How to successfully incorporate mobility in your day.

There are many reasons to train your mobility. Mobility, or lack thereof, impacts how you move, your strength at end range positions (squat, press, pull, hinge), and orthopedic pain over your lifetime. Mobility is the ability to move a joint through full range of motion with control and strength. You may think you’re fine because you can touch your toes, but can you complete a full air squat? Or are you limited by mobility?

Here are a few real-world examples:

-       Getting up from the floor requires hip, ankle, and spine mobility.

-       Lifting an object overhead requires shoulder and thoracic spine mobility.

-       Sitting and standing from a camping chair requires hip and ankle mobility.

-       Squatting down to pick up your child requires hip, ankle, and spine mobility.

Easy strategies to incorporate mobility in your day.

1.     Keep your commitment to under 10 minutes per day – Consistency wins the race over time compared to extreme commitment for 6 weeks followed by burnout.

2.     Choose up to 3 exercises/movements to complete – Identify your area of focus (hips, thoracic, lumbar, ankles, etc), then identify up to 3 exercises for that area. I often see people complete 10 different exercises for 20 seconds each thinking more is better. Long static holds (2:00+) and quality, intentional movements for dynamic exercises are better.

3.     Set a schedule – Create a schedule that is feasible for your life. This may be 8 minutes of mobility training every day or it could be alternate days. Think of it as movement hygiene that needs to be addressed regularly like brushing your teeth. It must be regularly addressed to sustain improvements.

4.     Habit Stack – This is a behavior strategy where you piggyback a new behavior with a existing behavior. Examples:

a.     You complete a 3:00 deep squat hold before any training session.

b.     You complete 20 reps of 90/90 hip rotations before getting dressed for work.

c.     You complete 10 thoracic spine wall rotations before watching tv at night.

As we perform mobility work in class, mentally archive some of the movements that you feel benefit you the most. Feel free to reach out to have a conversation about any mobility work we do and additional resources to perform them at home.

Mobility Resources:

Squat University (YouTube Channel)

The Barbell Physio (YouTube Channel)

Pliability (App)

GoWOD (App)