Hi I’m Kelly from the activecumbria team and today I’d like to talk to you about physical activity, you won't need any equipment just a chair. First of all why physical activity? Well being physically active on a regular basis can bring about many benefits for both your mental and physical well-being, when we talk about physical activity this comes in all shapes and sizes, it's not just about team sports gym classes or going for a run but more on that in a little while. So in terms of the benefits first of all from a mental well-being we know that when we do physical activity our bodies release endorphins i.e our happy hormones, which in turn help us to feel better in mood reducing our stress and anxiety levels, whilst also giving us more energy; physical activity can also help us to sleep better. Studies have shown that regular physical activity can reduce the likelihood of experiencing a period of depression; from a physical perspective it can help us strengthen your heart and lungs improve your balance and muscular strength and also increase your flexibility and mobility, all of which help to reduce the risk of many long-term conditions including type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and stroke, and even some cancers.
But thinking a bit more specifically about diabetes physical activity has been shown to improve hb a1c levels and also reduce the risk of diabetes complications by managing blood pressure levels, these are just a few examples. Now I don't just want you to take my word for it I’d like you to listen to one of the stars from the sport England we are undefeatable campaign here's his story. (voice of Zahur Bukhari) I love dancing, I’m sorry I got to, I am I’m old people tell me oh my god you are no I’m not my name is Zahur, they call me Hari because Bukhari is my surname and I had the type 2 diabetes, I was diagnosed about around about 24 years ago, I used to play cricket, I used to play volleyball, I was very good in volleyball as well and basketball but when you go into the office and sit on your chair and computer in front of you and then you sit and say all right we have a good day let's go out and have a really slap up dinner, I was eating you know whatever comes in front of me and tasty food things like that and there I put my guard down, now this is the time that I got to think and I got to do something very very very serious. You educate yourself you got to broaden your mind and learn about the condition, the exercise being active are very good for my condition. I have seen so many video on the YouTube I go on the google and see that I learn from that and I adopt that in my life and take control of diabetes. I switch on my music and I let myself go if you're lying down watching your tv you know, switch off tv and then start raising your hand and your legs and you're you know stretching yourself and that can be done inside the house. Walk is the other thing take a walk of course, you will have a little bit of tiredness but I do bear in mind what are my capabilities and how far I can go. You should do what you love to do, you know that will give you the energy inside because you like it and the kids, you know involve them, they are the people they are the people around me, so I decided to take control and I had decided that I will do everything which I could to live bit longer and have that happiness and give them the company as well as a granddad.
(back to Kelly’s voice) So how can you make a change? Well here's a few tips to get you started try to get up and move more during the day, why not get up on the hour every hour stretch your legs move regularly around the house, even try going for a walk we should all try to minimize the amount of time we spend sitting, try small bursts of activity even 10 minutes of activity, that gets you warm and slightly out of breath can make a difference. Build those 10 minute blocks up over the course of the day because before you know it you could be doing 30 minutes a day. Think about the ways to get your heart pumping and your body moving whilst at home, try marching on the spot while watching tv, play some of your favourite tunes and dance around the house or try an online class if you fancy a little bit of company. You don't have to take part in structured sports or activities, physical activity is about all those ways to build activity into your day-to-day lifestyle think gardening think walking anything that just gets your body moving.
Also it doesn't matter what you do it's just about doing something, the most important thing is to find something you enjoy, start slowly and work your way up so that you gradually increase the amount of activity that you do and finally use whatever you have to hand you don't need any equipment to stay active. You can use your own body weight for squats or press-ups or go and find a couple of tins of beans. If you want to follow an online workout now after listening to all that, if you're feeling ready to try some activity for yourself, here we have a short seated Pilates session courtesy off Togetherly. (voice of instructor) Hey everybody, so today we're going to be doing a Pilates chair session, all you need to get is a chair that's got no sides on it ideally and it's secure. We're going to start off with a warm-up and then we're going to be doing two sequences of movement and then we're going to finish off with a cool down on the stretch all on the chair you don't need any equipment but your chair.
Okay so to start off with we need to make sure that we're sitting in the active chair position, what that means is that we are seated with four legs against the chair and bums firmly back completely against the chair, we've got a nice strong back, our shoulder blades are down and our scapula is tucked in. We're going to hold on to the sides of the chair if we need to and we're going to make sure that our legs are hip-wide apart. Okay at this point if we focus on our centrum, which is one of our class principles, so if you imagine bringing our abdominals in towards our spine, keeping our back nice and straight, core nice and tight. First movements that we're going to do is a knee lift, okay so a knee lift up, so what I want you to do is the leg goes up then comes back down, what I’m going to try and imagine is that the ankle joint is in line with the knee joint so you're just going straight up and back down again. Okay we'll repeat about eight times on each leg, so we'll do each leg of them but then we're going to go fly into our next movement which is our leg out and coming back again, leg coming out and back again, so we come up into that knee lift the leg goes straight out I’m making sure that it stays in line with my hip joint as I lift it off and then come down and come back again. Okay third movement in this sequence of movement is hip abduction so I’m going to breathe out and bring it straight and then I’m going to add dough to the side and I’m going to come back again my hips stay facing forward I still maintain active seated position, hold onto the chair if you need some extra security and then go straight out I always keep my leg in line with my hip joint. Okay let's get started on those movements, get yourself in that active seating position we'll do eight of everything starting off with the leg lift firstly, so we'll do one leg and then we'll repeat to the other leg, okay ready? one two three four five six seven eight; changing legs one two three four five six seven eight. Okay this time we're going to go our leg up and out back and down two three four five six seven eight. Changing legs one two three four five six seven eight. Okay abduction, getting back in the active chair position leg goes up straight one two three four five six seven eight, change one two three four five six seven eight. Okay I’m gonna put a reminder.
Okay so our second cycle of movements is that we're going to be doing rotation of the hip joint okay, which is circulation of the hip joint. I’m going to do that in a few different ways we're still in the active seating position so you'll notice that my back isn't against the chair, about halfway onto the chair that my legs are held in the hip apart, I’m sitting evenly on my sitting bones, I’ve got my shoulders back and down and you can hold on to the chair if you want to, personally I prefer my hands out to the front. So the first movement that we're going to do is a rotation of the leg okay so it's a very small rotation and you'll notice that I’m going a very small circle and I’ve pointed my toes slightly, if you imagine that you're painting a picture with your foot and you're doing small circles it makes it a little bit easier. So that's the first one, which is a small rotational circle, we're going to do five on each leg, we're then going to change directions and go five on the opposite side and then our third movement will be a wider circle. Okay we'll stay in one direction this time and then we'll do it on the other side of the same direction. Okay ready, so get yourself into an active seated position please remember that when you're lifting your legs, you want it to be up to hip height if you can, if you need to drop it down that's absolutely fine, but it will not be in alignment and it might be that you haven't got the strength to be able to keep it up which is fine. Okay ready, hands out leg up - one two three four five, change sides one two three four five, big circle one two three four five and change your legs go one two three four five; change directions two three four five, big circle two three four five leg goes down. I’m gonna pause the video then I want you to repeat these up to three times in total. What I want you to do is bring one of your legs out, reaching down to the back of your legs so you can feel it along your hamstrings holding for seven to fifteen seconds to maintain our flexibility or up to 30 seconds to increase flexibility. Remember Pilates is a strength and conditional workout but we can also work on our flexibility and sometimes some of the moves intertwine as well. Okay if you can you're going to turn to the side bring your leg up behind, you want to have your leg out or if you need to you can hold on to your shoe, hold on to your trouser leg whatever's best and you're going to pull it up behind you so you can feel it in the front of your leg. We're going to change side so you can see it on the other side so the leg is behind you and pulling up on the other leg we're going to stretch the legs with purpose here, which is all of our lower body rather than upper body. Okay what I want you to do bring your feet up if you can bring your soles together and push them down on your knees cause nice and tight. So this is a really great exercises to do so you can do blasts on a chair if you don't have much room at home, and yeah it can be done anywhere. You can also do run a sofa but sometimes it can be difficult on certain movements, okay legs are going down what I want you to do is bring your leg up and we're going to hold it towards the ankle, lift it up if you struggle to hold it in there you can bring it up towards and underneath the knee joint but I want you to be aware that you're not pulling the knee joint and you're not going to put much pressure on it or straightening it out, change the sides and you're going to go for the same thing on the opposite side and pull down hold on to the ankle and hold.
(Kelly’s Voice again) So I hope you enjoyed the taster session and if you'd like more information and ideas on how to stay active please visit one of the websites mentioned below for inspiration.