Fitness with Friends: BORP Sit Fit

NARRATOR: For more information and a full transcript of this video, check out fun4thedisabled.com. When joining us for this video, you need to take some precautions, as your health and safety are the most important. To avoid any injury or harm, you need to check your health with your doctor before exercising. By performing any fitness exercises without supervision, like with this video, you are performing them at your own risk. See a fitness professional to give you advice on your exercise form. Strategy for Access Foundation NFP, Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program (BORP), and Nathan Perkins will not be responsible or liable for any injury or harm you sustain as a result of this video. 

NATHAN PERKINS: Hello, my name is Nathan Perkins and I’m an adaptive physical education instructor, as well as a fitness instructor. And I’m here today to lead you through what we call a sit fit workout, where we’ll be focusing on strengthening and/or maintaining our upper body, specifically focusing on our shoulders, our arms, our chest, and our core. Some of the exercises that we’re gonna be doing, we’re gonna be using some household items. You can either use a water bottle or cans, or in my case, I’m going to be using here are these wrist weights, they’re about four pounds. So we’re gonna be using these weights. And when we’re not using these weights, we’re gonna be using our arms as a form of resistance. 

So let’s go ahead and get started here, as I’ll roll back here and put our weights down here on the floor. And we’re gonna begin by sitting nice and tall in our chairs. We’re gonna bring our hands together with a big stretch up towards the ceiling, arms all the way up. Very good. And now let’s slightly lean to one side. Doesn’t matter what side that you’re on. Just lean to one side. All right, very good. Let’s bring it back to the center and let’s lean to the other side, good, stretching out our shoulders, our arms here for just a second. All right, very good. Let’s go ahead and bring the arms down. Let’s go ahead and roll the shoulders back here. Keep our neck nice and loose. And then we’re gonna roll the shoulders forward. All right, very good. 

We’re gonna keep warming up our arms and shoulders here by bringing the arms and shoulders forward like so, good. And bring those arms and shoulders forward. And now we’re gonna go in the opposite direction. Good, keep the arms and the shoulders moving. All right, now we’re gonna extend the arms out here like so, and we’re gonna do small rotations going forward, still warming up here, and then small rotations going backwards. Very good. Now we’re gonna turn the palms up towards the ceiling. Let’s go up and down. Good, just small movements up and down, still warming up the shoulders. All right, now we’re gonna take the arms all the way up, and we’re just gonna pull straight down to our waist here. Still warming up here. Pull just straight down, either one arm or two, doesn’t matter. Good, pull straight down. All right, we’re gonna do three more, and last one, all right. 

So now we’re going to get into it here by sitting nice and tall in our chairs. We’re gonna just begin by extending the arms all the way up towards the ceiling. Good, taking the arms up as high as you can. Good, reach it out, good. Sitting nice and tall. Try to keep your tummy nice and tight. Take those arms all the way up towards the ceiling. Imagine trying to grab the ceiling or taking your hand through the ceiling. Let’s reach it out. All right, very good. Now we’re gonna go now side to side, reach across and feel that stretch as you take the arms across. Good. Keep the arms going. Take the arms as far as you can, to the left and over to the right. Good, keep it going. All right, very good. Now we’re gonna just extend the arms out now towards our monitors or whatever is in front of you. Just extend those arms all the way out. Good, keep reaching. Keep reaching. All right, very good, all right. So now we’re going to shake the arms out here, and gonna roll the shoulders back again, and then roll the shoulders forward. And then we’re gonna take the shoulders now up and down. All right, very good. 

So now we’re gonna grab our weights or whatever you have nearby. You can either just use your arms, or like I said, a water bottle or cans or whatever you got nearby. We’re gonna start with the arms out apart here, like so, and we’re gonna work these chest muscles right here. And as we bring our arms in, we’re gonna try and squeeze those chest muscles as you bring the arms in. Like so. And as you bring the arms in, you want to exhale. As you take the arms out, you want to inhale. Good, keep it going. Remember, try to squeeze those chest muscles as you bring the arms in like so. All right, let’s do three more, and last one, all right, very good. Hold onto your weights there, whatever you got nearby. And let’s go ahead and roll the shoulders back there, keep the neck nice and loose. 

All right, so now we’re gonna move on now, but this time we’re gonna begin with the weights in our hands, of course, but this time with the arms together. And we’re gonna take the weights out, and we’re gonna focus on the posterior muscles in our back as we take those weights all the way back. Good, all the way back. Try to flex those muscles as you take the weights back. Good. Keep it going. And we’re gonna do four more, and two more, and last one, very good. Hold onto the weights, go ahead and roll the shoulders back. Good, roll the shoulders back, and then we’re gonna roll the shoulders forward. And then we’re gonna take the shoulders up and down, like so. Keep our neck nice and loose. All right, very good. 

Now, with whatever you have in your hands, we’re gonna bring it down here and we’re gonna do a hammer curl, and then we’re gonna turn that hammer curl into a shoulder press. We’re gonna work the forearms and a little bit of your biceps here, and work the shoulders, all in two movements. So we’re gonna curl it up, and we’re gonna push it up like so, and bring it back down. Curl it up and push it up, good, and back down. Curl it up and push it up, good. Curl it up and push it up. Good, let’s keep it going. Curl it up, push it up, good. Curl it up and push it up, let’s do three more. Curl it up, push it up. Good, now we just got two more. Curl it up, push it up. And now last one, curl it up and push it up. All right, hold onto those weights again. Let’s go ahead and roll the shoulders back, and then we’ll just go ahead and roll the shoulders forward. 

All right, so now we’re gonna focus on now our abdominals, or what’s commonly known as our core here. We’re going to fold our arms here across our shoulders here, and we’re gonna come to our knees as best we can, and then back up. Try to keep your tummy nice and tight as you come forward. Good, working those abdominal muscles, your core muscles. Good, let’s keep it going, up and down. Remember to breathe, don’t hold your breath. Good, let’s keep it going. All right, we’re gonna do four more here. Here’s one and two and three and last one and four. All right, very good. 

Let’s go ahead and put the weights on the floor for right now, or whatever you have on the floor. And sitting nice and tall in our chairs again, we’re gonna bring the hands together and extend the arms all the way out. Big stretch out, stretch out those shoulders. All right, very good. Let’s break, go ahead and shake out those arms. All right, so now we’re gonna move on here by extending the arms out here. We’re gonna turn the palms up towards the ceiling and we’re gonna take the arms up and down like so. And if you’re able to, you can try to clap those hands as you take the arms up and down like so. Good, all the way up. Good, keep it going. Good, keep those arms going up and down. Good, keep it going, working those shoulders. All right, we’re gonna do three more here. Here is one and two and three. All right, bring the arms down again. Go ahead and shake out those arms. 

All right, before we move on to our next exercise, let’s go ahead and just place our hands here on our knees, and we’re gonna slowly rotate our heads over to the left and look over our left shoulder. Stretch out our neck for just a moment here. All right, then go ahead and bring your head back to center. And then we’re gonna slowly rotate our heads over to our right, try to look over our right shoulder. All right, very good. Bring it back to the center. Now we’re gonna look up towards the ceiling, look up, and then we’re gonna go ahead and bring the head back down to the center, and then we’re gonna look down towards the floor. All right, and then we’re gonna go ahead and bring the head back up. All right, go ahead and shake out those arms again. 

All right, so now we’re just gonna grab one weight for this next exercise, and we’re gonna bring it up to about chest level, chest level here. And we’re just gonna extend that weight out and bring it back to your chest. Try to keep your tummy nice and tight as you extend the arms all the way out and bring it back. Good, take it all the way out and bring it back. Good. Now, you can do this exercise with no weights. You can just, if you can, just bring both hands together and just extend the arms out, or you can do it, like I said, with weights, with a water bottle, or everyday household items like cans, or whatever you have nearby works. Good, let’s do four more. And now we’re gonna do two more. And now last one, very good. Hold on to whatever you have, or keep your hands together. Let’s go ahead and roll the shoulders back again. And we’re gonna roll the shoulders forward. All right, very good. 

We’re gonna go ahead and extend the arms out again. And this time we’re gonna take our arms all the way up, and then back down, all the way up and back down. Try to keep your tummy nice and tight as you take the arms all the way up and back down, good. All the way up and back down, good. Keep it going, all the way up and back down. Let’s do four more. All the way up, good, and back down. All the way up, good, let’s do two more. All the way up, good. And now one more, take it all the way up. All right, very good. And go ahead and bring it back down. Hold on to that weight, and go ahead and roll the shoulders back and then roll the shoulders forward. All right, take the shoulders now up and down. 

All right, before we move on, I just want to remind you all that, you know, you can do these exercises in the morning or the afternoons or the evenings, maybe three times a week if you’re able to. And the goal here is just trying to maintain your level of fitness, or in some other cases, you might be able to increase your level of fitness, strength, endurance, flexibility. But remember always to have fun and make the most of it. 

So we’re gonna go ahead now and we’re going to now extend the arms all the way out, take it around. And as you take it around, try to keep your tummy nice and tight as you take that weight around or keep your hands together, take it all the way around. We’re focusing again on our core. Good, all the way around. Try to fully extend the arms out as you take it out in front of you. Good, keep it going. All right, now we’re gonna do four more. All right, here’s one and two, and just two more, and three and last one, very good. Now bring it back to the center. And just before we go now in the opposite direction, let’s go again and roll the shoulders back. Try to keep our neck nice and loose, shoulders nice and loose. All right, so now we’re gonna extend the arms out and this time we’re gonna go in the opposite direction. Take it around and around. Good, try to keep the tummy nice and tight. Again, this exercise is very good for your core. Try to keep the tummy tucked in as best you can. Good, take those arms around and around. Good, around and around. Let’s do three more. Here’s one and two, last one, and three. All right, very good. 

Let’s go ahead and put that weight on the floor, or whatever you got nearby. And let’s go ahead and shake out those arms again. Again, let’s go ahead and place the hands on the knees. Let’s go ahead and roll the shoulders back and then roll the shoulders forward. All right, very good. So now we’re gonna extend the arms out directly out in front of here, and we’re gonna flap our arms up and down, going up and down here as fast as we can. Remember to breathe, don’t hold your breath. Fast hands, up and down, keep it going. Fast as you can. All right, very good. Now we’re going to take one arm over the other and go as fast as we can, let’s keep it up. Good, as fast as we can, one arm over the other. Good, keep it going. Good, keep it going, good. And now let’s go back to now just up and down. Remember to breathe. Good, keep those arms going. Keep it going. All right, one more time, one arm over the other. Good, work those arms. Let’s keep it going. All right, very good. Let’s go ahead now and shake out those arms and roll the shoulders back. All right, very nice. 

So let’s keep up this good momentum that we’ve got here. We’re gonna bring the arms up to about chest level. We’re just gonna flare the arms out, like so. Good, just take them all the way out, nice and wide. Good, good, take them out. Take those arms out, spread them apart. Good, keep it going. Good. Good, taking those arms all the way out. One arm or two, doesn’t matter. Take them out as best as you can. All right, let’s do five more and three more and now last one. All right, very good. Bring the arms down, and go ahead and roll those shoulders back. All right, very good. 

Let’s go ahead now and we’re gonna fold our arms here, across the top here. We’re gonna do another good exercise here that’s good for your core. We’re gonna imagine we’ve got a baby in our arms, like so, and we’re gonna rock it from side to side. We’re gonna take it up as high as we can to one side, and up to the other, and if you can, try to keep your tummy nice and tight as you take those arms up as high as you can, going from one side to the other. Good, rock it up to the left. Rock it up to the right. Good, keep it going. Good, keep rocking. Good, keep it going. Keep rocking. Try to keep that tummy nice and tight, and don’t hold your breath. All right, one more time each side. All right, very good. Bring those arms down, and go ahead and shake out those arms. Again, let’s go ahead and roll the shoulders back and then roll the shoulders forward. All right, then take the shoulders now up and down. All right, very good. 

So now we’re going to imagine we’ve got some boxing gloves on, and we’ve got our imaginary speed bag just above our heads here. We’re gonna take our hands as fast as we can going forward. Fast hands going forward, as fast as you can. And if those arms get tired, you can always bring it down here to chest level, but try to keep them up as high as you can. Keep those hands going. Good, keep it going. Imagine punching that bag, hitting it as fast as you can. All right, very good. Now we’re gonna go in the opposite direction. Let’s keep it up. Keep those hands going. Good, keep it going, keep it going, keep punching, keep punching. All right, very good. We’re gonna bring it down, we’re gonna keep the gloves on, and now we’re just gonna punch out towards our screens or whatever it is in front of you. Try to extend those arms out as far as you can. Punch it out. Good, add a little twist to it if you can, as you punch with the right arm and then the left. Try to keep twisting, keep punching. Good, keep it going. Keep punching. All right, very good. 

Now I’m gonna keep it up here and I’m gonna punch up, up and down, and try to imagine yourself punching a hole through your ceiling or whatever it is above you. Take those arms up as high as can. Good, work those arms. Keep it going, keep punching, all the way up. Good, keep punching. All right, very good. Now we’re gonna bring the punches down now. Now we’re gonna punch over to the left and over to the right. And let’s add a little twist as we go from side to side. Try to fully extend those arms out. Try to keep your tummy nice and tight. Remember to breathe, don’t hold your breath. Keep punching, keep it going. Good, keep punching. Good, keep it up. All right, very good. Now we’re gonna bring the punches down towards the floor, and let’s try to imagine we’re gonna punch a hole through our floor, working those arms up and down. Good. Good, keep punching. Keep punching, keep working those arms. Good, keep it going. Keep those arms going, keep pumping those arms. Don’t quit, keep pumping. All right, very good. Now we’re gonna finish off our opponent with big uppercuts. Take those arms up as high as you can. Big uppercuts up to the right, up to the left. Keep it going, keep punching, keep swinging those arms all the way up. Good, keep it going. Keep punching. All right, one more punch each arm. All right, very good. Whew. Good, good workout. Go ahead and shake out those arms. 

And again, we’re gonna go ahead and roll the shoulders back, and then roll the shoulders forward. And then we’re gonna take the shoulders now up and down. All right, very good. So now we’re gonna imagine now we’re on the ski slopes here, and we’ve got a pole in each hand, like so, and we’re gonna extend the arms out, all the way out towards your monitors, your screens, as we go forward. Take those arms all the way out. Try to keep your tummy nice and tight. Good. Keep it going, keep working the arms. All right, very good. Now we’re gonna work the opposing muscle groups by going backwards. As you bring the arms back, try to bring your shoulder blades back. Good, keep it going. Keep working those arms. Good, all the way back. Good, keep it going. All right, let’s do a couple more. All right, very good. Let’s bring the arms down for just a moment here. Shake them out. And now we’re gonna go forward again, but this time we’re gonna go side to side, as if we’re on the slopes, leaning to the left and leaning to the right. Try to keep those arms all the way out as you go from side to side. Good, remember to breathe, don’t hold your breath. Good. Keep working the arms, side to side. Good, side to side, keep it going. Good, keep working the arms. All right, one more each side. All right, very good. And go ahead now, shake out those arms. All right, very good. 

Well, let’s take a moment and bring the hands together again, and big stretch up. Extend those arms all the way out, and bring the arms down, shake them out here. All right, very good. So now we’re going to work the shoulders, and we’re going, like we haven’t already, but we’re gonna work some more shoulders here by placing the palms facing the floor, elbows up nice and high like so. We’re gonna press down towards the floor, one arm or two. Try to fully extend those arms all the way down to the floor. Good, press down. Good, keep it going. All right, very good. Now we’re gonna bring the hands up to about chest level. We’re gonna push forward and back, fully extend those arms all the way out, working those chest muscles. Push it forward. Good, keep pushing. Keep pushing, good. Keep pushing, keep working those arms. Always remember to don’t hold your breath. Breathe normally. Try to keep your tummy nice and tight. Push it out, push it out. Let’s do a couple more. All right, very good. 

Now we’re gonna turn the palms up towards the ceiling or whatever it is that is above you. Take the arms now up and down, pump it up and down. Good, take it up, all the way up. Keep it up, all the way up. Good, work those arms. Keep it up. Let’s do five more. Here’s one and two and three and four, and let’s do one more, and five. All right, bring the arms down again. Go ahead and roll the shoulders back. All right, then roll the shoulders forward. All right, very good. 

So now we’re gonna work the core again specifically here by go ahead and placing the hands on the shoulders right here, and we’re gonna bring our right elbow to our left knee and then the left elbow to the right knee. So let’s go ahead and bring the elbows to those knees. Good. Try to keep the tummy nice and tight, and bring those elbows down to the knees, going side to side. Good, keep it going, side to side. Good, keep it going, side to side. Good, keep working it. All right, one more each side. All right, very good. And go ahead and bring the arms down. Shake the arms out. And again, let’s go ahead and roll the shoulders back, and then roll the shoulders forward. All right, very good. And take the shoulders now up and down again. All right, very nice. 

So we’re gonna move on here and we’re gonna go into our swim strokes. And we’re gonna start off by getting in the pool. Imagine yourself getting in the pool. We’re gonna go ahead and extend the arms all the way out, palms up towards the ceiling. We’re gonna bring the arms forward, like so, and tuck your head down towards your chest and lean forward as far as you can. Very good, and then bring the arms back up as we get in the pool. Let’s go ahead and do this a couple more times. Bring the arms up and around. Tuck your chin in towards your chest there. Extend the arms all the way out. All right, very good. Then bring the arms up and back again. One more time, as we get in the pool, extend those arms all the way out, tuck the chin in. All right, very good. And come back up, and then bring the arms down. Very good. All right, now we’re in the pool. 

Let’s begin with our backstroke. Big strokes, working the back, working those opposing muscle groups. I mean, excuse me, the posterior muscle groups in the back and the shoulders. Imagine yourself in the pool. Good, take those arms up and around. Good, keep it going. All right, one more time each arm. All right, very good. Now we’re gonna go into our freestyle. Extend those arms all the way out. Do freestyle, or more commonly known the crawl, whatever, but extend those arms all the way out. Good, add a little twist to it. Good, keep it going. Good, extend those arms all the way out. All right, one more time each arm. All right, very good. So now we’re gonna do our last stroke, and it is the breast stroke. Bring the hands together and then spread them apart nice and wide. Good. Spread them apart. Keep it going. Good, keep it going. Keep spreading those arms. All right, we’re gonna do five more. All right, now we’re gonna do three. We’ve got three more to go. Two more to go. And now last one, very good. Bring the arms in. Go ahead and roll the shoulders back again. All right, very good. And roll the shoulders forward. All right, very good. 

Now we’re gonna go ahead and move on to another exercise. We’re gonna start now with the arms all the way out, with the hands together on one side. We’re gonna take it up diagonally, bring it down, and then we’re gonna take it up diagonally to the other side. We’re gonna go side to side. And again, this is a good core exercise and good for your shoulders. Again, try to keep your tummy nice and tight as you go from side to side, and breathe normally. Good, take the arms all the way up as high as you can. Good. Side to side. Good, keep it going. Good, all the way up. Good, side to side. Good, keep it going. Let’s do one more each side. All right, very good. And bring the arms down, and go ahead and roll those shoulders back again, and then roll the shoulders forward. All right, very nice. 

So now we’re going to extend the arms out here in front here. We’re just gonna turn the hands over and under. And if the arms get a little tired as you extend the arms, as you turn the hands over and under, you can always bring the arms in and do it this way. But if you can, try to keep the arms out and just turn those thumbs over and under, like so. Keep it going. Over and under. All right, now with the arms out, we’re gonna turn the palms up towards the ceiling. Let’s go up and down, small movements. Up and down. Good, keep it going, just up and down. All right, very good. And bring the arms down. Go ahead and roll the shoulders back one more time. All right, very good. 

We got one more exercise before we wind it down here. We’re gonna imagine we’ve got a rope in each hand and we’re gonna twirl it out in front. And we’re gonna start with small rotations, twirling that rope, a rope in each hand. Small rotations. Now we’re gonna make those rotations bigger. Good, keep it going. All right, now we’re gonna make it real small again. Good, keep it going. And one more time big. All right, very good. Let’s go ahead and shake the arms out here before we go in the opposite direction. All right, so we’re gonna go now in the opposite direction, and we’re gonna start out small again, twirling that rope. All right, then nice and big. All right, very good. And one more time small. All right, and now last time real big. All right, very good. Bring the arms down. Go ahead and shake out those arms. 

All right, we’re gonna go ahead now and wind it down. And we’re gonna go ahead and slowly rotate as far as we can over to the left and look over our left shoulder. All right, very good. Bring it back to the center, and then we’re gonna rotate as far as we can over to the right and look over our right shoulder. All right, very good. Let’s bring it back to the center. All right, now sitting nice and tall in our chairs, we’re going to take both arms up here and we’re gonna form some letters here as we stretch out our shoulders here by forming the letter I as the arms go all the way up, forming the letter I. All right, very good. Then bring the arms down. Then we’re gonna bring the arms up to about shoulder height level, and we’re gonna form the letter T. Take the arms straight back like so. Very good, and bring the arms forward and down by your side. Now we’re gonna form the letter Y. Take the arms now straight back, straight back, like so, forming the letter Y. All right, very good. Then bring the arms forward, down by your side. Now we’re gonna form a half X by turning your palms towards the monitor. Take the arms straight back, slightly lift the head up. All right, very good. And go ahead and bring the arms forward and shake out those arms. 

And now as we conclude, we’re gonna slowly take the arms all the way up with a big inhale through the nose as the arms come all the way up. And then slowly bring the arms down, exhale through the mouth. Again, take the arms all the way up. Big inhale through the nose as the arms come up. Slowly bring the arms down, exhale through the mouth. One more time, take the arms all the way up. Big inhale through the nose as the arms come up. And slowly bring the arms down, exhale through the mouth. Now extend your arms out now, nice and wide. And go ahead and bring the arms in. Take one arm over the other. Give yourself a hug. All right, very good. Then take the arms out one more time, nice and wide. Bring the arms in one more time. Then take the other arm over the other arm, and go ahead and give yourself one last hug. All right, very good. And go ahead and extend the arms out, lowering them down by your side, and we are all done. 

I hope you all enjoyed this workout. Like I said before, it’s a workout that will either increase or maintain your level of fitness in regards to strength and endurance and in flexibility. And always remember to always have fun. Take care everyone, and have a good day.