There has been a recent increase in the popularity of mobility training, which first began with simple foam rolling and lacrosse ball work. Now, there are lengthy pre-training rituals that people follow. Even though preparing your body for exercise is crucial, it can be tough to maintain or improve your mobility.
Your gym career may have different requirements now than when you first started. The way you prepare to lift heavy weights will likely need to change over time, depending on your chosen lifting method and other lifestyle factors.
The benefits of mobility training go beyond simply increasing your range of motion. It can also help stabilize key movement patterns. The following are the five best mobility workouts:
What is Mobility Exercise?
The goal of mobility exercises is to improve the range of motion in your joints and the strength of the muscles around them. These exercises also aim to increase the number of repetitions you can do. The benefits of a good Mobility Program include becoming more agile and flexible, as well as creating lean muscle mass. A good Mobility Program will start with a short session to get the muscles warm, followed by a combination of new and old movements done in a flowing motion. The following transitions between exercises are able to be repeated to create an entire routine which will work out your whole body. Most people who start a mobility program can expect to see an enhancement in their joint mobility within a few weeks. Some programs may last a couple of months, but most people will see results soon after they start.
Are Mobility and Flexibility the Same?
Both concepts are important for people in today's world, but each has different implications. Mobility and flexibility are both important for people in today's world, but they have different implications. Flexibility is about increasing the range of motion of your muscles and joints, mobility also does that but while strengthening said muscles and joints. Mobility refers to the ability to move freely and repeat the same motion comfortably, while flexibility refers to the ability to do one move only once and then ease out of it. There are benefits to both flexibility and mobility programs, depending on what you want to achieve.
Women are more flexible than men and can achieve more impressive feats of flexibility through exercise. While mobility programs can be beneficial for both men and women, they seem to help men more when it comes to strengthening their joints and the muscles around them. Although these are generalizations, both women and men can benefit from following a Mobility Program. This is especially true when Mobility Program is combined with a Calisthenics routine.
3 Reasons Why You Should Train Your Mobility
A good range of motion is associated with many health benefits, and can also be helpful for strength- and movement-based sports like calisthenics, fitness, and bodybuilding. Flexibility is key to preventing injury to your joints and muscles, whether you're playing sports or just getting older. Here are three compelling reasons why you should be following one of the best Mobility Programs.
#1 Fight Obesity, Activate Your Body
If you’re struggling with obesity, many of the training exercises which, for instance, a Calisthenics Program offers are difficult for you. The programs mentioned require you to use your own bodyweight and limbs, which may not be beneficial or even possible. Mobility programs help with weight loss by burning calories and strengthening muscles and ligaments. They can also help prepare you for future calisthenics exercises. The hardest part is getting the ball rolling. You'll find it's an uphill push. If you have a good Mobility Program, it will be easier for you to reach the summit.
#2 Prevent Injury, Increase Gains
A Mobility Program is important for people who are serious about athletics because it helps prevent injuries by maintaining core and limb flexibility. If you're more agile than your opponent, you can defeat them. This can also help with things like weight or how many repetitions you do. If you keep the internal gears of your machines well oiled and maintained, you'll find it will be much easier and quicker to get stronger.
#3 Stay Healthy, Promote Longevity
Our contemporary lives involve very little physical activity, so we've gotten used to sitting and not doing much. The benefits of this are that we can use our joints for a longer time and age more slowly. The sedentary lifestyle that we live has increased our life expectancy by a lot compared to someone who was a factory worker in the 19th century or a farmer in medieval times. Now we have gone to the other extreme where some people hardly move at all during their day. Staying fit and healthy can be difficult when obesity, muscle stiffness, and ligament atrophy are so common. The leading cause of death is now heart and coronary disease, and this is due to our lack of activity.
Best Mobility Workout for Beginners
Any beginner, regardless of their focus (bodybuilding, powerlifting, weightlifting, or general fitness) should make it a priority to normalize their range of motion in exercise. This will allow them to safely execute foundational exercises.
Exercises such as hinges, squats, lunges, pushes, and pulls utilize planes of motion that can be used to improve mobility and reinforce proper technique simultaneously. These exercises can be employed in early training phases to improve overall performance. Pause or add tempo in order to increase the time spent in loaded, stretched positions.
The Workout
If you're new to lifting, you may want to try using only your body weight at first. But eventually you may find that adding some light weights can help your muscles adjust to new ranges of motion. Pick a weight that is heavy enough to make the set and repetition scheme challenging, but not so heavy that you cannot complete the set.
- Paused Goblet Squat: 3 x 6
- Tempo Front-Foot Elevated Split Squat: 2 x 8 per leg
- Tempo Romanian Deadlift: 2 x 10
- Underhand Lat Pulldown: 3 x 10
- Paused Machine Pec Fly: 2 x 10
Best Mobility Workout for The Office
Workouts that improve mobility can help offset the potential restrictions that a sedentary office job may cause. Sitting in a chair and having rounded shoulders are common problems for people who work in an office. To help with these ailments, you should do exercises that target those parts of the body and can be done anywhere.
The Workout
Calisthenics and unilateral movements are exercises that are very effective at improving mobility. There will be very few opportunities to load here, so you may not want to work too hard and get sweaty. You can either do these exercises a few times throughout the day, or repeat them as often as you need.
- Deficit Push-Up: 3 x 10
- Paused Rear-Foot Elevated Split Squat: 2 x 10 per leg
- Assisted Single-Leg Romanian Deadlift: 2 x 10 per leg
- Bodyweight Windmill: 3 x 6 per side
- Front Plank: 3 x 30 seconds
Best Mobility Workout for Home
Mobility training done at home provides more options than at the office. If you are lucky enough to have a good home gym, many other people will not be as lucky. Even though the environment may not be ideal, you can still use it to your advantage to get some good complimentary mobility training.
There is a lot of similarity between the types of exercises that are beneficial for people who work in an office and those who work from home. At-home mobility workouts can help achieve goals beyond offsetting a sedentary lifestyle.
The Workout
There are many options for getting in shape by using common fixtures and equipment. You can still do the exercises without the equipment, but it is more challenging.
- Paused Step-Up: 2 x 10 per leg
- Deficit Reverse Lunge: 2 x 10 per leg
- Dead-Hang Band Lat Pulldown: 3 x 10
- Paused Pullover: 2 x 10
- Incline Push-Up: 2 x 10
Best Mobility Workout for Powerlifting
Powerlifting is a sport that consists of three main moves: the squat, bench press, and deadlift. Designing mobility workouts to improve key lifts or offset any loss of mobility from consistently training the same movement patterns is extremely beneficial when trying to stay healthy during the long haul of a competition season.
Some people believe that incorporating different types of movements, working on one side of the body at a time, and focusing on planes of motion that are not commonly used in powerlifting competitions can help maintain the perfect balance of mobility and strength.
The Workout
When creating a mobility training plan for powerlifting, it is important to consider how much weight will be required. Bodyweight exercises can improve mobility in many contexts, but they are unlikely to be effective at increasing strength for powerlifting. As you get stronger, you often need to use more weight to get a good workout.
- Contralateral-Load Lateral Lunge: 3 x 10 per side
- Paused Cable Pullover: 2 x 12
- Half-Kneeling Single-Arm Cable Pulldown: 2 x 12 per side
- Landmine Single-Leg Romanian Deadlift: 2 x 10 per side
- Ab Rollout: 3 x 10
Best Mobility Workout for Weightlifting
The range of motion goal for powerlifting is very precise, while weightlifting is much more dynamic. Some exercises are more difficult than others because they require you to be in an overhead position, squat to a very deep depth, or coordinate explosive movements. If you can't move well, you won't be able to do weightlifting well, and you're more likely to get hurt doing the snatch and clean.
The Workout
Workouts to improve mobility for weightlifting should focus on the ankles, hips, shoulders, and thoracic spine. You can achieve better results by doing exercises that improve your shoulder position and deep hip and knee flexion, while also incorporating rotational movements.
- Cossack Squat: 2 x 10 per side
- Tempo Overhead Squat: 2 x 10
- Kettlebell Windmill: 3 x 5 per side
- Lateral Raise: 3 x 15
- Contralateral Landmine Single-Leg Romanian Deadlift: 2 x 12 per side
Benefits of Mobility Workouts
Working out your mobility is a great way to practice the movement patterns you'll need for any kind of training. Gaining, retaining, and controlling all the necessary ranges of motion is a huge part of mobility workouts.
Control of Range of Motion
The most obvious benefit of mobility training is that it allows you to move your joints through a greater range of motion. To exercise safely, you need to be able to move your joints freely through a full range of motion. The best way to achieve this is to do mobility exercises that target the key joints. Once you establish a level of mobility that is required for the workout, you can do the full workout routine more efficiently by folding it into your warm-up routine as needed. For example, a set of Romanian deadlifts that is not too heavy can be used as a way to improve flexibility while also practicing the proper technique for deadlifts.
Injury Risk Management
If you don't have good mobility, you're more likely to get hurt if you have to do something that your body isn't used to. If you're having trouble with new exercises or your muscles aren't responding the way they used to, it may be time to reassess your workout routine.
If you have trouble performing the exercises in your program safely, you may be more likely to have an accident or get injured. Doing the right mobility exercises with a full range of motion is a good way to prevent problems.
Conclusion
Just as strength needs to be both trained and maintained, mobility does as well. It's not enough to just achieve agility and then stop training. You have to keep working at it to maintain the level of agility. Mobility is very fragile and, in a way, the opposite of strength training. Although it may take a while to build a moderate amount of strength, most people can become moderately agile relatively quickly. If you stop training, you may lose some of your strength quickly, especially if you're a man. However, you'll still have most of your strength for years. Mobility, though quickly gained, is also quickly lost. Stop moving and you will experience decay almost immediately. The most important thing to take away from this is that you never stop.
