhales] Breathe it in and [exhales] blow.

One more, sweep it down, up.

And now let's sit back on that back leg, stretching that hamstring.

Partway up, breathe it in, and sit back, exhale.

[exhales] And now turn towards the front to stretch that inner thigh.

Widen the legs a little.

Keep this one straight.

You can even twist towards that bent knee.

Good job, now let's face your other side.

Do those relaxed sweeps.

[exhales] Pull it back.

[inhales and exhales] Down, up.

[inhales] Open that chest [exhales] and down.

Up.

[inhales] All right, really lift through that chest.

Now sit back on that back leg, extend the front one for a nice hamstring stretch.

Halfway up and exhale.

[exhales] And then face the front to stretch your inner thigh.

Reach that leg away from you, so you can really get the inner thigh without compromising the knee okay?

We want the knee above the foot.

And sit into it.

And come on up.

Some easy, I call these swinging squats because you're just swinging your arms and sitting your hips back, warming up the legs, the glutes.

All right, inhale, exhale.

And that's it.

Let's swing your left leg just across a few times.

[inhales and exhales] One more, cross.

Now this time, swing it across and land.

Push off, do that again.

And land, push off.

And to the front, a little land, push off.

And again, land, push off.

To the side, land, and land.

Let's switch legs.

First, just a few warm-up swings.

Cross, then across, land, push it off.

And again, cross, land, push off.

To the front, land, push off.

And push off.

To the side, land, [exhales] and land.

Good job, guys; almost done.

Nice, big breath in.

[inhales] And down, one more.

Reach it up.

[inhales] To the floor, and then we'll reach up one more time.

[inhales] And this time, make like a rag doll, okay?

Just let all your air out of you.

[exhales] Let your head hang and then shift your hips a little bit, so you get that rag doll effect with the upper body.

Breathe it in [inhales] and out.

[exhales] And then we'll slowly roll up, tucking that chin, [inhales] head coming up last.

Wonderful.

I hope that got your blood moving and your joints warmed up, and it didn't take hardly any time.

So tell your friends that daily self-care can be quick and easy and send them here to pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, so they too can age well and keep doing all the things they love.

Now, remember to keep on moving.

Announcer: Funding for Quick Fit with Cassy is provided by Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programs and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.