Hi and welcome to pelvic exercises, I'm Michelle Kenway. Today I'd like to show you three terrific
exercises to address the bone health of your hips. These are actually Osteoporosis Exercises
specifically designed to improve the bone health of your hips, and also to to protect your pelvic
floor. Many women living with both pelvic floor issues and osteoporosis or decreased bone density
issues have a lot of trouble exercising safely knowing that what they're doing for their bone
health is effective, but also too protective for their pelvic floor. So these exercises you
can be assured that they are protected for your pelvic floor not going to place undue
pressure on your pelvic floor, and also to gain to effectively address the bone health of your hips.
So the first exercise is called a Clam Exercise. Terrific little exercise to address bone health
of your hips, especially if your bone health is decreased. Remember, before starting that,
if you already have osteoporosis or decreased bone density in your hips, be sure to get your
doctor's approval to exercise. And that's always the case for starting any new exercise program if
you haven't exercised previously, also, to make sure the exercises are all pain free,
you shouldn't feel any discomfort while you're exercising. So let's get started.
Here's our first exercise, it's a Clam Exercise, I'm going to lie on to my side, I'm going to put
my feet roughly in line with my bottom bones and I'm going to lie down on my side comfortably. If
you need to use a pillar to support your neck, that's absolutely fine. You can see that's
the position I'm in with my bent legs, and my head down. Now the clam exercise involves you
lifting your top knee just away from the bottom needs only a very small lift. Don't think it's
a case of the higher the better. If you lifted high, you're going to start to use your back,
we don't want to use that back in this exercise, we really want to isolate it specifically into
the hip. To load my bones a little bit more, I'm actually going to use a dumbbell here, and
I'm going to place I've got a two kilo dumbbell, you might like to start with no dumbbell or then
start to gradually use a lighter weight, maybe a kilo placed as close to my knees, I can and I'm
going to do that same exercise looking at top knee away from my bottom knee, slowly lifting, slowly
lowering down. As you can see, keeping that really nice form. My head's protected my next protected,
and I'm really just exercising into the muscles around my head, slow and steady. For any bone
health exercise remember we tried to do to lots of eight at that specific exercise and I'm hoping
I'm about five here I've been busy talking and not counting. Let's call this number six, slow,
steady movement not too high, keeping my knees in line with each other and one more time lifting up
and slowly lowering down making sure that you lower that weight down slowly when you perform
that exercise. Now, obviously, you'd repeat that exercise again on this side and also to then
perform it the same exercise on the other leg in that same position at home and all optimally
alternate days of the week. So two to three times a week to effectively address your bone health.
The second exercise is side leg raise so staying effectively in that similar
position or same position, I'm going to keep my bottom leg slightly bent, I'm going to take the
top leg now straight this time, I might move a little bit higher so you can actually see that
my toe is pointed downwards. Again, I'm going to use a dumbbell weight along the line of my
thigh. You can at home use a cuff weight around your ankle to really effectively strengthen
through your hip with his exercise so here's my position my toes pointing down to a really
effectively use my muscles around my hip and that way, stimulate some bone growth in my hip,
and I'm going to lift that leg, just a small if you can see it's not too high my legs, in fact,
just about level with the rest of my trunk and slowly lowering down. And again lifting up and
slowly lowering down. Can you see how I've got my toe pointed downwards and I'm really
exercising into those hip muscles, I can actually see my toe in front of my body as
I looked down so I know that my legs in a good position, I shouldn't have that leg forward,
and again lifting and I think we're at number five here and slowly down. And again, that exercise
should be painfully and slowly down. Last couple of nice steady breathing, lifting the leg and
down and one last time lifting up lowering it down slowly and taking a break. And as I said earlier,
you perform that exercise a couple of times on each side and then move on to your next exercise.
Our final exercise is a bridging exercise today. This is an exercise that's great for
hips and also too effective for your bet so if you've been diagnosed with decreased into bone
density in your back, also a great exercise to effectively address those both those areas. So
for this exercise, I'm going to firm surface again going to roll over onto my back. I'm
actually going to do us two ways this time. But I'm at home, if you're starting this exercise,
you might like to even start with no weight so I'm relaxed through my head and shoulders,
I've got my heels nice and close to my bottom. Here's my dumbbell weights,
and I'm going to place them gently onto my hips, roll my shoulders back and down,
I'm going to push down through my heels and I'm going to lift my bottom off the ground up to that
position there, and slowly down. My knees are actually fists with the part and they stay face
with the part throughout the entire exercise, my feet are the same so they're about hip width
apart approximately, as you lift in lower. So lifting up, push down through your heels,
lift your bottom, and then make sure you slowly lower down. And again, lifting up so bottom up
and slowly lower lowering down, somebody is find that the bridging exercise can cause their backs
to become sore. If that's the case, if you'll find that the back sore, don't lift too high,
so you might find that just doing a smaller lift like this keeps you back comfortable, it
will still help to improve your hip bone density, so that's a way of just modifying that exercise
if you need to, if you're someone with a sore back that gets a sore back with this exercise.
Okay, let's do one more of those exercises, lifting up, put them up, and then slowly lowering
your bottom down and take a break. And again at home, you perform that exercise again for another
eight repetitions to again effectively address your own health. So what have we done, we've
done three terrific exercises for buying health of your hips. We've done a clam exercise, which
was that sideline leg lift, which is a sideline straight leg raise, and we also did our bridging
exercise Lying on our back. Now you'd be gradually increasing the weight that you use. For the first
couple of weeks, you might use no way at all remembering that you will show that always use a
way that feels comfortable, increasingly, lifting a heavier weight so that you're stimulating that
bone growth. If you'd like to see some more great bone health exercises, please see my bone fit DVD
available at pelvicexercises.com.au and feel free to visit our site for more great free
training videos and therapy articles. Thanks so much for exercising with me today and enjoy
their exercise session. I look forward to exercising with you soon. Bye for now.