How to INSTANTLY Improve Leg Circulation and Blood Flow

In this video, I'm going to show you how to instantly improve circulation and blood flow in your legs. Stay tuned. Hey everyone, Dr. Rowe coming to you from SpineCare in St. Joseph, Michigan. In this video, we're going to go over really easy exercises that will quickly improve blood flow and circulation in the legs. I'm going to show the video in different parts that are going to focus on different positions. That way you can do these in bed, in a chair, even standing. Go through them all. Use what gives you the best results. As a bonus, all of exercises can be done at home, require no special equipment, and you may find get quick results even within 30 seconds. With that being said, let's get started. Let's start with some really easy leg circulation exercises that you can do in bed or on a floor. Just start lying flat on your back just like this. You can use a pillow or rolled up towel underneath your neck too if you need a little bit more support. Let's straighten our legs just like this. The first one is going to be called a toe pointer. Very straightforward. We're just going to take our feet and point our toes away from us as much as we can, really focusing on trying to engage as many muscles in the legs as you can. You're going to hold this comfortably for a second and then you're going to do the opposite. Let's bring those toes back towards us as much as we can. I really feel this one in the calves. Again, holding this comfortably for a second. You're just going to relax and then repeat this 10 times in both directions. With each repetition, try to build into it just a little bit more. You really want to focus on engaging these muscles throughout the legs as much as we can. From here, we're going to do what is known as windshield wipers. Kind of like a windshield wiper, we're just going to turn our toes and feet towards one way as much as we can. Hold that for a second and then go in the opposite direction. When I do this exercise, I really like to move through my ankles to begin with and then take it a little bit more until I really start to feel it around my hips. That's when I'm going to hold it for a second. Again, let's do this one 10 times on both sides. Now, we're going to take it to the next level and focus a little bit more on these legs right here. This one is going to be called a foot slider. Let's bend our knees like this. Keep our feet flat. What you're going to do is slowly straighten one leg forward like this, pointing your toes away from you as much as you can at the same time. Once you feel a deep activation of that leg right here, you're going to hold that for a second and then you're just going to slide it back while now sliding the other leg out like this at the same time. It's kind of like a nice fluid movement like this 10 times on both sides. Let's take this one to the next level by bending our knees at 90 degrees just like this. Our knees should be roughly 90 degrees and our knees should be pointed up towards the ceiling. You want to bring your knees back towards your chest just slightly until you start to feel the muscles on the top part of the leg start to engage. This will include the quadriceps and the hip flexor muscles. Once we feel that, we're then going to do very similar movements like we did earlier. Let's do that toe pointer. We're going to hold this position and now point our toes away from us, holding that for a second and then bringing them back like this. It just makes it a little bit more challenging and hopefully we'll get that blood flowing just a little bit more 10 times in both directions. And then from there, we're going to do our windshield wipers. But this is just a really easy way to get a lot more circulation in the legs in bed and you can do this throughout the day anytime that you need it. So let's move on to some really easy exercises that you can do seated. I find that scooting more towards the edge of a chair works the best for this one. To get into position, have very good upright posture. Have your back as straight as possible. You want your legs roughly hip width apart, knees bent at 90 degrees, and start off with your feet flat. We're going to begin with a movement called a heel toe raise. Very straightforward. I'm going to take the balls of my feet and also my toes and press them into the floor and then raise up on my heels like this. So I'm driving my heels upward towards the ceiling as much as I can. When you do this, you're going to feel a really good activation of the muscles in the leg, including the calves. You want to hold this one comfortably for a second or two and then you're going to go in reverse. So now press your heels into the floor and raise your toes upward towards the ceiling as much as you can. It'll hit But what you want to do is this right here for five repetitions. With each repetition, try to build into it just a little bit more. If you would like to take this one to the next level, as you press down with your heels and raise your toes up, go as far as you can. Hold that position and now do a windshield wiper. So take your toes gently towards one side as much as you can. Hold that for a second or two and then repeat on the other side. So give that one a try. You'll probably find that it helps out just a little bit more. So we're now going to move on to what is called a heel slider. So let's get back into our original position. For this one, I'm going to slide one heel out and I'm going to keep contact on the floor. So gently press your heel into the floor and then slide it away from you as much as you can, straightening your knee. When you can't go any further, you're then going to press your toes downward towards the floor, kind of like pressing into a gas pedal. You should feel a really good activation of the muscles throughout the leg, including right here on the top of your thigh. You're going to hold this position right here comfortably for a second or two. You're going to relax and then you're going to repeat on the other side. You want to do this one nice and slowly for five repetitions on both sides. So if you'd like to take this one to the next level and make it a little bit more challenging and hopefully strengthen these muscles, this is what you can do. So let's get back into our original position like this. Press those toes away from you as much as you can and now slowly lift your leg upward, keeping your leg straight. So just lift it up towards the ceiling as much as you can. This will really challenge those muscles. You should feel it right here on the front of your thigh and I would try to hold this for about five seconds and then just kind of lower it down like this and then repeat on the other side. You can do that for five repetitions. Just make sure that whatever you do on one side to do on the other to keep everything in balance. So the last position that we're going to do is a simple marching motion. For this one, just take your hands, grab off to the side of the chair for support. Let's get back into our original position and we're just going to march one leg up like this. So driving the knee upward towards the ceiling. When you do this, you should feel those hip flexors right here on the top part of your thigh start to engage. It goes right towards the groin. You want to hold this one comfortably for a second or two. You're going to relax it and then repeat on the other side. Again, let's try to do this one for five repetitions on both sides. To take this one to the next level, what we can do is get back into that position and now do a twirling motion with our ankle. So let's lift that leg up as much as we can, hold this position, and do a big wide circle with our toes. I like to do this for about five repetitions going clockwise and then I switch it up and go counterclockwise. From there, I just repeat on the other side. So here's a really easy set of exercises that you can do standing. The great part about these ones is they're going to be more focused on strengthening the legs too. So for this, we're going to go next to a staircase. You're going to step up on the bottom stair so it should look just like this. You want your legs roughly hip width apart and the nice thing is too is you can grab off to the side just like this for support if needed. But have your heels off the edge of that step and all of your body weight onto the balls of your feet and toes. Let's start off by doing a simple heel raise. So we're going to lift our heels upward towards the ceiling as much as we can. As you do this, you're going to feel a really good activation of the muscles in the leg, especially the calves. You want to hold this one comfortably for three to five seconds and then you're going to go in reverse. So lowering your heels downward towards the floor. This time around, it should feel more like a deep stretch in your calves and if your step isn't that high, kind of like with my step-up board right here and your heels touch the floor, no big deal. You just want a nice comfortable stretch. Again, holding that one for three to five seconds and then you're going to repeat this one nice and slowly for five repetitions. With each repetition, build into it just a little bit more. To take this one to the next level, let's add a stepping motion in there to help a little bit more with the knees and target some more muscles. So let's go right up to our step. We're going to do that heel raiser again for about five seconds. We're going to relax and then step up on the board and then repeat, lifting our heels up and then just kind of coming back down like this. You want to do this whole cycle for about five repetitions and again with each repetition, try to build into it just a little bit more. So let's move on to one of my favorite exercises, the wall sit or the wall squat. With this one, it's going to focus a little bit more on strengthening the glutes and also helping with our lower back. So for this, you need a flat surface like a wall but you can also use something like a doorframe. You're going to put your whole backside flush against it. Put your feet out slightly in front of you just like this, legs roughly hip-width apart. You're going to put all of your body weight onto your heels during this exercise and slightly point your toes out about five to ten degrees. It helps take tension off of the knees. So once we're in that position, we're then going to tighten our core, brace it. It's kind of like taking your belly button towards your spine and then you're going to squeeze the glutes. From there, we're just going to do a sitting or squatting motion. So slide downward as much as you can. The more that you go down, the more challenging this will be. You should really start to feel those legs start to fire. This will really get that blood flowing. Once you feel the activation of the muscles in the legs and the glutes right here, you're going to hold this position for about five seconds and then you're going to come back up, take a breather, and then repeat this one five to ten times and with each repetition, try to build into it just a little bit more. If the exercises helped, please support the channel by giving this video a like and maybe subscribing too. If you have any comments or questions, please leave them below. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks for watching!