- Keeping your abdominal muscles toned and engaged will work to support your spinal structure, provide leverage when you want to move and lift, and even help with better digestion.

I'm Cassy, and today's Quick Fit class is all about the abs.

Join me now down on the floor for a quick workout you can do right from home.

[gentle music] Now, if you heard me say "on the floor" and are thinking about skipping this one, let me encourage you to try the moves on your mattress or couch, because the more you do with me, the more you'll be able to do in the future.

In fact, let's practice a strategy for getting down to the floor right now.

All right, just start by leaning over and reaching for the floor.

Let those heels come up if they need to.

Walk it out so you can start to bend at the knees and the hips, and voilà.

All right, from here, we're going to start with the vacuum hold.

We are not arching, rounding, or doing anything with our back.

We're keeping a nice, neutral spine.

Pulling that belly button up, compressing and flattening between your abdominals and your spine as much as possible.

Now, there's not any visual movement going on; we're just holding that compression as long as possible, taking small, little breaths in and out.

Have your wrists right under your shoulders, and your knees right under your hips.

Are you pulling up?

Keep pulling up.

Little exhales, press those hands into the floor.

Find more abdominals by pushing your fingers from the ribs all the way down between your hip bones.

Keep pulling up, pulling up.

Those deep core muscles take a little bit longer to engage, but they have a lot of endurance.

They're type one muscle fibers, which means they can stay engaged for much longer periods throughout the day, as opposed to your more superficial abdominal muscles, the ones that you see, those run out of steam quicker.

So keep pulling up, pulling up.

This is a great core strengthening exercise, even though it's not very glamorous.

There's not a lot going on.

Now, if your knees bother you, I've got a pillow here, that's one option for tender knees.

It's easy to find excuses, but let's find a way instead.

This move can also be done seated or standing, just simply pulling in and having a nice, long hold, okay, of those deep muscles.

All right, good job.

Let's flip over onto our backs while in a partial seated position, knees bent, okay?

And we're going to slowly roll back onto the back of your bottom.

Squeeze your hind end, that'll help you to tuck your pelvis so that you can engage more abdominal muscles.

And do your best, just start leaning back, past vertical.

Okay, little shallow, now sit up.

[inhales] We'll roll back again.

Pull your abs in.

You're trying to hollow out the front.

Leaning back a little further as we wake up and engage more abdominal muscles.

Roll it back, almost to the point where you think you're gonna lose it, and sit back up.

You can extend the legs a little further to help balance you out.

Good, now imagine there's a rope from about the middle of your chest and you're gonna reach one hand over the other to help you sit up.

A little twisting going on through the torso.

Sit up tall.

[inhales and exhales] Roll it back again to that point where you think you might lose it, and reach.

Reach hand over hand.

Reach, reach, and reach.

Good job, again.

Roll it back.

Reach it up.

Rope climb and exhale.

[exhales] Squeeze your bottom.

Hold it right here.

Can you go a little further?

Pull in that stomach, and up.

Good job.

[inhales] One more time, maybe two, maybe three more times.

And little twists.

Now you're not just moving the arms, you're twisting through the shoulders.

See if you can reach that elbow to the floor.

One way and the other.

Blow, blow.

Now, don't hold your breath.

This takes a lot of effort.

Your breathing's probably getting a little harder, so breathe deeply and loudly as you need to.

All right, and let's climb that rope.

Reach and reach, good job.

Stretch.

Lean it slightly forward.

All right, now this time, lay all the way back, but as slowly and controlled as possible.

You're ready?

Roll it back, roll it back, back, back, good job.

Bend those knees, feet are flat on the floor, and your hands are at your sides.

Think about your ribs, press them down.

Reach for your ankles one way and then the other, like little tick tocks, reach.

Now try not to move your ankles towards your hands.

Reach further with your hands towards your ankles.

Reach, a little break.

[inhales and exhales] One more time.

Remember, you're pulling the abdominals in, pressing the ribs down, lifting from your chest.

The more of your body you get off the floor, the easier it's going to be to slide left and right.

Reach, reach.

Keep it going, oh.

Don't bring those feet closer.

Reach further, further, further, and good job.

All right.

Let's put your hands behind your head and extend your right leg.

Now don't have it so low that you end up arching your back, okay?

I'd like you to lift the leg up to the point where you can plaster that back against the floor.

All right, now draw a figure eight with your leg.

Nice, straight knee, flex that foot.

Slow and controlled, don't throw your leg around.

And other leg, okay?

Press that back into the floor to begin.

Extend that leg, straighten that knee, and draw your figure eight.

Slow and controlled.

Keep pulling the abs in.

Back's against the floor.

You shouldn't be able to get a hand underneath here.

Okay, figure eight.

My figure eight's starting to look funky.

All right.

Last one, and rest.

Let's bring those knees right up over your hips.

Hands at your sides, and let them fall almost to the floor.

Control it and up and over.

Exhale and up.

Every time you bring those knees up over your body, a slight lift of the pelvis and over.

Up and over.

Keep it going.

Lift and almost, no resting at the side.

Pull up with those low abs.

Check to make sure they're engaging.

Push with your fingers.

Yup, they're working.

Up and over.

[exhales] One more.

Last one.

Good job, all right, two feet on the floor.

Extend your right leg up, and opposite hand, reach for that foot.

And down, reach beyond it, and down.

You could have a hand behind your head to support your head and neck.

Reach, [inhales] good.

Nice, long reach.

Reach a little further.

And down.

Again, reach, reach further.

Check your abs, make sure you're not pushing your abs up.

You're pulling them in.

Reach.

Reach it further.

Two more, reach, reach it further, and back.

[inhales] Last one, [exhales] blow.

And further, good job.

Switching sides.

Leg in the air.

Ready, reach.

Reach it further.

[inhales and exhales] And go, and lift.

Every time, blow, blow out more.

[inhales and exhales] Lift and lift.

Let's do three more.

Reach.

[inhales and exhales] Reach.

Last one.

And reach, good job.

All right, arch your back.

Stretch those arms and roll over to your side.

So if you're mirroring me, you'll be on your right side.

Get that elbow right under your shoulder.

Bottom leg's bent, top leg extends.

All right, a long reach, as long as you can in two directions, one with the arm, one with the leg, and then elbow to knee.

Nice squeeze.

Do it again.

Reach it long and squeeze.

[inhales] Reach.

Reach.

Pull that stomach in and squeeze.

Nice, long lines, okay?

The reaching, the lengthening, is as important as the squeeze.

Reach.

All right, five, four, three, two, and one, good job.

Roll over onto your stomach and we'll stretch your abs, so long arms to begin with, and get them a little closer.

And you can put your elbows down and press the elbows into the floor.

Pull them towards you.

Lift that neck up out of your shoulders.

So if you're like this, lengthen.

Good, one more time, stretch those arms, [inhales] and flip over to the other side.

All right, line it up nicely.

Elbow right under the shoulder, long ribs.

Try not to get sunk down like this.

Extend that top leg and lengthen through the arm and crunch.

Reach and crunch.

Pretty lines, okay, nice and controlled.

Make sure your shoulder's not coming up by your ears.

You're pressing that elbow into the floor, [inhales and exhales] you're reaching as far as you can in two directions.

Lengthen and squeeze, lengthen.

We're almost done, hang in there.

Reach, let's do five, four, three, two, last one, and we get to stretch.

All right, good.

Over on your belly.

One more time, long arms, a little bit closer.

And elbows down.

And you're pulling those elbows towards you and into the floor at the same time.

[inhales and exhales] And one more nice stretch.

Good job.

Now let's try to get up the same way we got down.

We'll practice with that strategy.

Let's put those hands under your shoulders and press up towards your knees, hands getting closer.

Push so you can get those knees off the floor.

Hind end can come up.

Walk it up.

[inhales] Good job.

I hope you liked this class.

And if you know someone who skipped the workout to avoid being on the floor, please encourage them to try it lying in bed or even in a chair with some simple modifications.

By coming back here daily to pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, they'll soon be stronger, finding strategies to get down to and back up off the floor with confidence.

Because life is movement, my goal is to keep you moving so you can live better longer.

See you tomorrow.

- 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.