Strength and Breathing

Speaker 1: The material contained in this video presentation provides general information on the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. This information is for reference purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. Before beginning or modifying any exercise program, please consult your medical provider to ensure that the activities demonstrated in this video presentation are appropriate for your specific health condition.

Janice Smeigh: Hi, I'm Janice Smeigh, Doctor of Physical Therapy, and we're going to discuss strength and breathing. Our objectives for today are to understand how strength gains are made, know FITT principles for strength gain, learn exercises to strengthen both the upper and the lower extremities. Some of the disclaimers we'd like to discuss is that you should always seek medical clearance from your doctor prior to starting an exercise program. Take all medications and oxygen as prescribed. Use an assistive device as needed. If you feel faint during exercise, please stop and rest. If it's a medical emergency, please call 911.

In order for us to get stronger, we need to make tiny little micro tears in our muscles so that they can form stronger bonds. This will take at least six weeks to form or for you to notice that you're gaining more strength.

The FITT Principles for Strengthening. Frequency - Two days per week with at least one rest day between. Intensity - Exercise at a moderate level. The moderate intensity, you would like to start at 10 to 15 repetitions and increase to being eight to 10 repetitions, meaning that you're carrying a heavier load. Complete two to three reps depending on your load or weight. Time - This will depend on how many exercises you do and type. All major muscle groups using either free weights, machines, or resistance bands. Make sure that you avoid holding your breath while lifting. Try and exhale as you do the work or the hardest part of the lifting. Complete all major muscle groups with a focus on your postural stabilizers, your neck, your back, your buttocks, your abdominals, thighs, and hamstrings.

The chin tuck is one of the stabilizer muscles. What we're going to do is we're going to stretch the back and strengthen the front. I'm going to turn sideways. So we have to stay up nice and tall. And what you're going to do is that you're going to tuck your chin, almost like you're making a double chin. For the upright row, what I'd like to do is strengthen the back and you're going to sit up nice and tall. We're going to take this as a TheraBand. I'm going to wrap it around both of my feet and then I'm going to bring my arms back as I squeeze my shoulder blades together. The lats are a very big back muscle. So what we're going to do is that you're going to have to anchor your TheraBand up a little high and you're going to squeeze back. And I always like to say like you're squeezing right in here. Squeeze your arm down into your armpit.

To work our core a little bit, we'll work on the lean backs. You're going to face forward, cross your arms over your chest and you're just going to gently lean back to a point where you can return and then you're going to come back up. You don't want to go too far where you fall back into the chair. Shoulder abduction is where we're going to bring the band out, straight arms and we're going to squeeze backwards to feel the back muscles working and nice and easy forward. In order to complete biceps curls with the TheraBand, we're going to place the band underneath our feet. We're going to grasp on and we're going to slowly bring it up like we're trying to touch our shoulders.

To strengthen the front of our thighs, we're going to do kick outs or long arc quads. I'm going to sit up nice and tall. We're going to kick our leg straight out. We're going to hold it for about five seconds and then we're going to switch. The hamstrings, the back of the leg muscles, we're going to work on strengthening. We're going to put one foot forward, tie the band around our ankles and we're going to squeeze back. If you need more resistance, you can always tighten the band. To strengthen the bottom portion of our legs, we're going to work on some heel and toe raises. You're just going to point your toes up and then down. To make this more difficult, you can try this in standing. We're going to strengthen the outside of our thighs. We're going to tie a TheraBand around our knees and we're just going to slowly come out and then bring our legs back in.

The final exercise we're going to perform today is the sit to stand. This is going to be the most difficult exercise today. We're going to sit at the very edge of our chair, cross our arms across our chest as able. If you need to use your hands, you may. We're going to lean back gently and come forward, tucking our bottom in at the very end. Thank you.