Psoriatic arthritis

Hi everyone, I'm Ray, and this is our Movement as Medicine program. Today, we're focusing on reducing swelling, easing pain, and increasing range of motion around our joints, as well as increasing our strength in the muscles around our joints as well. If you are experiencing an acute bout of inflammation today, please don't continue with this class. And if you have low back pain or sciatica, please refer to that specific video and don't continue with this one today.

Today you will need a chair, and then either a long resistance band, or dumbbells, or water bottles, some light handheld object. And also maybe need a light loop resistance band if you've got one, but that's not 100% necessary. Let's get going.

All right guys, let's just start by a little march on the spot. We're going to take our arms in big circles backwards. Going to get our joints nice and loose, nice and lubricated, nice and warm before we start. And so here we're warming up our ankles, our knees, our hips, and our shoulders mainly, but getting our blood pumping, our heart rate up, so we're warming up the whole body really with these ones.

Okay, we're going to bring our arms coming forwards to get those shoulder rolls all the way forward, nice and big. Going to take those legs a little bit higher now, so a bit of a higher march. Just increase the intensity slightly, getting those joints a little bit looser. Awesome work, guys. My heart's already starting to go. It's going to be a good session today. Going to be doing some really good strength work to really build some strong structures to support our joints, guys.

All right, we're going to take those arms into a good punch. Get a good rhythm going. You can get a little bit of a groove if you want, maybe put some music on if you can still hear me. Have a good time with this one today, guys. All right.

Okay, we're going to be taking the heels forwards and just giving it—not a massive stretch, but you're just going to be tilting that hip backwards, okay? So get a nice fluid motion going with these. Digging the heels, sending the hips back a little bit. You can start a little bit up here, and you can start getting just a little bit low with these movements, just getting everything a little bit looser, a little bit warmer. Perfect. Last couple on these.

Amazing. We're going to do a little side step one way and then the other way. So again, warming up the legs a little bit more, warming up our ankles, our knees, and then all the muscles around those—so our calves, our quads, our hamstrings, our glutes, particularly the side of the glute here as we're moving to the side as well. Okay, brilliant guys. So again, you can start off a little bit lower, like if this is what feels comfortable, absolutely fine. If you want to go like a little bit lower, you also can. Whatever's comfortable for you. Everyone's obviously going to be at different levels today, so just do whatever you feel is right for you today. Okay, brilliant.

And then last one, we're going to be taking a little step back now. So one leg, then the other leg. Again, if the little step isn't really doing it, we can go for a bigger lunge backwards, that's also fine. So again, you'll know where you're at today. If you can manage the lunge, that's absolutely fine. If you find you are wobbling around a little bit too much, just take it down a notch and go a little bit less of a movement there—just a little step back, bringing that knee down slightly, warming a little bit more down the back of the leg, the hamstrings and the glutes here.

All right, my heart rate is up, I feel nice and warm. Hope you guys are too. I'm going to grab my chair, so if you guys do the same and meet me back here.

All right guys, we're going to start off with some sit-to-stands. As it says on the tin, we're going to be standing up and then we're going to be sitting back down. So just controlling it, try not to fall back, try and just control it as much as you can with your muscles. If you can control it and then you need to plop down, that's absolutely fine, just try and control the movement as much as you can with these, okay? So we're strengthening all the muscles in our legs with this one, particularly the quads, the glutes, and the hamstrings at the top here. But again, it's really good for all the muscles strengthening around your ankles, your knees, and your hips, relieving the pressure around those joints.

Okay, so if this is a bit much, you can always raise your seat a little bit—either pop your chair on some books, or put some books on top of your chair, or a nice big, solid cushion. And just kind of be coming a little bit, you know, this can be your sit-to-stand if you've got a higher chair as well. So whatever you feel is good for you today where you feel your muscles working, but you're still able to do the movement without a massive momentum up. But you can swing your arms a little bit for a bit of momentum here, okay? Brilliant.

I'm going to turn my chair to the side now. I'm going to be doing what we call speed skaters. So I'm going to be bringing my hands to the top of the chair for support. I'm going to be bringing my leg out and back. It's kind of like a little lunge to the back and side, so kind of diagonally out with your foot here. We're working the muscles down the side of the bum predominantly here guys, so you should feel those muscles stretch and tense at the side here. So that's where you want to be focusing on feeling it, trying to get a burn down the side of your bum here.

Okay, so again, if this feels enough, that's absolutely fine. If you want a little bit more, you can go a little bit deeper into it, okay? Try and keep a little bit of tension around your middle here, around your core, just to support the movement a little bit more.

Okay, we're going to switch sides. I'm going to switch my chair around. If you do want a little bit extra, it's not quite doing it enough for you, you want a bit more resistance, you can grab a light loop resistance band if you have one. You can also tie a long physio band together to make a loop as well, popping it around your ankles, and then doing the same movement. It's just adding a little bit of resistance there. So still keeping tension here, squeezing here at the bottom, and pushing up. So pushing through our heel at the bottom here, guys.

So this is a really good one to stabilize our hips, our knees, our ankles, take the pressure off our joints a little bit more, okay? If we've got really weak muscles around our joints, the joints are going to be taking a lot of pressure day-to-day just in walking, in sitting, in standing, and walking around, you know? But if you've got strong muscles, that can just ease some of the pressure on our joints and ease some of that pain that we're feeling, and also reducing that swelling as well. Okay, one more, and rest there.

Okay, if you want to get rid of your band if you've got one and your chair, and I'll meet you back here.

All right, so next up, we're going to be doing press-ups, and I know it sounds scary, but we're going to be using a wall. So you're going to be putting your hands directly in front of your shoulders, and then slightly wider on the wall, okay? And we are simply going to be lowering ourselves down, bringing our elbows—instead of bringing our elbows out, bringing our elbows back, okay? So tucking them in and pushing up.

Now, you don't have to go all the way down to the wall either like I am. You can simply come to here. If that feels like, "Oh, that's quite hard," just bring yourself down a little bit, hold, and push up. Whatever feels like it's a challenge to you, okay? With strengthening our muscles, we're going to be challenging our muscles to force them to adapt. But if we're really struggling and having to get the rest of our body, and we're twisting and turning trying to get up, it's not really targeting where we want to. So this one is strengthening our chest muscles and our tricep muscles—so the ones down the back of our arms predominantly, okay?

So bring your body down in a straight line, we're not arching our hips at all, pushing up nice and controlled, okay? Remember, if you can't control the movement, just regress it slightly and not come down quite as low. Okay, lovely. We're going to do a couple more on those. Try not to hunch your shoulders as well, keep them rolled back and down. Think good posture while you're doing this, guys. And resting there.

All right, next you will need your water bottles, cans, light resistance bands, or dumbbells—whatever you've got today, go grab them now.

Okay, so today we are looking at a deadlift with this one. So if you've got a resistance band, you're going to stand on it like so. If you've got dumbbells, obviously just hold them just like I'm holding the band here, same with your water bottles or cans, okay?

So this is a full-body movement, but focusing on your glutes and your hamstrings. But I want you to focus on your glutes a little bit more because they're often harder to activate with this one. So I'm squeezing my bum at the top, and I'm going to shove my hips all the way back so I feel a stretch on the back of my hamstrings, and I'm squeezing my glutes forward. So it's really quite a thrusting movement. So we're sending the bum back, and then we're thrusting the bum forwards, okay?

Making sure when we're going back, we're not arching backwards, we're simply folding. Imagine you're trying to boot a door shut on the way back, okay? So controlling all the way down, thrust forwards, keep tension in the bum as you shove the hips back, and thrusting forwards.

Now, notice there is a bit of a bend in my knee as my hips go back, but I'm not pushing my knees forward. So imagine there's like a wall up the front of your shin and towards your knees, and you can't push your knees forwards at all. Instead, you're sending your weight all the way back. Your weight should be right in the heels of your feet, thrusting forwards. Okay, we're going to go for a couple more. And thrusting up, and rest there.

Okay, I'm going to show you the next one, so just take a little break while I show you the next one. Very similar position—you're coming to that bum all the way back position here. Going to brace as much as you can here, so really tight, as if I'm about to kind of come and kick you from underneath, you've got tension. So tense here, you should have your weight in the back of your heels, and you should feel some tension down here, okay?

But this one, we're targeting our upper back, so you want to be pulling your dumbbells, water bottles, or resistance bands up like so. So it's not about getting your hands all the way up, it's about getting your elbows back, nice and tight against your sides as well, okay? So get into this position with me, guys. We're going to do 10 reps, okay?

So brace your core, your bum, and then squeeze your back on the way up, slowly releasing. Squeeze, and slowly release. So you should really feel this in your upper back. So your upper back is going to help you with good posture, bringing your shoulders back instead of rounding forwards. So help you with the posture, it's going to help support your shoulder joints as well, okay? Got four more of these.

Now, this is not an easy one. This is a full-body one, but also focusing specifically on the back muscles there. So it is requiring a lot. This is a really good strength exercise. And resting there, lovely.

So pop your band to the side, or your dumbbells, or your water bottles, and we're going to go for a stretch, okay? I'm going to grab my chair, so if you need a little bit more support, grab yours as well, just to hold onto while we're stretching, okay?

So you're going to pop that to the side. I'm just going to stick one heel out, and I'm going to shove my hip backwards and raise my toe. So with this one, we're stretching down the back of our hamstrings and calves. You're just going to hold that one there.

Got a sweat on today, guys! So if you found that that session was challenging, but you've got more in you, you can redo this video. Obviously you've already done the warm-up, so just start from where we did our sit-to-stands. And switch legs for me, guys. And you can redo this two, three times. So you can build up to that as well. If you feel like the once is enough for now, keep it to the one, do the stretches. But if you feel like you've got more in you, you can do it another time, and then maybe in a couple weeks' time you can do it three times over.

And then you can also, instead of just doing this once a week, you can build up to doing it two, three times a week as well. Strength training is really good when you do it frequently, guys. So just one-off, it's okay, but you need to be doing it continuously, okay?

Going for a quad stretch. So you're going to grab one heel to your bum, and you're going to bring knees together. If you can't do this, grab a towel or a band, loop it around your ankle, and simply hold. But make sure you're bringing your knees together rather than coming out here. We want to stretch the muscle in the direction the muscle is meant to be going in, okay? And so knees together, pulling that into your bum.

Going to switch sides. Hold onto the wall now instead. So yeah, as I said, two, three times a week for this is really good. So if you're just doing this video once round, I would do once through the video, build that up to twice a week, build that up to three times a week. Once you've done that, start increasing how many rounds you're doing, okay? So that's how I would build this one up. Lovely.

Okay, going to come to sat down on your chair, and you're going to bring one heel over, and you should feel that stretch. Sit up straight, you should then feel this stretch in your bum down the side here, okay? If this one isn't possible, if you can't quite get your knee up, you can sit on the floor and just bring one leg over and pull that across, okay? So you feel the stretch down the side of your bum.

We're going to switch sides now, guys. So if you're on the floor again, switch sides. Just going to bring that leg over and pull it to the opposite side, keeping your hip on the floor so you can feel that stretch on the side of your bum. Sit nice and straight. Nice deep breaths, guys. This is the relaxing part, you can chill out now.

And release that one. Going to stay sat down, clasping your hands in front, just going to push your hands all the way forward, rolling your shoulders forwards as well until you can feel a stretch down your upper back there. Get nice deep breaths. Doing really well today, guys. We've worked all the major muscles of the body—lower body, upper body—done some really great strength work today.

Going to release those hands, palms to ceiling, you're going to press your chest forward and your arms back so you feel a stretch across your chest here. And nice deep breaths still, okay?

And we are done! Really well done today, guys, and we'll see you on another session.