Hi I'm Michelle and today I'm going to take you through some exercises to help your recovery
after Covid-19. Now these are really gentle strength exercises you can do them either in
your bed or over the side of the bed or sitting in a chair if you prefer to now
just so that you know the exercises can sometimes or when you start to exercise after being unwell
you might start to feel a little bit breathless so if you feel breathless
I want you just to take a rest and then start again when you feel recovered remembering you
can often feel dizzy or lightheaded and sometimes when you start to exercise it can make you cough
a little bit that's okay just stop and have a rest and then continue. So what we'll be doing
is starting on the sides of the bed so if you can take the time just to now position yourself
on the side of your bed feet down flat. Try not to have socks on so I've got bare feet here where I
am at the moment although you probably can't see but that's just so I don't slip on the ground.
To start I want you to sit nice and tall let's start with some shoulder rolls.
Now bring your shoulders forward and around up towards your ears and back
and down and as you probably know when you're sitting in bed for a long time or resting in bed
your neck and shoulders can get quite stiff so we're just doing a couple little warm-up stretches
just before we start. One more roll nice big circle forward up back and around let's link
our fingers together and now roll your shoulders forward and reach out in front and take your
chin down towards your chest and stretch right out just take it slowly slow steady breathing
and let's bring it back in and now let's take the hands I'm going to link my fingers out behind
just so you can see me there so I'm just doing the same thing again lifting up and once again
lift as high as you can just to stretch out your chest and take your chin down towards your chest.
and slowly bring your arms down. Now I'm just going to show you how to deep breathe before
we start these exercises and if you need to take a break at any time stop and do a
couple of these deep breathing exercises bring your hands up around your rib cage
and I'd like you to breathe in slowly and deeply through your nose now when you breathe in
slowly and deeply. Your hands should move wide here so that you can get the air to the base of
your lungs. So this is really important after you've been unwell particularly if you've had
a chest infection with Covid-19. So let's breathe in slow and deep in through the nose
and let the air just fall away. Don't worry if this makes you start to cough. Sometimes
when you start to breathe deeply it can make you cough and that's okay. Here we go again
breathing in slow and deep fill up your lungs great and let the air fall away.
Alright we're going to start here with some sit to stands. So I'd like you to bring your hands down
on the sides of the bed, feet evenly apart and you're going to push down through your feet and
just come up into semi-standing. So here we go lifting up slowly and coming back down slowly. Now
you'll make most of your strength gains on the way down so lower your body down slowly. Resist the
temptation just to plonk yourself down back on the bed. Here's number three lifting up we're going to
number five if you're wondering how many I'm going to take you through to. So just slow and steady
and here's the last one number five and come back down and just take a
moment have a nice deep breath in the way I showed you before breathing in
and slowly out. Now I'd like you to lift one leg up and take it down other leg up so we're doing
a little bit of marching here. So lifting up and down and lifting up and down this is number three
I'm going to see if we can go through to ten on these if you can and down and lifting up
and down and lifting we've got one more time each side just stay with it if you can slow and steady
and lifting up and down and just have a breather nice big breath in
and out. Now if it's too hard for you to get up and stand and march on the
spot you can continue with the marching in that seated position even in a chair
otherwise I'd like you to bring your shoulders forward over your knees and come into standing.
Just coming right up and we're just going to do some marching on the spot.
Try and lift your knees high if you can try to swing your arms if you can as well. And
again we're just doing ten marches on the spot I'm trying to count while I talk. This is eight
and nine and ten and feel for the bed before you come down. Make sure it's behind your thighs
and then slowly lower your body down and just take a moment, slow deep breath in
and out. And again nice deep breath in and slowly out. Now you can repeat that again if
you'd like to with the marching and the sit to stands otherwise you can move into lying
onto the bed the way I'm going to show you. So coming down sideways is the safest way.
So coming down rolling down and then rolling onto your back now in this position we're going to do
some strength exercises for our bottom and this is a really nice way of strengthening through
your bottom and taking pressure off your back while you're resting in bed. So head down on the
pillow push down through your heels and breathe out as you lift up so breathing out and lifting up
and slowly down. So here we're strengthening the muscles of your bottom
and taking pressure off your low back as well. Just lift as high as it feels comfortable for you
and we'll do three more of these slow and steady lifting up push through your heels
and just lift to where it feels comfortable
and one more time push through your heels lift up and come down slowly.
Alright let's bring your knees just slightly apart and just take a little roll to one side
and back to center and the other side. This is a lovely exercise just to loosen up your lower back
particularly if you've been resting in bed for quite some time. Now let's slide our feet down and
I want you to take a look at my feet. Let's extend one leg and the other leg and these are calf
pumps. They're a really nice exercise to reduce your risk of getting clot in your calves. So
clots can form when you don't move so it's really important that you're moving your feet up and down
ten times. So I think I'm coming up to number four here and this is a really nice gentle exercise you
can do anytime that you're resting in bed because clots can actually then travel through your body
to your lungs so we want to try and prevent that and just these simple exercises can help
that. And we'll do three more lifting up right up pointing your toes up and now point your toes down
and lift up and down and yes I do have big feet if anyone's going to comment below I'm aware okay.
And let's slide one foot up and the other foot up and we're going to again do another five bridges
arms down by your side and remember to breathe in and breathe out as you lift. Here we go one
and down and two just slowly remembering you can take a break at any time and three
and down two to go up and down and one more time and taking it down now you can bring one
knee into your chest if that feels comfortable just stretching out through your bottom and down
and the other side. Just bring the knee gently in towards the chest
and taking it down and let's just finish off with some rolls so again rolling to one side. Always
keep your feet flat on the bed when you do this. Don't raise them off the ground or the bed and
the other side. And again this is a really lovely exercise to do when you're resting in bed just to
take the pressure off your lower back and your bottom. One more time each side and coming back
and back to center. Okay now we are done. So with this little routine you can do this routine two or
three times during the course of the day whenever you feel you'd like to move and do some safe
movement remembering that walking is also a really great exercise for your recovery after Covid 19.
Now just before we finish I'd like to show you a resting position that can help you breathe
during the course of the day. Okay so this is a nice little way to elevate your body in bed
if you lie flat all the time it makes it harder to breathe. It's much easier to breathe when your
body's raised which is why it's important to spend some time sitting out of bed if you can
but if you need to rest up in the bed if you get a pillow and then cross it over with another pillow
and then put one pillow across the top in that formation that then helps you to elevate your body
while you're resting the other thing you can do is to use a sleeping wedge. So I've got a sleeping
wedge here as well which is very handy I'll put it down this end so I can show you that way.
So you can get these these wedges online or if you get my app you can see here you can see a link to
amazon and bed wedges that you might find helpful too if you're going to be resting for a long time
in bed and you can also place a pillow on that and you can see this is quite a comfortable one.
I just use my pillows here for resting upright in bed too. The only thing is if you are going to be
resting up for some period of time it can put some pressure on your lower back so once again it's
important to spend some time resting upright and then also spend some time lying flat, sitting out
of bed and also too walking. So if you've got any questions I'd really love to hear in the comments
below and I really hope these exercises help you with your recovery. I wish you all the best for
your speedy return to health and fitness. Thanks so much for watching, I'll see you next time.