Why is lower body strength important?

Physical therapy

﻿Hello you there. My name is Sophie Brazier. I am a children's physiotherapist. Thank you for joining me today for our lesson. So we are on unit three, strengthening your limbs. And this lesson we are looking at why is lower limb strength important. So what we'll do is we'll start with a little recap of what strength is. We'll then look at why it is important, and then we'll move on to an activity. And in the lesson today, the activity I'm going to demonstrate is a standing lunge exercise. So as always, I will demonstrate the exercise and don't worry there'll be options to simplify the exercise and to extend it as well. So you don't need any equipment for our exercise today, but you might need some help from a parent or carer. So you might like to ask them now. So I'll let you do that, and then we can get started on our lesson. I would just like to give you a little message from our team. We, as therapists have tried to think of the best way to continue to support children, young people and their families. So you may be watching this as a child by yourself, or you might be with a parent or carer. We will be exploring topic areas that we regularly provide advice and support on across all ages and abilities. And each lesson we will aim to give you some ideas and activities that can be carried out either at home or in school. You may already have specific programmes that you're using or advice that has been given to you by your child's school or therapist. So please make sure that you're using any information I'm giving you alongside anything you already have. And if you do have any questions or would like help tailoring this to their needs, then please make sure you get in contact with your local therapy service. So let's have a look at what muscle strength is again. So the four things that are highlighted here is how strong you are and for your lower limb it's needed for your gross motor skills, but also as opposed to your upper limb where it's needed for your fine motor skills, here it's needed for other activities, so more dynamic gross motor skills. So these are things where you're moving in bigger movement patterns. So let's look at how strong you are. So remember that your muscles work in pairs just as they do in your upper limb, they also do in your lower limb. And remember that there are different types of muscle contractions where your muscles may be getting shorter or your muscles may be getting longer to control the movement. And they're needed for gross motor skills. So these are things, activities such as getting in and out of bed, balancing to put your clothes or shoes on, getting on and off a chair. So sitting down and standing up. And maybe standing still to brush your teeth. And then if we look a little bit further at the more dynamic, so the moving skills, when you need them for bigger movements, perhaps. So this is when you're going up and down stairs and when you're walking around home or a school environment and for running. So these are things perhaps where your dynamic, maybe your balance is a bit more involved. So it's important that you've got that muscle strength there to then contribute to your balance and coordination when you're carrying out more dynamic activities. And the last one, they're good for keeping you healthy. So it can reduce the risk of injury, because if you've got good muscle strength around a joint, then your joint will be nice and stable, which means there'll be less risk of injury. And why is lower body muscle strength important? So just as in your upper limb, in the lower limb muscles control your everyday ability to do activities. So in the lower limb, it's the things such as standing, walking, climbing, and descending. So going up and down stairs or going up and down a hill, balancing and moving through different standing, sitting and floor positions. So really any activity where you're using your legs to change position. So having a strong lower body can improve your flexibility, your mobility, your range of movement and balance. So balance and coordination, where we'd be looking at in further detail in unit five. So you can find out a little bit more about balance in that unit. And lower body muscle strength can also keep you healthy and you'll have less chance of injury because strong muscles can protect your joints and keep them stable. I have now gotten an activity of standing lunges for you to try. So I'll talk through it now, and then there'll be a video demonstration where I'll go into some more detail and then you can pause the video and have a go yourself, and then join me afterwards, where I will give you some ideas of how to simplify or extend the activity. So for this exercise, I want you to start in standing with your feet aligned and your feet are about hip width apart. So I want you to step forward, and let's say, you start with your right leg first, and you're going to bend your knee and you're going to gently drop your left knee as close to the ground as possible. And you really need to try to keep your back straight and a good way to do this is to look forward. So pick a point on the wall, 'cause what can happen if you're concentrating on something down at your feet, you tend to look down. So try to start off with by looking forward and that will help with your back. And then you're going to bring your right leg back to the centre and repeat on the other side. And you're going to initially try this 10 times. So now I will demonstrate in a video and then afterwards, remember to pause and then rejoin. I'm now demonstrating to you a standing lunge. So here I am alternating between my left and my right leg going forward. So here my right leg bends, my left knee drops to the floor. My left knee bends, my right knee drops to the floor. So I'm taking a good stand when I step so I can get a good bend in both knees. And I'm making sure that I'm stable when I step, so I'm not stepping too far. And I'm repeating, I think I'm doing 10 times in total. So I think to begin with, if you try a few lunges on each side and try and build up to 10. Here is now a simplified version of the standing lunge. So here I'm in high kneeling and I am taking one leg forward and taking a lunge on my right leg there and now on my left leg. So this is a simplified version of the standing lunge and can be quite nice if you struggle with your balance or you find a standing lunge a little bit too challenging to start off with. And now I'm demonstrating if you need a little bit of help in that position. Because in half kneeling and high kneeling, you can lose your balance. So here I've just got a stool on my left hand side that I am using to help support me through the lunge. So if you need the option, you can, and then here I am showing you how to perhaps extend the exercise. So I don't have a huge amount of space to show you, but I am demonstrating some walking lunges. So these are lunges with movement. So you're doing exactly the same idea. You're bending one leg and the other leg as you take one leg forward and you are taking a stride as you walk while you do it. So give those a try and see how you get on with all the different options. Then pause the video, restart afterwards, and I'll talk you through all those options again. Let's just take a moment to think about the activity a little bit more. How did your legs feel as you did more lunges? Were they beginning to feel tired at any point? So if they were, make sure you try the easier position. So you do lunges and half kneeling. So you start taking a highly kneeling position and you move into the half kneeling position to create a lunge shape. So that can be quite a nice way to start off. And also if you find the standing lunge tricky and too challenging, you can come back to the simplified version. Let's also think what was happening in other areas. What was your back doing? Could you keep yourself straight and balanced? So did you try the trick of me saying a suggestion of looking forward? Because it can be a little bit tempting to look down at your feet when you're doing an activity where you need to concentrate on your balance. So if you picked a point ahead of you where you able to balance a little bit better. And do you want to take that activity further? So if you do, you perhaps would like to try some lunges whilst moving forward. So walking lunges, as I demonstrated at the end of the video there. So there are some ideas for you to try, ways to make it a little bit easier, or if you need a bit more of a challenge, there's also a suggestion. So pause the video again now, have a go at those options and then rejoin me afterwards. So how did you get on with the activity? I hope you found the ideas to simplify or extend it useful. We have now reached the end of our lesson. So thank you very much for joining me today. In the next lesson, the activity we will look at will be a high kneeling exercise. So if you'd like to find out more, please join me next time for lesson 10. So enjoy the rest of your day and take care of yourself. And I will see you soon. Goodbye.

Why is lower body strength important?

Why is lower body strength important?

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