- We all want toned arms, especially in the triceps area where the arm meets the back.

Hello, I'm Cassy, and with today's quick arm and shoulder routine, you'll learn how to activate the upper back, triceps, and shoulders together since they support one another.

If you're ready, we'll get started.

[bright music] Let's stand with our feet about shoulder-width apart and as always, have your shoes off and have a chair handy for a great exercise we'll be doing near the end of class.

Take a big breath in and exhale as you lift those arms right up by your ears, and a little bend in the knees and hips as we work a spine rotation, warming up that spine, warming up those shoulders.

[inhales] Exhale.

[exhales] Lean it to the side, extend over the back, and pull the chest in to the front.

Let's go the other way.

Big, a little bit bigger spine rotation.

Good, one more.

Warming you up, and now arms nice and wide, right straight out from your shoulders.

And let's have those wrists extended.

So fingers up towards the ceiling.

Are your elbows completely straight or just kind of like this?

Let's push, push, push, push.

Now rotate your shoulders.

So think of those fingertips and rotate your shoulders 'til your fingers point to the back of the room.

Keep going.

Maybe you have enough mobility to get those fingers down towards the floor.

And now up, rotate until those fingers point towards the front.

Again to the back, opening those shoulders to the front.

Good, back and forth.

Try not to skimp on that mobility that you have and breathing to help those muscles loosen up.

Good, and now lift those shoulders up by your ears and try to press them both down.

Lengthening as if you're reaching in two directions at the same time.

Lift, [inhales] press them down, [exhales] reach wide.

You're trying to grab two things on either side of you.

Lift and down.

Stomach in.

Have nice posture during this, okay?

[inhales and exhales] Little squeeze with the butt and the belly together.

Lift and down.

Good job; now we're going to do a move that I call water ski pulls.

So if you think about your shoulder girdle, this is what's going to be moving.

So imagine you're out water skiing, and you're hanging onto that rope and the boat goes and your shoulders go forward.

Now, pull them back.

Okay?

Push forward, pull them back.

Extend, which causes those shoulder blades to open nice and wide.

And now pinch that pencil, okay.

Maybe you can see that crease where my shirt is going together?

The shoulder blades are coming together.

Okay, open them wide.

[exhales] Pinch that pencil, okay?

Again, shoulder girdle, shoulders are reaching forward.

Pinch that pencil.

Now maybe your shoulders have started to creep up by your ears.

Let's press them down, pull them back.

Good, we're still pinching that pencil.

The shoulders are down and back, and that's something you just have to keep doing again and again, because they wanna creep up.

Everything wants to reach forward again.

So pull back, press down.

This is a great exercise for those weakened back muscles that allow us to kinda walk around like a cave man, right?

So pull them back and down.

Good.

Maybe a few circles while you're doing that.

So you can feel those muscles activating right where we want them.

Right around that armpit area.

Good, squeeze the back, squeeze.

You'll get better at this.

At first, it's not easy.

Pull the stomach in, support that low back, so much going on all at once.

All right.

And relax, good job.

[inhales] All right, let's get those arms straight out from the shoulders.

Once again, we've got our fingers pointed towards the ceiling, and we're going to press down.

Press down as if something is pushing your arms up.

Now you wanna activate those back muscles that we were just working to press the arms down.

Press, squeeze.

Hopefully you're feeling those muscles exactly the same way as when we were pinching the pencil.

Down.

Now we wanna stretch the front of our shoulders, those muscles that pull you forward.

Okay?

They pull the shoulders forward in not the best position.

And little circles.

All right, we still have good posture, right?

Our head and neck is up over our shoulders.

Our belly's in, our glutes are engaged.

Circle.

And every time you circle, make sure the arms are moving back.

Not more forward and not more down.

As long as you don't have any bad pains or anything catching.

[inhales and exhales] Okay, stretch and circle.

Now reverse.

The circle is reversed, but we're still trying to work more behind us.

Five, four, three, two, and just relax for a second.

Give those shoulders a break.

And now once again, let's get those elbows and wrists together right in front of us.

We're going to do these little lifts, lifts, lift, lift.

[inhales and exhales] Good.

I know, keep those elbows together.

Some of them are starting to get pretty far apart.

Press them together.

Even if they're not touching, you're still working to get them towards each other.

All right, five, four, three, two, and relax.

Let's roll those shoulders back for a little stretch.

Good, next we're going to use the chair.

So put two hands on the chair seat.

We'll be working those back muscles some more.

So let's bring your left hand back by your hip, palm down.

Squeeze the back to lift the arm.

Now check, is your palm down?

Is your thumb facing away from you?

And hopefully you've got your hand right under your shoulder, stomach pulled in.

Squeeze the back; we're not flopping the arm, okay?

It's just a gentle squeeze to activate those weak muscles all around our shoulder blades.

Wanna get them stronger.

And now let's bring that arm, thumb pointed towards the ceiling.

Hopefully you're above the chair seat, okay?

Find that limit and then exhale.

Squeeze the back.

Try to get even a centimeter movement.

Higher, higher.

Good.

Let's do about eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and two hands on the chair seat.

Let's just round that back a minute.

Just to take the tension off that low spine.

[inhales and exhales] All right, back to neutral spine.

And the other arm is down by your hip, but palm is facing the floor.

Thumb is away from you.

Squeeze the back to lift, lift.

Pull in your stomach to support the low back.

Let's do ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five more, slow it down.

Four, concentrate on the squeeze at the top.

Three, two, one.

Now let's bring that arm up by your ear, thumb facing the ceiling.

Hopefully you've got your arm starting at your highest point.

Then squeeze the back for these little lifts, small movement.

[inhales and exhales] Stomach's in, your back is as straight as you can.

Okay, hopefully your head hasn't dropped because where your head starts dropping, the shoulders will, making this much more difficult.

Let's go seven, six, five.

Straighten that elbow if you can.

Three, two, one.

And hand on the seat, round that spine, relieve the tension.

All right, next exercise is tricep dips.

Okay, so you'll start with your hands on the seat, right under your hips.

[inhales] Some of you will need to keep your feet right under your knees.

And some of you might not quite have the mobility to get your bottom off the chair, but at least by pressing down into the seat, you're activating those muscles, and that's a fine place to begin, okay?

Let's pull those shoulder blades back.

And if you feel strong enough and you can hold your weight off the chair, do that.

If this is fairly easy, then you can start lowering your weight in front of the chair, making sure your shoulders don't go below your elbows.

Small movement is fine.

The stronger you are, the further you can get your feet away from you, but keep your hips fairly close to the front of the chair.

Okay?

Remember, feet underneath if you don't feel quite strong enough in the arms.

[inhales and exhales] And lower.

And once again, if this bothers your shoulders, just skip it or concentrate on this hold just like this.

Okay, all these exercises are fine.

Just find what works for you.

Okay, meet yourself where you're at.

Okay, let's take a little break and we'll do few more.

[inhales] You can extend that arm up and drop that hand behind the head for a stretch.

You can do the other arm, lift it up.

[inhales] Hand behind the head; it feels good.

All right, two hands on the corner of the seat.

Pull the shoulders back, press down, lift the hips.

Hold it there.

Or make it more difficult if you're strong enough.

Okay?

We can always find modifications and ways to challenge you.

Okay, let's do five, four, three.

Almost done guys, hang in there.

Two.

[inhales] Last one.

[exhales] And extend, hold for five.

Lift the chest, four, three, two, and get the bottom back on the chair.

Good job, good job.

It can be hard to imagine what's going on back there, but as you use your muscles, it will get easier to sense and engage them.

It just takes practice.

So come back daily to pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, where we use your entire body to keep you loose, strong, and mobile.

And tell a friend so they too can feel great.

Until next time, keep on moving.

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