- Hi, my name is Pam Lichtenstein, Exercise Physiologist,
and I'm here to welcome you
to our Get Active Cancer Survivorship Program.
It is sponsored to you by OSF Cancer Services
and Medical Exercise.
Exercise is a crucial part of you recovering
and regaining strength, balance, energy
and also to help you fight the negative side effects
of treatment.
Like neuropathy, and pain, and weakness, and fatigue.
Always, our goal is to help you build back confidence
and give you hope to live life as normal as possible.
Next thing that is most important to us
is to create a safe environment for you to do this exercise
with least risk of falling or any other kind of injury.
So things to keep in mind.
Create a space that's at least six to eight feet
free of clutter or furniture, et cetera.
Also have a chair handy
so that if you need some assistance with balance,
you've got that.
As well as making sure you've got plenty of water available,
if and when you need that.
One more thing that we want to make sure you remember,
is that if you have any symptoms that are abnormal to you,
like chest pain, dizziness, lightheadedness,
anything of that nature,
we would want you to immediately stop, have a seat,
take a rest.
And if those symptoms or feelings linger,
we would want you to get in touch with your doctor
or if emergently, contact 911.
Otherwise we look forward
to you coming to get active with us.
Welcome, to our general warmup.
This is just something that is designed
to help get your body ready to go, moving open,
feeling good.
And you would wanna do this
before any of the other exercise videos
that are in this series.
And with me to join me is my coworker, Jenny.
And she's gonna be showing some modifications
that you can do.
And I've also got our friend Eunice,
who is a participant in our program.
So, hope you're ready to get started, 'cause here we go.
We're just gonna march in place.
All right, and then with that marching,
we're just gonna tap that heel in front
and curl our arms up.
And again, this is all at your pace.
So if this is too fast for you,
you slow it down and do how needed.
And we also have Jenny doing it from the chair.
Okay.
And now we're just gonna take a step
and we're gonna tap and press our arms down.
Getting those legs moving out.
Hope you're feeling good.
And then we're just gonna take those arms a little higher
and we're gonna push across.
And then we're gonna push arms up.
Good.
All right, let's take it back to a march here for a moment.
How are we doing?
All right.
So now we're gonna tap our toes out in front.
So here we go.
So tap it out.
Just try to reach out with a hand,
getting those shoulders involved.
(gentle music)
All right.
Next, we're gonna tap our toe behind us.
So tap it back.
And if you want, you can raise both arms,
or you can continue like Eunice is doing
just one arm at a time.
Very good.
And we'll bring it back to a march.
Now, to get these knees and hips warmed up,
we're just gonna start with a knee lift.
So we're gonna pull it up and if we can,
you're gonna pull down.
And now that you got really good at that,
we're gonna get those knees opened up
and do a heel curl behind us.
And you're gonna pull back.
And if you ever need to,
you can take out the arms and just do the legs.
All right.
How are we feeling gang?
Good.
All right.
Now, let's hold that here still.
And you can either keep the feet moving
or you can hold them still.
Let's just start to open up those arms.
We're opening those rotator cuffs,
keeping the elbows right in by your side.
All right.
Now from here, let's take those elbows up and out.
Again, just opening that shoulder joint.
Good.
All right, last one right here.
Now, we're gonna take these arms up in front.
Let's open that chest, and back.
So remember, we're opening,
don't force any joint through range that's too tight.
And if it's painful, we don't want you pushing through that.
So always modify that move as you need to,
to make it comfortable for you.
All right, last one here.
Now, hold those arms out, elbows at shoulder height.
We're just gonna do a little bit more rotator cuff.
And if you notice, Eunice has great range of motion
without those shoulders dropping.
Mine's a little tight there, so that's okay.
Remember, your goal is not to compete with any of us,
but to do what feels good for you.
All right, bring those arms all the way down.
So roll that out, good job.
Okay.
So the next thing is gonna involve a little bit of balance.
So we're going to be rolling these wrists round
and at the same time, you're going to roll that ankle.
So, you can either be seated for this,
or if you need some support,
you gotta reverse and go the other way now.
You could always use the back of a chair
to be able to do that.
Let's switch and do the other leg.
So again, just rolling that toe, making those circles.
Let's reverse and do the other way.
Good.
All right.
And hold that still.
Let's do some shoulder shrugs, up and down.
Now that those muscles are nice and warm.
Now, add a roll back as we take it up,
roll those shoulders backward, up.
Very good.
All right.
Last one here.
Good.
Now, we're gonna work these lower legs.
And again, this is one of those things
that helps to build some balance
and strengthen those ankles.
So we've got our toes and in a pigeon toed form,
and all you're gonna do
is we're gonna come up on those toes
and then down on the heels, lift your toes as best you can.
So we're just gonna repeat that.
If you like to have something to do with your hands,
you can either lift them up.
And if you notice,
there is also Jenny showing our lowest modification.
So if you need to be sitting,
you can just do that from the chair.
And Eunice is showing
using just the chair for a little bit of balance support.
All right, so we've done those toes in.
Now, we wanna turn those toes out, same thing,
working lots of range of motion.
So again, up and down.
Try to lift those toes on the down.
So this isn't a race,
I want you to do it at a pace that builds that strength,
but also keeps you balanced and supported.
So we're always also trying to keep
our belly button pulled back toward that backbone
to support that back.
Okay, hold that there.
Then, we've also got a stride.
So we've got those toes straight ahead,
we're gonna add in some upper body with it.
So we come up on those toes and down.
That's right.
So up and down.
If you notice we're not perfect at it either,
so we don't expect that of you either.
You do the best job you can, find the balance
of building that back without overdoing.
And then of course, we're gonna pause
and you gotta switch into the other foot it as well.
And we're gonna take it up.
And you may notice that one foot forward
versus the other one,
might be a little more challenging to your balance.
That's not necessarily uncommon,
but we do wanna shore that up.
So maybe do the tougher side a couple of times more.
All right, and relax, good job.
Now, we're just gonna build in some general squats.
So if you want, you can do it either behind the chair,
you can do it from a chair sitting and standing,
or you can do it free.
So we're just gonna take these hands right here
at our chest, we're gonna pull those hips down and back,
making sure to keep those knees over those ankles,
abs in to support that back
and drive up through those heels.
So we're gonna take it down and up.
And you can even have your hands crossed on those shoulders.
So down and up.
And again, those toes should be able to wiggle
at the bottom.
Making sure you're driving that weight through those heels.
Last one, and up, very good.
All right, we've got a couple more things to go.
So I want you to take an even wider step apart,
as long as that feels comfortable.
If not, you're gonna bring those feedback together,
but we're gonna do some side to side lunges.
Okay.
So if you notice, we're just trying to pull those hips back,
as we drop down to the side.
Notice Jenny is in front of a chair,
so that if she'd feel like she was gonna lose her balance,
she could just sit down.
Otherwise you also have doing it from behind a chair,
to make sure that you have the ability to reach out
and have some support as needed.
All right.
So those are side to side lunges.
Last but not least, is our alternating stepping forward,
just to build in some stability for those knees
and just brainwork, balance, work, all of that.
So we're just gonna step forward into our heel,
push off through the heel and together.
And you're just gonna alternate
from one side to the other.
Good.
So try not to rock that weight into your toes.
Try to keep that weight on the heel,
push off.
Abs are always in, and shoulders are back.
All right, one more each side.
And then all we're gonna do, a similar thing,
only now we're gonna be stepping behind you.
So make sure again, your space is clear
and you're just gonna step back.
Bring that heel down to the floor.
And again, alternating from side to side.
Take your time.
Very good.
It's a nice gentle stretch for that calf at the same time.
And again, not quite as wide as steps
is a nice way to do that.
And you're warmed up and ready to go.
(gentle music)