Working on our mobility is often viewed as something we should do to tick a box. The results are generally not obvious in the same way as lifting weights might be for building muscle or following a running program might be for improving your 10k time. In these instances it can be easy to see the benefit and therefore it is a lot easier to motivate yourself to continue with these training modes month after month.
Mobility is different. Spending 10-15 minutes per day lightly moving your joints, muscles and connective tissue is unlikely to have an instant impact on your dress size (it will actually have an impact long term – move better, get more out of your gym sessions, get better results…but that’s a story for another day!). This, in my opinion, is why it’s the first training area to fall off the radar when time becomes tight. We’ve got maybe 3 x 1 hour slots that we feel we can fit some exercise into and we want to use that time to the maximum. So we hit the gym, do some warm up sets, smash through our strength program and finish with some sort of high intensity work or finisher. A half-hearted stretch of the hamstrings and quads then it’s in the car and back to the busy life until the next time you set foot in the gym. It’s often not until areas start to feel extra tight or, worst case scenario, an injury occurs before we decide to dig the foam roller out and start doing some of that mobility work.
I know this to be the case first hand, as this is the pattern I personally have fallen into over the past 8 months. Since my second child was born, all the extra mobility work and daily movement routines have been replaced by changing nappies and singing nursery rhymes. By the time I’m home from work and the kids are in bed, my sofa seems to develop an adhesive quality and I feel like I cannot move my arse off of it. I still get those 3 or 4 gym sessions in though. I was getting away with it. Fitness and strength were improving, so all must be fine. Until bang – a hip issue came to a head and all of a sudden I can’t train properly for a few weeks on end. The solution is some extensive mobility and localised strengthening work (along with an expensive chiropractor bill) before I am able to train in the way that I want to again. Of course, I know more than most that this could have been avoided by putting a small amount of work each day over those preceding months. Lesson learned.
Many of us spend hours upon hours working on our cardiovascular health and fitness, making sure the heart and lungs are working optimally. And so we should, this is a vital area for all of us. However in my opinion we should be spending just as much time working on our mobility – think about it this way….for the great majority of people, mobility will start to be adversely affected LONG before your heart and lung health starts to deteriorate. Having a better quality of life as you get into your mid and later life, being able to run around after your kids, being able to walk up stairs, being able to get off the couch without making ‘that’ noise you make – these are all reasons to make sure you give mobility work the respect it deserves and do it daily. You don’t need to spend 2 hours per day stretching either, 10-15 minutes each day, even while you watch TV, can be enough to keep your joints and tissues as healthy as they need to be!
When it comes to your mobility, be proactive rather than reactive. Make sure you don’t have an issue as opposed to trying to fix an issue once it’s occured. A quick google search of ‘mobility’ does not bring up hip stretches and foam rolling techniques. It produces a list of mobility aids – walking sticks, scooters, etc. Do the work now and prevent (or at least DELAY) the need to start shopping at Mobility Solutions For You!
Look out for my next blog which will provide some easy ways to improve your mobility whilst bingeing on Netflix box sets!