Walk a Quarter of a Mile with Me! Sitting Down! with Sherry Zak Morris, Certified Yoga Therapist

All right, we're going to do a couple of rounds of sun salutations. As many of you know, I do eight rounds because it's equivalent to walking a quarter of a mile in terms of your cardiovascular endurance. So if you don't get your steps in today, this is going to be really good to kind of complement that. So first thing is we're going to have our feet flat on the floor. Remember when we started how we felt that the pinkies and the big toes are touching. Knees are over the ankles so they're not scooted back or scooted too far forward. What about your posture? How are you feeling? Good, yay. You look straight, too. You look very straight. OK, hands to your heart. So that means you're not using anything but your muscles to keep yourself upright. Good, you guys look good. On your inhale, we're going to reach those arms up. Exhale, arms in cactus. Good. Take a breath, inhale. Exhale, tilt halfway down, but pull the elbows back. That's the most important part. Good, you got it. Take a breath. Exhale, hands to kneecaps, and we're going to slide down towards the floor. You can go to your shins, your ankles, the floor, doesn't matter. Just don't push yourself. Inhale, we're halfway up. That means hands are to your kneecaps, and we're arching and lifting our chin up. Good. Exhale, we're taking the fold down. Inhale, just the right arm goes out to the side, and we're looking at the thumb. It doesn't have to go high to begin with. Good, bring it down. And then inhale that left arm out. Look at your thumb, and bring it back. Then there's a big circle all the way to the top. Maybe even touch your hands. Good. And exhale, back to the heart center. I love it, you guys. I hear you breathing. Good, so here we go. Inhale up. Exhale, arms and cactus halfway down. Take a breath. Inhale. Hands to kneecaps, slide down. Inhale, we're arching halfway. Exhale, we're bowing. Inhale, that right arm is going out. We're looking. Lower it. Inhale, that left arm is going out. And lower it. And the big circle, pull your belly in on this one. Inhale, take it to the top. Exhale, back to heart center. Good. One more like that, and then we add things. So inhale, lifting up. Exhale, halfway down. And remember, elbows are pulled back. Take your breath. Hands to kneecaps, start to slide towards the floor. Inhale, we're halfway. We're strengthening our back with that back bend. Good. Exhale, we're folding. Inhale, the right arm is reaching out. And exhale, lower. Inhale, that left arm. Exhale, lower. Big circle takes us to the top, maybe looking up. And exhale, back to the heart center. Good. This time, we're going to add a twist. So inhale, coming up. Exhale, halfway down. Take that breath. Hands to kneecaps, slide all the way down. Inhale, we're halfway. Exhale, we're folding. Inhale, that right arm is out. Spread your fingers. Let it go down. Inhale, left arm all the way up. Good. Exhale, down. Inhale, arms all the way to the top. Exhale, arms into cactus. Hold it here. We're going to twist to the left on the exhale. So take an inhale. Exhale, twist to the left, to the center, to the right, to the center, and to your heart center. Beautiful. Here we go. Inhale, lift up, look up. Exhale, halfway down. Take your breath. Hands to kneecaps, slide all the way down. We're halfway through our marathon. Inhale, halfway up. Exhale, lower. Inhale, right arm. Exhale, lower. Inhale, left arm. Exhale, lower. Inhale, to the top again. Touch your fingertips. And exhale, bring it back to cactus. We're going to tilt to the left on the exhale. So here we go. Inhale. Exhale, tilt. The left elbow goes down. You guys got it. Back to the center and the other side. Back to the center and to your heart. Good. Now we'll add the feet. So inhale, lifting up. Exhale, lean halfway down. Take your big breath. Hands to kneecaps, slide towards the floor. Inhale, we're halfway. Exhale, we're bowing. Inhale, that right arm, straight elbow. Bring it down. Inhale, left arm. Exhale, bring it down. Inhale, both arms out in front of you, like you're holding a beach ball in front of you. Now, this is your core work. You're going to lean forward. You almost feel like you're going to just do a face plant, right? But you're holding strong. Toes are down. Heels are going to lift up now. So like you have high heels on. And push the balls of your feet down. Good. That strengthens your arches. Good. And then heels down. Inhale, lift. Hands to your heart. Two more. We can do it. Inhale, lift up, look up. Exhale, halfway down. Take your breath. Hands to kneecaps, slide towards the floor. Inhale, we're halfway. Exhale, we're folding. Inhale, that right arm reaches. And lower. Inhale, left arm. And lower. Hold that beach ball in front of you again. Remember, the work is in the lean. So if you could lean a little bit more, all the better. Good. Toes are up. Heels are down. And this time, you're going to spread your toes. And then you're going to wiggle them. Let me just see. You guys got it. Good. Toes are down. Inhale, lift. Hands back to the heart center. Last lap. Here we go. Inhale, lift up, look up. Exhale, halfway down. Take a breath. Hands to kneecaps, slide towards the floor. Inhale, we're halfway up. Exhale, we're folding. Inhale, the right arm is up. And lower. Inhale, that left arm is up. And lower. And take it all the way to the top, looking up to the sky and bringing it back to your heart center. Beautiful. Let's take a rest. Well-deserved. Come on, scooch on back. Just feel free to use the back of your chair. We good, you guys? All right. Did that give you a little bit of oomph to your cardiovascular system? I think so, huh? So just close your eyes. Just take a moment, just kind of feeling maybe the warmth in your body or a little bit more of your heart beating that's more obvious to you. Maybe you're just feeling overall a little bit more blood flow, let's say. Couple more deep breaths just to settle things down. And then flutter your eyes open. So I am always very interested in senior fitness, senior health. I think it's just a very important topic to me as I'm aging, as my parents age, as everybody in the world ages, right? And they always have these senior fitness tests all the time. And one of them is how well and how much you can get up and down off of the chair on your own. It's a very important part of independence. It absolutely is. Getting off the toilet, getting off the couch, out of your bed, all of that requires your core strength and your leg strength. That's why in every single class I do these blast-offs. Blast-offs are just coming up and down off the chair. But I know it's challenging for knees. It definitely is because you're straightening your knees and you're coming down. You're straightening your knees and coming down. I have a really good way to cheat. Anybody want to know it? It's a really good way to cheat. And it does just as good. It's called the butt lift. So some of the girls know this one. Some of you don't. So everybody, I want you to take your hands and I want you to squeeze your hands like this. So like this and go squeeze. When you do that squeeze, even like your biceps would pump out. Squeeze, right? You're going to do the same thing with your butt cheeks, OK? So I'm going to tell you like this. We're going to go squeeze. And you're going to pop up because your butt cheeks are really tight, right? And then you're going to release. And you're going to squeeze. You should get taller right now. OK, good. And down. And we're going to squeeze. Good. All right? So that's what you do. And if we're doing blast-offs, I want you to do that. Maybe even this time around, just try it because it's going to create so much strength in your glutes, which are really important for you to get up in your thighs, OK? So we're going to do 10 today, all right? Yeah, we're going to make it easy today. Why not? Just a straight 10. OK, so then the other thing is you can use your hands to help you up, right? Because that gives you momentum to come up. And if you feel like, no, I want all my legs and my core today, then your hands are on your shoulders. So all three of those options, butt lift, using your hands, or hands to your shoulders. We're going to do 10. We ready? Here we go. 10. And down. Good. 9. And down. Those butt lift, girls, really squeeze. Good. 8, 7, good, 6, 5. Good, 4, good job, 3, 2, 1, and blast off. We're to the top. All right, sit down. Take a little pause, a little break. Oh, that felt good, huh? How were the butt lifts, girls? It works, doesn't it? It really, really does. So you will find that your butt cheeks will be a little sore. OK, just warning you. But the more often you do it, it really, really works. And the first muscles that go as we age, I did the research on this, is the quads. Where are they? Where's your quads? The knees. That's why knees are always precarious, because the quads support the knees. And when the quads are weak, they can't support the knees. The knees kind of tend to kind of bunch together. The quads hold those knees and have a little space in those knees, right? And then the second thing that goes, I hate to tell you, is our butt muscles. They get kind of straight and flabby. So that's why the butt lift is really good for that.