Hi I'm Michelle and today I'm going to take you through a series of exercises
to help you reduce your risk of getting a blood clot in your calves or your thighs after Covid
19. Now these are really simple exercises I'm going to show you the exercises lying down in
bed so you can do some of these exercises lying down in bed if you like to. We're also going to
go through some exercises sitting and then we'll finish off doing a couple of exercises
standing and you can choose from any of those exercises that you'd like to do so let's start
our routine now in your bed you can do these. So we'll start lying down and coming down I'm just
going to use a couple of pillows here that's up to you. Whatever you'd like to use at home
we're going to start with our legs extended so slide your legs out one at a time. Now the first
exercise is called a calf pump and all you do is you lift your toes up towards your head strongly
and then point them down so lifting up again and down and if I can show you my calf muscles you
should see them contracting and squeezing as I lift up and down and those muscles contracting
actually squeeze the blood back through into your circulation so that it doesn't sit there and clot.
So when you're sitting and you're not moving and resting in bed after being unwell that's
when a clot can form. That's why you need to do these sorts of things every hour if you can. So
I think I'm getting close to ten I've lost track there but let's call that number nine and one more
number ten. So that's our first exercise I'll bring my pants down now. The second exercise
is a thigh squeeze and a calf squeeze so you can imagine you're pushing the back of your knee down
into the bed. So I'm going to push down and when I push down my thighs contract you can see my feet
actually lift up and I can bring my feet back towards my head and squeeze my bottom muscles
and then relax so all those muscles contracting together squeeze pushing your knees down into
the back of the bed and down and let's do a couple more pushing down firmly
and back and one more time at home squeezing and down so that activates your thighs and your
buttocks. So that helps the return of the blood back into your circulation now our third exercise
is a heel slide you can just slide one heel along the bed a lot easier when you're resting
in bed if you've got socks on and speaking about socks don't forget if you are at risk of clots
you can wear compression stockings. So you can find a link to some compression stockings in my
app and that's linked up above. So let's go again lifting up and down and just sliding
steady and we'll just do two more of these just slow and controlled and down and one more time
and taking it down so how are you going with these at home? You should start to feel good to move.
What we're going to do now is do some exercises sitting out of bed as well so I've got Gary here
today he's kindly agreed to demonstrate your out of bed sitting exercises. Thanks for coming in
today Gary. We're going to start with some calf raises. So this is one of the exercises you can
do regularly when you're sitting out of bed. So I'm going to start by just lifting up onto
the balls of your feet great and down and you can see Gary's spectacular calf muscles here
contracting as he's lifting and down good slow and steady lifting right up
and down and you can do these at home. Four to go and down and so those muscles
are contracting and pumping that blood back into your circulation. Two to go good and one more time
and down. All right Gary let's now do the same calf pump exercise that I was doing
in bed just a moment ago. So I need you to extend your legs out in front
and with this one. It's good if your legs are straight, point your toes down and now lift
your feet right back up. Good go again taking them down and lift up keep it going down and
you're doing really nicely with those that's great. You can see your calf muscles contracting
and so we're going to do four more and so you'll be doing these when you're sitting out of bed
and you haven't been moving very much and just probably up to ten at a time would be great.
Let's do one more of those and taking it down so coming back you've probably
done some of these in your travels when you've traveled? yeah and on the plane? Yeah exactly.
All right so our next one this is our last seated one seated exercise we're going to lift up and
extend out contract your quads good bring it back in and down. You're a natural! Lift it up
take it out good back in and down and again lifting up that's it so your quads are tightening
pushing all the blood back through to your system and one more time out and back and down
great Gary. So doing those every hour while you're sitting out of bed would be great.
Thanks for coming in. No worries. Okay so we're finishing off with a couple of standing exercises
that you can do also too when you're resting in bed recovering from illness. The first exercise
you can do is a calf raise. Very simple you can do it leaning against the back of the chair
or you could do it leaning against a wall if you feel a little bit unstable and basically you're
lifting up onto the balls of your feet and down so quite similar to what you saw us do sitting
just a moment ago with Gary and again lifting up and again down. I probably should let you see my
calf muscles and you can see how much the calves work with that exercise so that's what you're
after muscle contraction to keep the blood moving through your system. We'll do a couple more there
and down and one more time and down. Now our next one is a little squat so you can do a little
reach out and back up and again reaching out so I'm also using my thighs, my bottom muscles
here so this is a particularly good circulation exercise and out and back just as many as you
feel comfortable doing and back and we'll do one more there and back and finally you can finish
off with some marching on the spot or walking which is obviously one of your best circulation
exercises. So you can do some walking on the spot swinging your arms and legs lifting your knees if
you don't feel like walking around or short walks intermittently during the course of the day.
So I think you can see there's a lot of exercises you can do regardless of the position you're in
either the lying down exercises, the sitting exercises that we went through with Gary or also
to your standing exercises and most importantly walking too when you can. So I really hope these
exercises help you stay active during your recovery help you avoid or reduce your risk
of blood clots forming during a recovery and if you like the video please like it below because
that'll help other people find the video too. I'll see you next time thanks for watching today.