Quick Fit: Boost Joint Mobility and Flexibility with Easy Morning Exercises
– Our muscles need to remain flexible to allow our joints freedom to move in their full ranges of motion. Joint mobility throughout the entire body is what today’s Quick Fit class will focus on. Hello, I’m your host, Cassy Vieth. If you’re ready, I’m ready. So let’s get moving. [gentle music] Remove your shoes to give your feet freedom to move, and have a chair handy if stability is a concern. Start with some nice, easy arms swings right across the body, letting momentum begin to stretch those shoulders. [inhales] We’re working loosely without any force through as many of these moves as you can. And if you’ve recently experienced a pain episode, be extra sure you work as lazy as possible, especially near those muscles you have trouble with. Stomach’s in, feet are about shoulder-width apart. All right, now let’s mirror me, and this will be your left arm. Just let it go forward and fall back. Draw it up and let it fall back. Don’t forget to begin your breathing.
Warm Up and Mobilize: Start Your Morning Workout Routine with Gentle Stretches and Hip Circles
Nice long inhales, extra long exhales. Other arm up, let it fall back. [inhales and exhales] Good job, just warming up. Let’s go into a few backstrokes, doesn’t have to be high. Just try to get as big of a range of motion as possible, or as full of a range of motion as possible. All right, alternate. Working the spine. [inhales] And if you keep your nose facing forward, your neck will be getting some work too. And now let’s look towards that arm. Other side. [inhales] Very good, exhale. [exhales] All right, hands on your hips, starting with some hip circles. Now think of your hips as moving around the base of your ankles. Shoulders are staying put. It’s real easy to start moving the shoulders, but shoulders and ankles stay put. And it’s the hips that are moving, right in the middle. Feel your abs engage, especially when the hips are forward. Few more, switching. [inhales and exhales] All right, good job. Next are leg swings. So let’s just swing the legs forward and back. Nice and loose.
Enhance Your Morning Workout with Leg Swings and Calf Stretches
You can let your knee bend to get a little more range on the front. Good. And make sure it’s a nice, full swing to the back. Stomach’s in, and then diagonal, across the front, and to the side, and the back. You can turn, so it’s the inside of your foot, squeeze the behind on the back, stand tall. All right, we’re going to do another leg swing, but this time, we’re going to combine it with a calf stretch. So we’ll still be swinging the same leg. It’ll be your right leg. Draw your left one back, press that heel into the floor. Your back knee is straight. All right, now I’d like you to swing that right leg across. As you do this, there’s some gentle movement that goes on through the knee and through your heel bone. And it stretches those calf muscles, that gastrocnemius and your soleus. Okay. You might not be able to tell, but it’s happening. In fact, let’s switch legs.
Enhance Your Morning Routine with Leg Swings for Improved Flexibility and Breathing
Since we’re already in this position, let’s do the other leg. [inhales] All right, let it… Good job. [inhales and exhales] All right, from here, I’d like you to bend that back knee just slightly, and swing that leg across. Okay, some of your muscles go up further behind your knee, those calf muscles cross that joint behind your knee. Let’s do that bent leg on the other leg. So slight bend, [inhales and exhales] and swing that leg across. Good job. All right, we still have a couple more leg swings to do, so let’s move that chair over. If you’re mirroring me, this is your left leg. So forward and back, standing nice and tall. [inhales] Still breathing. Very deeply exercising those breathing muscles. Take deep belly breaths, okay? [inhales] Not by lifting the shoulders, but by allowing the belly to push out as you inhale. All right, we switched, we’re now doing the diagonal swing. Okay, I can see the inside of my foot, squeeze the behind.
Start Your Day with a Gentle and Energizing Morning Stretch Routine
All right. [inhales and exhales] Very good, all right, two legs. Nice and wide, soft knees. Hands on your hips. And let’s just tuck that tailbone, let the elbows fall forward. [exhales] And now we’ll arch the spine. So it’s the opposite. Tailbone moves back. Chest sticks out. Elbows move to the back. Let’s do that again, ready? Nice and fluid [inhales] with extra deep breaths. All right, let’s reach that right arm across to your knee, and switch to the other side. All right, big stretch up, [inhales] down to the knee. [exhales] Big stretch up, [inhales] inhale, exhale, reach down to the other knee. [exhales] One more, big inhale up, [inhales] and just go straight over towards your toes. Exhale, taking your time. [inhales and exhales] Shift your shoulders a bit, and you’ll feel those stretches go all the way down your ribs, down either side of your spine. And then we’ll tuck the chin and we’ll roll up slowly. [inhales] Let’s work the feet. All right. You can hang on to your chair.
Improve Coordination and Balance with Ankle Exercises in Your Morning Workout
And I’d like you to lift those heels up, grip with your toes, and a slight bend of the knees. [exhales] Getting those heels up as high as you can, then we’ll drop the heels and straighten the knees. Lift the toes. Good, do that again. Come up on your toes, lifting the heels, bend the knees. Good job, heels down. Lift the toes. Good job. All right, ankle circles. Keep it going. Do a nice, full circle. All right, go as slow as you need to. Let’s go the other way. Now there’s a little bit of coordination when it comes to our feet. We feel a little less coordinated, a little less in control. So go as slow as you need to. Okay, now inversion. So you’re tweaking the ankle, as if you want to look at the bottom of your foot, and now go the other way, kind of like you’re wiping away with the bottom of your foot. Do it again. Wipe in, wipe out. Let’s do it one more time. Wipe it in, wipe it out. Fast pointing, work on your balance at the same time. [exhales] Good.
Boost Speed and Agility with Targeted Foot Exercises in Your Morning Workout Routine
Quickly, wanna work those fast twitch muscles, quick, quick, quick. Especially if you’re walking and you catch a toe, you know, you want to be able to react quickly. So the more time you can work on speed, the better. All right, now we’re gonna pull, which looks like almost the same movement, but it isn’t. You’re working the top of the foot, the front of the shin. Okay, pull, pull, pull, pull, go as slow as you need to at first to do the movement properly, and then speed up as you gain efficiency, coordination. All right, let’s switch legs. [exhales] Ankle circles. Nice, full circles once again. Feels good actually. Sometimes when I do this, my ankle cracks at every circle; the other way. Nice and big. And look at the bottom of your foot, and wipe away. So inversion, eversion. Some of you are probably like, “I didn’t even know we could do that.” You don’t really think about all the ranges of motion you can do with your feet. Fast points. Keep it going, a few more.
Targeting Lower Body Mobility and Flexibility in Early Morning Workouts
Imagine you’re ringin’ that, I always think of that bell that’s on top of a store counter if there isn’t a clerk right there, they’re like, “Ring this bell.” And pull, pull, pull, pull, pull. Standing tall.I know your hip’s getting tired of your standing leg. [inhales and exhales] Almost done, keep it going. You really want to feel your shin. All right, and done with that. Let’s work the toes a little bit. Tuck, flex, tuck, flex. Get onto the top of the foot, shift around, and then let’s bring the foot to the front, that same foot, and gently work the side of your ankle. Bottom of your foot to the side of your ankle. Now remember, you’re not putting barely any weight down through that ankle, the weight’s on your other leg. And let’s switch, okay. We’re gonna tuck the toes, flex, tuck, and flex. Toes get very stiff being in our shoes for basically years on end if you don’t go around without shoes much. And get onto the top of that foot.
Enhance Mobility and Flexibility with Gentle Ankle and Upper Body Exercises
Go across the top of your toes, and then draw the leg up to the front so we can gently work the side of that ankle. [inhales] Gently, do it again. Lots of breathing. [exhales] All right. Good job, all right. Stand with your feet about shoulder width again. Let’s grip your fingers right in front of you. You can tuck that tailbone, and I’d like you to pull those arms apart, feeling your back muscles pulling your belly in, [inhales] big inhale, exhale, release. Open that chest. Good, do it again. Reach to the front, grip. Pull, pull, get leverage from your belly. Feel your back open, and open, and open that chest. Press away. Lengthen those shoulders. Lift the shoulders, press ’em down. [exhales] Lift them up overhead. Grab that wrist. Pull. [exhales] Other hand, pull it the other way. Bring it down in front. [exhales] Switching sides. So good. [exhales] All right, let’s work on those hands. All right, make a fist and stretch. Squeeze, extend in every direction.
Finger-Stretching Exercises to Warm Up Your Hands for an Energizing Morning Workout
Stretching your fingers apart, and not stopping here when you can fully extend. Squeeze, extend, squeeze, extend. Let’s push those fingers against each other, ready? Press, press, press, press. Now let them come together until the pads at your knuckles touch. Very good. All right, use one hand to fold down one wrist. Press the fingers. Do this hand one more time. Fold it down, press it up. Extend through your elbow. Let’s do the other side. Get your thumb in that crook of your wrist, press it down. Straighten the elbow. Press your fingers into your other hand. Straighten that elbow. Feel the stretching all the way up your forearm. One more time, press the wrist down, and don’t forget to breathe. Nice, deep inhales, [inhales] exhales. [exhales] All right, now let’s do these claw fingers. That’s what it feels like, just bending your finger joints, not making a fist, pulling them down, touching the tips of your fingers to your pads right at the base. Okay, pull it in.
Refresh and Revitalize Your Morning with Quick Fit Workout Routine on PBS Wisconsin
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. [inhales] Don’t forget to breathe. [exhales] I have to remind myself as well, almost done. Let’s hold. [exhales] And chop some onions to finish. And that’s it for today. [exhales] Anytime you feel stiff, perform as many of these moves as you can remember to loosen up and feel refreshed. And better yet, just come back here to pbswisconsin. org/quickfit, where I’ll be waiting to do this again with you. And keep on moving, because life is movement. – 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..
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