I'm Will Riddick and on this Walk Talk my colleague Tracy Rauk is going to be
Hi,
teaching new exercises to help improve your strength, endurance,
and stability while walking, but first we do have a few disclaimers ...
Great. Now that we've got those out of the way,
these exercises are really quick to perform.
Taking only about 10 minutes per day.
They're also very easy to do in the comfort of your own home.
For exercises performed laying down,
we recommend that they be performed on a hard surface such as the floor rather
than your comfy bed. I'm now going to turn things over to Tracy in the clinic.
I'm here with Aasha and we are going to start off with an exercise called bridging.
This exercise works a muscle that helps you stand up straight and to power you
through your walk. Here's how you do a bridge. Aasha,
I'm going to start off by having you bend both your knees.
You're going to tighten up your belly muscles,
lift your pelvis up off the mat and squeeze those cheeks together.
You're going to keep everything nice and tight as you come back down.
Good. Let's do it one more time. Belly muscles tight.
Lift your pelvis up off the mat, squeeze those cheeks together.
Keep everything tight as you come back down. Perfect.
So you'll notice while Aasha was doing that she wasn't letting her knees come
together or spread apart and she was keeping her pelvis nice and level,
not one side higher than the other. So let's aim to do 10 of those in a row.
Our next exercise is the straight leg raise.
This exercise works a set of muscles on the front of your leg that helps support
your knee, especially when going up and down stairs, ramps, and hills.
All right, Aasha,
what I'm going to have you do is bend this by bending that knee it protects her
back.
She's going to go ahead and tighten the muscle on the front of your leg trying
to make this like as straight as possible.
She's going to lift this leg keeping it straight up to the level of her other
knee.
She's going to hold it for three seconds and then we're going to slowly lower it
down. Two and three. Good,
Aasha, let's do it one more time.
Straighten this leg nice and tight on the front.
You're going to lift this leg keeping it nice and straight. Good.
She's going to hold it for three seconds. Good,
and we're going to lower back down two and three.
Perfect. The goal here is going to be to do 10 in a row,
but if you can't do 10 start with five. Next,
we're going to cover an exercise called the clamshell.
This exercise is for a small but very important muscle that helps stabilize your
hips and improve your posture while walking.
You're going to lie on your side just like Aasha here,
and you're going to have your feet together, your knees together,
and being aligned from your shoulders, your back, and your feet.
Your goal here is to open up your knees while keeping your ankles together.
Go ahead and lift up. Open here, Aasha. Ankles stay together.
Good and you're going to close. You'll notice that Aasha's body isn't moving.
She's keeping her stomach muscles nice and tight so that when she opens that
leg, all of her power is coming from this muscle back in her hip.
Good and close. One more time, Aasha. Nice and high.
Should feel that in the back of the hip, right here. Good and close.
The goal here is to do 10 in a row. If you can't do 10, again,
start with five and build your way up.
Now that we've targeted some specific muscles,
we're going to stand up and put them all together.
Our first standing exercise is the squat.
This is a great functional exercise that strengthens many of the muscles
essential for walking.
It's also a movement that we perform constantly throughout the day,
especially when we're getting out of a chair. All right,
Aasha go ahead and face the mat here and you'll do this at the kitchen sink.
You'll put your hands on the mat,
you're gonna keep your head up and your back nice and flat and you're gonna come
down into a squat about to there. You're going to come right back up.
Perfect. Let's do it again. Aasha,
come on down and you'll notice her knees do not go in front of her toes.
Her back stays nice and flat and her head is up.
She's gonna push through her heels,
but keeping her toes engaged with the ground. Awesome. Again,
let's make a goal of about 10 but start with five and build yourself up.
The last exercise we're going to cover is a step up.
Now you can perform this at home, at your stairs.
Just make sure to hold onto that handrail. All right, Aasha,
go ahead and bring your right leg up on the step.
You're going to go ahead and bring your momentum forward and step up and bring
your left leg up to your chest. Good and back down. One more time.
Come straight up and back down.
Now I'm watching Aasha's knee to make sure that it goes straight over her second
toe, not too far in, not too far out.
I'm also having her push through her heel here. Okay,
so that she doesn't let her knee drive all the way forward in front of her toes.
Let's see it one more time, Aasha, up and back down.
Good. Now the step-up isn't for everyone because it requires some pretty serious
strength to perform,
but if you're up for the task and it doesn't hurt your knees or hips,
start with five and build your way up to 10 on each side. Okay.
These should get you started and walking with a little bit more pep in your
step. That's it for me. Back to you, Will.
Thanks Tracy. As part of this video,
we've also created an exercise sheet for you that helps you to remember these
exercises.
You can find the link to this in the description below and be on the lookout for
our next Walk Talk as we cover tips and tricks for getting around obstacles in
the community such as curbs, ramps, crowds, and uneven terrain.
And be sure to like this video by hitting the thumbs up and comment about what
you might like to see in our ongoing Walk Talk series.
To find out more about Mission Gait,
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