Mobility & Flexibility training

Let's talk mobility and flexibility. Whether you're a regular goer or not, this is something that should be included as part of your daily routine in order to maintain joint health as well as your overall health and wellbeing. Stiff, painful and restricted joints, muscle tension and soreness are all things which are extremely common in todays society. This can simply be down to inactivity and poor posture both of which can play havoc on your joints and soft tissues. Even those of you who train and exercise on a regular basis, it doesn't mean your joints or muscles wont ever suffer from any of these issues. Muscle tightness and a lack of range of movement in your joints can easily develop as a result of intense training so it's important to try and include some form of mobility work into your training schedule. The whole purpose of this article is for me to try and educate people on how to try and find a balanced approach towards their training methods, as well as improving any joint and soft tissue limitations.

So let's delve a bit deeper. First off, I need to explain what mobility and flexibility means and how they are both actually different from one another.

Mobility relates to our joints and their ability to move actively while maintaining strength through a range of motion.

Flexibility relates to our muscles and their ability to lengthen passively through a range of motion.

In order to gain control of your mobility and flexibility, you also need to work on increasing your muscular strength and stability so that you are able to take your joints through a controlled range of movement. This is why we shouldn't just focus on becoming flexible and believe it's enough to keep our joints healthy. Although this is beneficial and it will assist in increasing your mobility, without having strength in our muscles we can easily lose control when taking our joints through a range of movement. To gain the strength that's required to keep our joints and bodies healthy, this is where incorporating some form of resistance and strength training into your workouts will be beneficial.

Many people seem to think that because you don't necessarily work up a sweat or burn serious calories when doing mobility work, it can often be neglected. What I will say is, you don't need to allocate too much time in order to benefit from doing mobility and flexibility training. However, it does need to be done regularly and consistency is key. Even just 10-15 minutes a day can make a huge difference, whether it's done at the gym, office or at home. If you're at the gym, you can easily apply this into your warm up and cool down, or you can dedicate an entire session on your recovery days by taking part in a weekly Yoga or Pilates class. Making this a priority will not only help with the range of movement in your joints and improve the quality of your lifts in strength training, it will also help to improve your body mechanics. This means your posture, lifting techniques, how you sit and stand, carry and even sleep can all benefit and improve over time. The one thing you need to remember, is that in order to improve your mobility and flexibility, you need to be patient with your body as it can be a slow process. It can also depend on how much range of movement and flexibility you currently have and what is classed as normal for you. Everyone will progress differently and it will ultimately come down to how much time you allocate each week before you notice any difference. When it comes down to it, you get out what you put in.

Now lets go through the type of exercises you can do which can help increase your mobility and flexibility.

Dynamic stretching:

This type of stretching includes functional movement by performing active stretches, normally multi-joint exercises, which help to warm up and lengthen your muscles as well as prepare and lubricate the joints. Dynamic stretching prepares your body for a workout by using exercises that can mimic the movement patterns which you will do as part of your main workout. Some examples of dynamic stretches are, walking lunges, torso rotations, hip circles and leg swings. To begin with, the exercises should start slow and steady so that your body has chance to prepare for an increase in intensity. Once you start to feel that your joints and muscles are becoming warmer and you can feel your range of movement start to increase, you can then progress the exercises by increasing your speed and range to make them more dynamic. It is important however to always stay within a range of motion that feels normal for you to avoid any injuries.

Static stretching:

This type of stretching is normally done at the end of a workout as part of a cool down but it can also be applied in your warm up once your muscles are warm and heart rate has been increased. The difference with this type of stretching is that your body doesn't move while you are holding the stretch, whereas with dynamic stretching your body continues to move. Static stretching involves holding a stretch for a period of time, normally around 15-30 seconds. This allows your muscles to lengthen gradually which helps to increase flexibility while also helping you to recover from a workout allowing your body to return back to a resting state. It is important to remember that when you take your body into a static stretch, you don't force your muscles to lengthen to a point where you are in pain and are not able to breathe and relax. By stretching at the end of your workout you also help to alleviate muscle soreness and stiffness which can happen as a result of intense training. It wont necessarily stop muscle soreness from happening all together, but it will certainly help reduce the amount of discomfort you might feel 24-48 hours later. As I mentioned before, flexibility helps to improve mobility so in addition to all these benefits, it will also help to increase the range of movement in your joints. If muscles around a joint become tight and restricted, this will effect the range of movement within the surrounding joint, hence why flexibility and mobility go hand in hand.

Foam rolling:

Also known as self-myofascial release, this can be applied in both preparation for a workout or as part of your recovery. This is another technique which is commonly used to help relieve muscle tightness and soreness, also known as DOMS, and can help break down adhesions which can often develop in the muscles and fascia. These adhesions are a result of our muscle fibres getting stuck together which can form for a variety of reasons such as, injury, inactivity, inflammation or trauma. This results in a loss of elasticity and forms taut bands of tissue which can be quite painful and can inhibit your performance and limit your range of movement. With the reduction of muscle and fascia tightness and removal of adhesions, foam rolling can help to increase your range of movement and enhance your training performance.

There is however another way to achieve all these benefits from foam rolling that doesn't require you to do all the hard work, and that is booking in for a sports massage. Whether you train regularly or not, massage can benefit all of us and will help to alleviate tight and restricted areas which may be causing you pain and discomfort, as well as treating sport specific injuries.

For more information on sports massage and how it can benefit you, please click on the sports massage section on my homepage or get in touch.