Take care of You -- Become stronger through MOBILITY

Mar 14, 2023

When we think about fitness and doing what is best to keep fit and healthy, we immediately think of exercising, both strength and cardio. Lately there has been a lot of discussion on social media and in various articles around the benefits of strength training, which I have always believed in and talked about for years. But there is one thing that is often overlooked — mobility and recovery. It is probably one of the most important factors in making sure you perform at your best and remain injury free.

Greater mobility allows you to become stronger

Mobility is simply defined as the ability to move or be moved freely and easily. In fitness and wellness, it is further defined as the ability to display a full range of motion around a joint with control. Good mobility helps increase your athletic performance and helps prevent injury.

Believe it or not, we were all born with innate mobility. As babies, we were able to stretch in so many ways without even thinking about it (how many times have we seen a baby put their foot in their mouth.) But unfortunately, as we get older many of us become less and less active. Many of us live sedentary lifestyles, and now more than ever with many of us working from home at least part of the time. We spend most of our days, sitting at our home desks or couches, doing ZOOM calls, or lying on our beds watching endless hours of movies or TV shows OnDemand. Our flexibility naturally just starts to diminish as our muscles get tighter. The immediate solution we think of is to workout more! But that usually does not include mobility.

Let’s learn more:

Mobility and Athletic Performance
If you can’t properly move, you can’t properly perform. By performing mobility exercises focused on certain joints such as your hips, shoulders, neck, ankles, you help increase your flexibility and range of motion. This allows you to perform your exercises with better technique and form which will result in a more effective workout. For example, if we have tight hips, then we will struggle with certain movements such as lowering ourselves in squat or performing a deadlift or glute bridge hold with proper form. With full hip mobility, it will help your legs move more easily and help give you the speed to run, the power to jump, and the agility to move better.

Mobility and Injury Prevention
One of the biggest benefits to mobility exercises or training is the reduced risk to injury. It’s very simple, when your joints are restricted and cannot move properly, there is a higher risk of injury. This is because during this restriction or lack of movement we will typically stretch or strain the muscle or join beyond its capacity. With proper mobility in your hip, you can help prevent lower back, knee and ankle pain. It is also important to distinguish flexibility from mobility as they are often used interchangeably. Flexibility is the ability of your muscles to stretch while mobility is about your range of motion of both your muscles and your joints. For example, to perform effective overhead lifts you need good shoulder mobility otherwise your arms may be positioned more forward, resulting in you compensating with your back or neck and potentially causing pain or stress.

Mobility vs. Quick Warm-up
A quick warm up before exercising is typically not the same thing. It is not uncommon to see people start their workouts by swinging their legs and/or arms in quick circles or side to side, pulling their arm across their body etc. This is NOT a mobility focused workout. When doing mobility exercises correctly, you are taking the time to perform movements which will increase your blood circulation around the specific joint you are targeting. This will help increase the fluid in your joints, thus helping them glide freely.

My Job 1 program, which has an emphasis on strength vs cardio (3 days strength, 2 days cardio) also has a 20 min Overtime session dedicated to rest, recovery and your mobility. Something you can perform day or night, every day of the week if you have time. Don’t always have an extra 20 mins to focus on mobility? That’s okay! Just do whatever you can or check out one of my shorter mobility workouts on YouTube below. As they say you don’t have to be great to start but you have to start to be great!

It is time to stop overlooking something many of us are naturally born with. If you want to become stronger and just move better, make sure to take the time to focus on your mobility!

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Want to perform some exercises to help with your mobility? Check out my JMETHOD YouTube channel and check out my latest video where I spend time focusing on HIP MOBILITY.