Is your mobility work actually meaningful?
Click here to start your free trial of my Meaningful Mobility program.
Guest BLOG post from Dr. Corey Southers PT, DPT, CSCS, FDN, FMS of Rehabilitation Redefined, LLC
NO ONE likes the pain of the foam roller.
Well, what if I told you that you can get far more benefit out of your mobility work without using it anyway?
Foam rollers, lacrosse balls, massage guns, etc – they feel like they work, right?
In reality, we don’t have one shred of evidence that they do anything meaningful to improve tissue extensibility or mobility.
First, let’s ask this question: What is mobility?
Mobility is not just your ability to achieve a certain position – mobility is your ability to reach and CONTROL positions.
What do we know improves mobility?
Active mobility techniques. Not passive techniques like the above mentioned modalities or even passive stretching like those static stretches you’ve been told to hold for your hamstrings or lats. Furthermore, most people don’t need to be doing that kind of stretching anyway – but that’s for the next blog post!
What do you mean by active mobility techniques?
Actively moving your joints to the end ranges of their movements, creating tension there, and spending time there – moving them through every bit of their full range of motion.
But why?
Let’s go back to where we said mobility is your ability to CONTROL positions. This is how you actually gain control of your joints so that the nervous system will feel more comfortable allowing you to access that mobility. If that comfortability isn’t there, the nervous system will stop you dead in your tracks and not allow you to move any further – it creates the checks and balances system that the body needs in order to avoid injuries.
Do you want to improve the quality of your movements, make your joints feel better, sit into your squat better, and generally feel less tight?
If your answer is yes, then you need to employ active mobility work for your major joints (all joints really, but let’s start with the spine, ribcage, shoulders, and hips).
ESPECIALLY over the last year and a half as most of us have totally shifted how we approach each work day – moving less, working from home more, and creating new routines – it’s easy to stray from the plan for this kind of extra work.
15-20 minutes a day is all it takes. Call it your warmup or your cool down. Call it your morning movement to prepare for the day. Call it your mid-day work break to get away from your desk. Call it whatever you want, but you need to do it.
Well, what do I do then?
I have a program that I’ve put together that does JUST this. It is run via mobile app so you can access it anywhere. It gives you the exact 15-20 minute routine each day to follow (changing daily). It focuses on improvement of movement health in your spine, shoulders, and hips. Most importantly, it improves the quality of your joint movement – better joint movement quality means more controlled, less tight, less painful joints.
Stop spending that painful time on the rollers and balls trying to smash your tissues into smithereens, and spend it doing something that will create real change.
Click here to start your free trial of my Meaningful Mobility program.
Here are a few examples of some of the mobility work that you will see in the daily program:
Click here to start your free trial of my Meaningful Mobility program along with extended access to my library of mobility/rehab/strength activities to see how much more beneficial you can make that 15 minutes per day!
Want help achieving your other fitness or nutrition goals? Click here to setup a time to talk with our coaches at Ohio Strength!