Mobility 101

Hello fellow fitness enthusiasts and welcome back to the blog! Today I’d like to go over a bit of mobility basics: what it is, why it’s important to do it and some simple exercises you can incorporate into your daily routine.

First off though, I think it’s important to distinguish mobility from flexibility as the two are often conflated. Shona Verture, a personal trainer, former gymnast and mobility enthusiast, writes: “flexibility refers to your ability to passively stretch a muscle or group of muscles through a range of motion (think lying down, having someone else stretch your hamstring for you), whereas mobility refers to the strength to hold this flexibility with control and at optimal levels, produce force too (think kicking someone in the head with power)” [1]. This is an important distinction because the more we work to improve our mobility, the longer we will be able to train safely and effectively. I don’t know about you but one of my biggest goals is to be active and strong well into my later years. 

As for the benefits of mobility training here are a few that I thought of that may also appeal to you:

1. Helps the body move efficiently and in ways that it was designed to. Think about hitting full range of motion in a squat, or being able to get a straight line in a handstand thanks to mobile shoulders. The key here is moving the body in various planes and with control and if this is possible to achieve through just a few minutes of mobility training each day, then why not?

2. Develop a routine that will carry you into old age strong, mobile and motivated each day to move. As I mentioned above, creating a sustainable workout routine is one of my biggest drivers, both for my personal fitness as well as for the plans I design with my clients.

3. Develop greater body awareness as you move to avoid injuring yourself as well as honing in on the target muscle to get more results. Mobility training is slow and deliberate and as such has to be done with care. Including this kind of activity into your regular fitness practice will improve your mind-muscle connection, translating to more results and potentially fewer injuries. 

Now that we know what mobility is and why you may want to start adding it into your daily practice, let’s take a look at some simple exercises you can do each day. However, there are two types of mobility training: flexibility-focused exercises and mobility techniques for myofascial release [2]. The following two routines work mostly with flexibility-focused exercises. If you want to add in some mobility drills for myofascial release then check out the blog post I wrote on foam rolling here. 

1. Tom Merrick has a wonderful full body mobility routine on his YouTube channel that is follow along and only takes 15 minutes. 

2. Shona Vertue (see above) also has a YouTube channel with some kickass mobility videos. Here is a real time video to open up the hips- doubling important now considering most of us are spending large portions of the day sitting during our home-quarantine. 

Thank you all so much for stopping by this week and I hope you learned something about mobility :) If you all would like to see more material on this, or maybe some videos on my channel of quick routines 5-10 minutes, then please let me know in the comments below or on IG (@alexandratempletonfit).

I hope you all are staying healthy and sane and until next week!

Xoxo,

Alexandra 

Sources:

1. Vertue, Shona. “Shona Vertue.” Shona Vertue - Mobility Programme, 2020, shonavertue.com/mobility-programme.html 

2. Pohlman, Dean. “Mobility Vs Flexibility: What's The Difference?” Man Flow Yoga, 21 July 2016, manflowyoga.com/blog/flexibility-vs-mobility/