- Welcome to Quick Fit .

I'm Cassy Vieth.

You know, intentional daily stretching is more important than you realize.

For instance, knee pain can come from any of the surrounding connecting tissues that become too tight, causing an imbalance of tension ratio around the knee.

Today, we'll work towards restabilizing these most important joints by focusing on the inner and outer thigh muscles.

So let's get moving.

[upbeat music] Grab a sturdy chair and remove your shoes so your feet can get some indirect exercise as well.

And have a mat so that your feet are a little bit more comfortable, especially if you have tender feet.

We'll be starting sitting.

Sit forward on your chair and have a nice, wide base with your feet.

Let's just start by circling the knees.

Pull in your stomach.

And start your breathing.

Inhale, [inhales] and exhale as you pull across.

Real good.

One more time, breathing in.

[inhales] Getting ready for the stretch.

Exhale.

[exhales] One more time.

In, [inhales] and out with a twist, starting the stretch of the outer thigh.

And look over your shoulder.

And do the other leg.

Circle.

[inhales] Pull it across, [exhales] kind of turning your shoulder towards your knee.

Again, circle.

Nice and big.

[inhales] Exhale.

[exhales] Starting to look over the other shoulder.

Warming up the torso as well as the outer thigh.

[inhales] Across, twist.

[exhales] And then leave that ankle up above your knee, and just press it down.

Okay, inhale.

[inhales] Press it down.

[exhales] We'll do the other side.

In with your breath and blow.

[exhales] Really, really helps to match your breathing to your stretches to help loosen things up.

All right, let that leg slide down.

Lift through the chest.

And we'll just lean over.

[exhales] Okay, lift and lean.

[exhales] You can twist a little bit to one side, inhale, [inhales] twist to the other.

[exhales] All right, roll it up.

Switching legs.

And of course, if you're not comfortable with one knee above the other, you can cross at the ankle.

Do what works for you.

Inhale, [inhales] exhale.

This is about pain relief for you as an individual.

So you know your body better than anybody else.

Never work into any knife pain.

[inhales] Exhale.

[exhales] Always work just shy of any preexisting pain that you might have.

We'll turn a little bit sideways in the chair.

Extend your leg out to the side, get on the inner part of your foot.

Big inhale.

And then we'll exhale.

[exhales] A little stretch, breathe it in.

[inhales] This can be a really hard stretch to do, especially first thing in the morning when you're super, super tight.

So it might take you a few extra reps.

Okay, we'll switch in your seat.

Inhale, [inhales] getting ready, and exhale.

[exhales] Thinking of just dropping your shoulder directly towards your leg without twisting.

All right.

Face forward again.

And we'll just lift through the chest.

Exhale and over.

[exhales] All right, let's turn sideways one more time.

Let this leg hang straight down from your hip.

And we'll do a few strengthening exercises.

So we're seated half on, half off the chair, hook your arm around the back, and lift.

And now don't let your leg cheat.

This is a typical, very weak area, and your quads will start bringing your knee forward to do the job that this one's struggling with.

So pretend there's a wall here, okay?

Lift that leg straight out to the side.

Sometimes I even have people turn a little bit more just to keep this leg from coming forward.

So try not to look because when you do, you'll be cheating.

All right, right out to the side.

And even if you can't get the leg up, that's okay.

The fact that you're contracting the muscles is a beginning.

All right, now let's put the leg out to the side.

We'll stretch one more time.

Now you gotta turn and put two hands on the chair back.

[inhales] Big inhale, [exhales] exhale, lift.

I know, this one's super hard.

You might be getting a charley horse.

Just try to hold it briefly.

All right, and out.

Let's go around to the other side.

Hook your arm around, half on, half off.

Leg hanging straight down.

You ready?

Lift, lift, lift.

I have big, strong guys come to me with mysterious back pain.

And this is one of my go-tos to show them, to try to do this.

And you'd be surprised how surprised they are.

They're like, "Oh, I'm very weak on the side of my hips."

Lift and lift.

But after a while, a short time of doing these exercises, they're usually come to me telling me how much better their back pain is.

All right, so turn again, put two hands on the chair back, and lift.

They're not very big lifts, but that's okay.

And it's all right if you don't get your leg off the floor.

Sometimes you need to just reconnect the muscles to your brain, and you have to actually push on the muscles that we're using.

And don't worry, they'll figure it out, and you'll get stronger sooner than you think.

Just don't give up.

All right, so let's go ahead and stand up.

Start to one side and just do some nice, gentle circles.

And squeeze the heels together.

Activating the inner thigh muscles.

[inhales] Press it together.

All right, turn in, lift out to the side.

Turn toes out, lift out to the side.

Butt squeezing together.

Lift, squeeze.

Everything from your hips, your butt, and your legs.

Imagine there's a balloon that you're trying to pop between your heels.

Very good.

Rotate in, circle, toe out, and squeeze.

Rotate in, circle, out, and squeeze.

One more time.

In, circle, out, and squeeze.

All right, switch to the other side.

Do the other leg.

Part of being balanced.

Circle the leg, squeeze the heels.

Nice and easy.

It doesn't matter how high your leg gets.

Just get that movement in that joint.

All right, turn the toes in.

Lift to the side.

This is one of those hard ones.

Using these glute medius muscles that come around the side of the hip.

All right, and toes out, lift, squeeze together.

Lift, [inhales] squeeze together.

And squeeze.

All right, rotate, circle, toe out, and squeeze.

Rotate, circle, toe out, and squeeze.

One more.

In, circle, and squeeze together.

All right, one more change.

We're gonna sit down again.

We want to, once again, challenge the inner thigh muscles.

So you'll sit forward on your chair.

Put a pillow, or you can use your own fists between your knees.

And for the count of eight, we're going to squeeze.

You ready?

Squeeze together.

Use your stomach, use your butt muscles, and your legs.

Keep going.

As I count six, seven, release.

All right, we'll do it again.

Take a couple breaths.

[inhales] Nice deep breaths in.

And then ready, and press.

Eight, seven, six, five, four.

Keep going, three, two, and release.

One more time.

Ready and go.

Eight, seven, six, five, four.

Keep going, three, two, and done.

Very good.

Open those legs and just press on the inside of your knee, stretching the groin, inhale, [inhales] exhale.

[exhales] Other side.

Press it open.

Big inhale, exhale.

[exhales] See how far over you can drop your shoulder.

Straightening that arm.

All right, that feels really good.

Let's do a few more figure fours.

This time, you'll press the knee down.

Inhale, [inhales] exhale.

Try to relax that hip.

Now lift, lift.

Use your stomach.

Use your inner thigh.

Keep that arm straight.

And relax.

One more.

[inhales] And lift, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and release.

It's a really good trick to help stretch tight muscles.

Other side.

And once again, you can do your foot below your knee if you need to.

Inhale, [inhales] exhale, and press.

You ready?

And lift, two, three, four, relax.

Inhale.

[inhales and exhales] Lift, lift, lift.

And relax.

All right, one more time.

Standing up.

We want to stretch these IT bands real...

I was going to say really quickly, but we wanna relax.

So don't do it too quickly.

Inhale, [inhales] exhale.

[exhales] Reach across to one side.

All right, and breathe it in, switching, and exhale.

[exhales] And then roll up slowly.

[inhales] Nice, big inhale, and blow.

[exhales] Relax the head.

You can reach across with one arm to deepen the stretch.

Rolling up [inhales] and over.

[exhales] That's a really, really good one.

That can be a tough muscle to get, those IT bands.

I hope you found some moves that challenged you because puzzling out our imbalances is a move toward fixing those weaknesses, getting stronger, and relieving pain.

Find more great, pain-relieving classes just like this at pbswisconsin.org/quickfit, where my goal is to keep you living better, longer.

See you next time.