Video and Transcript: Burn Calories, Tone Legs with Toothbrush Exercises

Hey, everyone! Dr. Orit Hickman here from Pain Science Physical Therapy.

In this video, I am going to go through some suggested exercises that you can be doing while you brush your teeth. I have a patient who kind of-you know-made my brain kind of explode when she said, “Hey! These are the things I do while I'm brushing my teeth.” And, I was like, “Huh. I forgot that that's kind of a brilliant timeline.” You know? Brushing your teeth is hopefully something you're doing twice a day. If you're like me, you have an electric toothbrush, and, with the electric toothbrush, it-there are 30 second increments in which I am working the toothbrush in different locations within my mouth. And so, that's kind of a perfect time to be doing some balance exercises and even a little bit of a strengthening. So, I am going to show you a few different exercises that I will work through while I am brushing my teeth. I hope this is helpful, so let me know what you think.

One of the first things that I'll do is I will balance on one leg. So, I have the sink right next to me, but I'll be brushing my teeth. And, if I need to, I'll use one hand to grab a hold of the sink. But, hopefully, I'm able to just balance and hang out. And, again, [do] 30 second increments roughly. If you’re brushing your teeth with a toothbrush, then you can count. Alright? And, I will do that as well if I need to for repetitions, but I'll count, or I'll just let the toothbrush do its thing. And so, I'll be here [for] 30 seconds on each leg, trying to balance. This is a great place to start. Right? So, if you're trying to fit balance into your daily activities, [it’s] super easy while you're brushing your teeth. 

The next exercise that I like to do is… I've moved from balance to making things a little bit more challenging because just standing on one leg is not as challenging for me right now. And so, what I will do is I will actually do single-leg squats. So, I'm going to face you so you can see what I'm doing. So, I've got my-I've got myself pulling-fully lined up. My hip is over my knee, which is over my toes, and I'm sitting back into a single-leg squat. I try to do this without holding on, but it's not always really successful while I'm brushing my teeth. So, I'll typically put a couple of fingers on my sink so that I can balance. Same thing. I'll switch from side to side, and I might count. I like to work anywhere from 20 to 30 repetitions on each side. 

And, I started doing these exercises because I've been experiencing some knee pain on my right side when I'm running. And so, I was like, “Okay. Well, I could do a bunch of exercises every day, all day long, or I can try and fit some of these exercises into my daily life.” It's made it a little bit easier. So, I have [a] single-leg balance. We can do [a] single-leg squat. 

The other thing I like to do is a hamstring curl. Now, hamstring curls are done, oftentimes, incorrectly. One of the most common [ways] is that patients will bring their knee forward as they bring their heel to their butt. So, the hamstrings come from the butt down to behind the knee, and they are a knee flexor. They’re going to lift that knee up. And so-or lift the foot up and bend the knee. So, with this exercise, I try to make sure that my leg is actually a little bit behind. So, the leg that I'm bending-hamstring that I'm working is just a little bit behind the opposite leg. And then, I’m lifting and lowering, keeping my toes behind my body. And, you can-you should be able to fill your hamstrings working. 

Here's a-here's a bonus: the opposite leg is also working. So, I’m-my left leg is working right now as I’m balancing, and I'm lifting and lowering my hamstrings-or bet-or lifting and lowering my heel on the opposite side. So, as I do this, my leg is getting tired, and I feel it pulling behind my leg. So, those are my hamstring curls that I like to do. And, again, I try to do about 20 or 30 of those in that 30 second timeline. And, remember I'm using an electric toothbrush, so it's keeping time for me.

The final exercise I like to do-and this is part of my routine. Although, I'm going to give you some other ones that you can do easily as well. The final exercise I like to do is double heel raises. So, I love to do calf raises. Again, there are these exercises that are super important for strengthening the lower up body and the feet. But, I don't always get them into my daily routine, so by making sure that they're part of my toothbrushing routine, it's a lot of easier. My plan is that once the single-the double-leg feels pretty comfortable is to move to single-leg calf raises. That's my goal is to work towards building that strength so that I can have that for, again, for my running routine. 

Final exercise that I would recommend that you could add in is, if the single-leg squats feel just way too challenging, you can do what I started off doing, which is double-leg squats. So, again, trying to sit back as if I was sitting back in a chair, making sure my knees are not rolling forward. My knees are behind my toes. If I need to, I can look down and still see my toes while I do this. But, I can do squats while I am brushing my teeth. 

Another thing that you can do, which is also a progression of that, is just getting down into a low squat and holding that position for as long as you can. So, if you are, again, using an electric toothbrush, that's a 30 second hold. You're going to feel that burn in your quad muscles and in your glutes and in your lower calf region. 

So, this is just a series of exercises that I would recommend. These-some of these I have done myself and some of these I recommend that you give a try because you can progress from one to the other. But, [they’re] easy enough to do while you're brushing your teeth.

Let me know how it goes. If you have any questions, please feel free to put them in the chat below. If you thought that this video was helpful, I'd love a thumbs-up, and please subscribe for more videos. Have a great day!