- I hope you're ready to feel great.

Thank you for joining me here for another Quick Fit class.

I'm your host, Cassy Vieth.

Today's class will focus solely on strengthening the muscles of the shoulders.

All the moves today can be performed with only your own body weight.

But if you'd like more of a challenge, grab some light dumbbells, or even a couple cans of soup will do.

I will be using an exercise band for one particular move.

If you don't have one, just grab a belt or even a towel.

And if your back is weak or tender, have a chair handy and I'll show you how to make use of that later on.

So join me for this great shoulder workout.

[upbeat music] All right, we'll just start warming up nice and gently.

Even though these are short classes, you always have to have a warm up.

Helps you get your blood rate going, your breathing going, [inhales] your muscles ready to do the work.

All right, so just throw 'em across and open.

(inhales and exhales) Deep breaths right away, inhale, exhale.

All right, now overhead presses, press one, two, three, four.

Imagine there really is something that's coming down that you have to push up.

So you're applying force, and you can do this without anything pushing back.

You just squeeze your muscles, squeeze and press.

[inhales] Inhale, exhale.

[exhales] Keep it going, warming up the shoulders.

All right, two arms up and down.

Press, now stretch.

Try not to press the head forward.

Maybe I just did.

As I do this lift, pull 'em down, lift, pull 'em down.

Keep it going, [inhales] a little faster.

Inhale, exhale.

[exhales] All right, get ready for lots of wide arm lifts.

Nice and wide, circle, circle, and make sure you're circling more towards the back, okay.

As you get tired, your arms are going to want to migrate towards the front, but let's keep them nice and wide, inhale, exhale.

I'm sure the front of your shoulders are stronger than the back of your shoulders and the top.

So we want to balance it all out.

Circle forward, keep remembering to move the arms towards the back a little bit, towards the back.

Now reverse, pull 'em back.

Stretch that front tight shoulder muscle.

[exhales] Don't forget to breathe, don't hold your breath.

Breathe as heavy as you need to.

Don't worry about it or be embarrassed.

It's a good thing.

[inhales] Maybe breathe it in for four circles and out for four circles.

[exhales] All right, now press down, as if somebody's trying to hold your arms in place.

Push against it, squeeze the back muscles, like through here as you press down, and think about your shoulders; don't let them come up by your ears.

Press them down, press, press, press, and keep it going.

[exhales] And now to the back, back.

If at any point during this class you're just like, "I have to take a break," just take a three-second break and join us again.

Three seconds really will make a huge difference and you will condition your muscles to do more work, longer.

All right, little break, forward, forward, out, out, forward, forward, out, out.

[inhales] Inhale, exhale, [exhales] it's a little break.

Now to the front, ready, circle.

Just wash that window with two hands, two arms.

And I know, every time they're wanting to drop, right?

They're burning, lift, lift, lift, reverse, keep it going.

We want nice, toned shoulders, so wash that window.

Hold it here, [inhales] out and forward, out and forward.

Don't drop those arms, stomach in.

Where's your head and neck?

Are you pushing your head forward?

Don't do that.

Are you slipping forward with your hips?

Don't do that either.

Let's have nice, good posture.

Stomach's in, neck is tall, out and out.

[inhales and exhales] Keep it going.

Keep it going.

Hold, lift, lift, little break.

Doing this out, out, out, palms up, circle.

Reverse, back, lift, lower.

Okay, keep it going, it's a little bit of a break as we change position.

Up, up, down and down, now, wide and wide.

Hold it here.

Bend those elbows and we'll drop them down and up.

Squeeze and lift, it's like that Arnold Schwarzenegger position.

You know, make that face too, that helps.

[chuckles] Squeeze the elbows down.

Imagine there's a balloon or something next to your side and you want to pop it.

Lift, pop, lift, and you're lifting against something that's trying to hold your arms down.

So lift, squeeze it down.

Lift, squeeze it down.

Lift and squeeze, all right.

Isometrics.

[exhales and inhales] Keep breathing.

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.

Lift, two, three.

Just do about a hundred of these.

Lift, lift, back and back; other one, back and back.

Keep it going, back and back, back and back.

Guess what, big arms again, keep it going.

Lift, and now bent elbows to the front, open.

Squeeze the balloon, pop it in the center right in front of you.

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

Open, like somebody's holding your arms together and squeeze together, squeeze it back.

Squeeze together, squeeze it back.

All right, hold them together for the burnout, lift, lift, lift.

[inhales and exhales] Don't give up yet; we're almost done with this part.

Keep it going.

Lift, lift, lift.

All right, relax.

Very good, all right, just shake it off.

Next, we'll use the chair.

You don't have to use the chair, but if your back gets tired, it allows you to rest your back a little bit while we keep working the shoulders.

So first, grab that band or belt or you can just squeeze your own muscles.

You don't have to worry about a band.

All right, so what I'd like you to do is just step back a little bit from the chair and you can rest your hand, pull up your belly, rest a hand on the chair, and then you can see, I'm stepping on the band so I can have some resistance, and pull.

If you don't have a band, just use that soup can or squeeze your own muscles, light dumbbells.

'Cause we're just going to do a bunch of reps.

So you don't necessarily need a lot of weight.

Pull, pull.

So of course, if I grab lower, it's gonna be harder.

Pull, now as you pull, don't think about the hand pulling on the band.

Think about your back squeezing together.

So we're working the back part of the shoulder.

All right.

Nice, wide elbow and elbow close, wide elbows.

As long as it feels okay.

Bring the elbow close, pull, pull and hold.

Let's switch sides.

Same thing, you'll step back, have one foot on the band, one hand on the chair, belly in [inhales] and squeeze the back, which is actually, you know, top part of the back, the back of your shoulder.

Squeeze it, squeeze.

So you know, we did a lot of exercises standing up for the top, and now we're doing a slightly leaned forward position to get the back of the shoulders.

[inhales] Keep breathing, pull, pull, and pull.

All right, so still in this bent over position, we'll do some flies.

So pull those elbows back, squeeze the balloon together.

Pull back, squeeze, pull back.

You notice my elbows are slightly bent, kind of like I'm hugging a barrel.

Lift, lift.

So if your back is not very strong and you're feeling uncomfortable, you can take a step back, one hand on the chair, and just do one arm at a time.

Pull back, other side, or two arms at a time.

All right, step up, a little stretch.

And then we'll make use of the chair some more.

You can have your hands on the chair or just do this freestyle, okay, up, up, up.

[exhales] Keep it going, lift, lift, lift, and lift.

Two arms, lift, stomach's in.

You can have one leg back, support the back, and then we'll put the first arm down and keep working, lift, lift, lift.

Keep it going, hold, stomach's in.

Could stand up a little bit if you need to, but keep lifting.

Gravity and the weight of your arms is going to strengthen your shoulders.

Lift and lift.

And now I want you to just relax for a moment.

We're not quite done, we have one more move, but I just want to relax that back just a little bit, okay.

All right, last one.

I like, I like calling these clocks, so it's one arm overhead, one arm back.

Bring it around.

Stomach's in.

[exhales] Other one back.

All right, from here, two arms, squeeze the back, squeeze the back and then move 'em around the clock face.

Switching positions, lift, lift, lift.

All right, now we are done.

So just shake it off, roll those shoulders around, and completely relax towards the ground, towards the floor.

Shifting it around with your hips.

Lift one shoulder, lift the other.

Stir a pot while you're down here, one hand and then the other, real relaxed.

[inhales and exhales] And then tuck the tailbone under and come up one vertebra at a time.

Chin coming up last.

Great job, everyone.

If this was too easy, you can always add more reps or more resistance.

If it was too hard, be encouraged.

You have room to grow and a means to measure your progress.

Classes like this benefit more than just the obvious target muscles.

It benefits your entire body by getting your heart rate up, your blood pumping, oxygenating your entire body, and improving your mood.

So plan tomorrow's workout right now at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit.

And we'll keep all that goodness going day after day after day after day.

See you next time.