- Hello, everyone.

Welcome back to another Quick Fi t class with me, Cassy Vieth.

You know, everyone wants to be fit and healthy, but you are actively making it happen.

Congratulations!

In today's class, we'll work the unsung heroes of the body, the hands.

So join me now to bring relief to your hands and strengthen your upper arms as well.

[gentle music] Begin with nice, slow stretches, completely opening the palms and stretching your fingers wide apart.

Okay.

Keep it going.

[inhales] Add nice, deep breaths.

Rotating the wrists.

You know, not many fitness classes even consider the muscles and joints of the hands, but we do.

Keep opening, opening, and now press those arms long.

Completely opening the elbows.

I think we forget to do that.

And now bend those wrists down and up.

Down and up.

Stretching the muscles that go all the way up into your forearms.

Good.

Now make a fist and press it down.

What are your elbows doing?

If they started to bend, stretch them out.

You can feel all through here.

All those muscles that work the hands are into your forearms.

Keep it going.

Okay, now, keep the wrists bent, but try to open the palms.

Keep it going.

Now try just to like claw your fingers, and while you're standing here, think about your posture.

Try not to slip forward with the hips.

Keep the head up over top of your neck, elbows straight.

Enjoy the stretch.

Use the other hand.

[inhales and exhales] Big inhale and exhale.

Circle your wrists again.

Nice fists.

And now palms up, bend that wrist, press it forward.

Open the hands again.

Use your other hand to gently pull back on the fingers.

Other side.

Open up the elbows.

Okay, so your wrists are bent, and now open the hands all the way and make a fist.

Open.

Make a fist, keep those wrists bent.

Now just claw, oops.

My shoulders are getting up around my ears.

Press your shoulders down, stand tall.

Nice posture.

All right, and shake that off.

Let's bring one finger at a time, press into your palm, but lengthen the fingers as if you could get down your arm, okay?

Press, press, press, and reach I should say, reach with those fingers one at a time.

And if you really don't have really good control, just use the other hand to assist.

And with time, you'll gain some of that control.

Just be consistent.

Reach.

I can feel the muscles all the way down into my forearm.

Reach, reach, and reach, and reach, okay.

Thumb circles are next, so open that palm and circle those thumbs.

Keep it going.

And now reach that thumb all the way across to the base of your pinkie, and try to straighten those other fingers at the same time.

Good.

Maybe to the ring finger and to the pointer.

That's not so hard.

So let's just circle the fingers and circle, reach underneath, and let's just open this palm.

We'll do the other side, reach underneath, open the palm.

One more time, pressing forward, just to finish up the hands.

Rotate, press down, and up.

All right, next are the triceps.

Very good.

Oh, before we-- we'll do the triceps at the same time as still working the fingers.

So the fingers and the arms are all together with this move, piano fingers.

Good, keep it going, down and up.

You know, when you straighten your arms and you work your arms in a nice, long arm position such as this, you do work your triceps.

There's not all that many exercises that we do in this class for our triceps, but these are one of them.

Your arms are fairly heavy, so it does work your triceps.

All right, and back, and now palm up.

Make those claw fingers and rotate, and rotate, and down.

Very good, and up.

And down.

[exhales] And down again, and up.

And down.

Good.

Okay.

A little bit for the triceps to start with, and open.

Together and open, and down.

I know those forearms are burning.

Your shoulders are getting a little warm.

All right, and let's turn sideways and extend those arms to the back.

Okay, imagine you have a couple of dumbbells in your fists.

Press.

So notice as I bring my fists forward, I am not dropping the elbows.

They're not coming down, okay?

Stick the chest out, keep those elbows high, press.

It's a small, intense move, okay?

So be kind of critical.

Don't drop those elbows; keep them back.

And now a little tweak of the wrist to really intensify the move and get into that tricep.

Nice and high.

So we're still extending.

Extend, extend.

You can have one leg in front of the other to make it more comfortable for your back and for your hamstrings.

Stomach in.

[inhales] And you don't have to lean over all that far.

Extend.

Now lift, lift, stomach's in, lift.

Shoulders are pressed down and back.

Try to relax the neck and tap the fists towards one another.

Tap, tap.

[inhales] Don't hold your breath.

Press, press, good.

All right, bend the elbow just a little bit.

Extend, bend, extend.

A short, intense move.

Feel that tricep getting tight.

Kind of like a knot up in the top of your arm.

That's okay.

And lift, lift, lift, lift, relax the neck and tap together towards one another.

[inhales and exhales] Stomach's in to protect the low back.

And shake it off, good.

A couple of shoulder rolls, and then I'll have you grab your chair and we'll do some chair pushups, everybody's favorite.

All right, step back a little bit.

Depending on how low the back of your chair is, you might need to be a little close or a little back, but the point is to let your elbows slide along your body and push back, and try to have a nice, long line from the top of your head to your heels.

Try not to bend at the waist.

Okay.

It doesn't have to be a big move.

It could be a small move with a hold, if that's where you need to start.

And down and press, and down and press.

[inhales] Down, two, three, hold.

Up, two, three, down.

I can hear you groaning.

I know these are hard.

Hold, two, three, and press.

Real good.

All right, adjust your seat and we'll do some dips off the front.

Everybody else's favorite exercise.

All right, if you need to have the safety of the chair underneath your bottom, then just reach more towards the back, have your feet under your knees, and extend the arms.

But if you're a little stronger, you can get your weight out off the front of the seat, gently lower yourself and press.

Depending on how strong you are is how much help you're gonna get from your feet.

The stronger you are, the less you need to use the feet to help you.

All right, down and up, down and up.

Only about, I don't know, 50 more, 49, 48.

All right.

We're not gonna do that many.

And sit back in your seat.

Very good, shake it off.

Lift and touch behind the back of your neck and reach up and grab that elbow and stretch it.

One more, lift, touch behind the back of your neck.

Grab that elbow and pull.

All right, just a couple bicep isometrics before we finish up.

So have a nice 90 degree, press down with one hand and lift with the other.

Lift, two, three.

Pull your stomach in, it will give you some leverage to work on this bicep muscle.

Now bring your bottom fist up higher.

Two, three, and down.

Two, three, four, let's switch sides, you ready?

[inhales and exhales] Lift, hold, hold, hold.

Bring that fist toward your shoulder, lift.

Both arms should be shaking.

Lift and down, two, three, four.

[exhales] And that's it.

Now you can move on with your day, knowing that when you take care of today, tomorrow will take care of itself.

And remember to join me daily here, at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, where a little daily effort goes a long way to keep you strong, independent, and pain-free.

Share my classes with a friend, and until tomorrow, 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.