Mobility refers the ability to move easily and freely while stretching forms a key part of achieving this. Muscle mobility and stretching are two of the most skipped elements of fitness, and perhaps also some of the most misunderstood. As the body ages, it’s common to experience general tightness making standing up or walking without assistance a challenge. The good thing is that mobility can not only be reclaimed but sustained to your old age.

The following 3 moves increase your mobility as they focus on dynamic stretches.

1.   Hip Mobility Flexion

The hip joint is important as it supports your body weight in both dynamic and static positions. Your hips are involved in nearly all athletic actions—pushing, jumping, sprinting, and changing directions. The hips are, unfortunately, one of the most under-trained areas in terms of flexibility and mobility. The hip mobility flexion begins with you standing in front of a flat surface, ideally not taller than your knee such as a bed, coffee table, or couch. Place the left foot on the selected prop and externally begin rotating your knee going down in a manner that the outside of your shin and calf is flat against the flat surface. Slowly work the other leg (right) and gently bend forward over your externally rotated leg so that you create space in the hip, loosening the glutes. In that position, hold for about 2 minutes and then switch your legs

2. Thoracic Mobilization

The shoulder is similar to the hip as it also a ball-and-socket mechanism. It also moves in flexion, abduction, adduction, extension, and external & internal rotation. However, different from the hip, your shoulder joint is heavily influenced by the shoulder blade (scapula). It, therefore, becomes essential to have strong scapular stability.

Poor thoracic spine mobility can lead to serious injuries to your lumbar spine or the shoulder blade/scapula/ region. For this exercise, with your feet on the floor, lie down on your back with your knees up, like you were preparing for a sit-up. Place either two lacrosse balls or a small foam roller under your back, at a height equivalent to your pecs. Proceed to gently, smoothly roll up, and then down a couple of times.

3. Wall Extensions

In the long-run, it pays great dividends to spend dedicated time to stretching and mobility exercises. This allows you to train or work out more effectively while at the same time reducing the risk of injury. Wall extensions are an effective yet very simple method of improving the mobility and flexibility of your shoulders. Here is how to do it: • Stand with your heels and back leaning against a wall. • Extend both your arms stretching outwards to your sides, palms facing out. The backs of your hands should lean against the wall. • Bend your arms so that your forearms move into a position that is upright. Then move both your arms to an angle of 90-degrees. • Raise your arms carefully above your head while you keep them flat against your wall. Repeat the procedure several times. The flexibility you get will allow you to extend your arms fully and touch the hands together while at the same keeping arms, wrists, and elbows touching the wall during the entire session.

As you implement your mobility routines, it’s wise to always remember to keep them within your personal threshold so that you don’t overstretch your muscles. You can easily work the majority of these mobility exercises into your existing warm-up routine. The focus ought to be optimal muscle movement patterns.

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How you use the resting period between your workout sets is a key variable that can be gainfully used to get different results from your fitness training or muscle building program. Sometimes referred to as active recovery, active rest can be compared to going for a swim after a tough training session.

Active rest helps in improving your body and in maximizing workout results. The principle behind active rest is that during your workout or training session, instead of sitting down to rest on a bench, you are doing some light physical activity.

Resting certainly gives your muscles a vital break from the beating during a gym session. However, it has been proven that some light movement such as Self-Myofascial Release (SMR), swimming, walking, an easy bike ride, mobility drills, throwing a Frisbee around fosters beneficial recovery outcomes. This is what “active” recovery is all about.

The Types of Active Rest 

There are several active recovery methods that are highly convenient which can be adapted to your particular workout session or fitness training program.

Self-Myofascial Release (SMR) – One fine method of Self-Myofascial Release is foam rolling. The objective is to massage your muscles by employing implements such as lacrosse balls, foam rollers, as well as other specialty items.

Walking – This is great for active recovery. It not only burns calories but also boosts your feelings of general well-being.

Riding – Similar to walking, riding can burn a considerable amount of calories. Of course, you need to tailor the ride to match your current level of fitness. Cycling, in particular, is a good active recovery workout as it involves nearly every muscle in your body.

Benefits of Active Rest 

Staying active between your sessions also helps in keeping your muscles warm. It is a fact that your muscles will give better outcomes when they are warm. Just remember how stiff your muscles tend to feel when you haven’t warmed up well. Therefore keeping your muscles warm contributes to better overall body functioning during a workout.

Active rest not only helps with cell and muscle recovery during your workout session, but it contributes to the general performance too. By helping you get over plateaus, improving strength and endurance, active rest can be useful in working around the affected muscle while still getting on with the intense workout.

Another advantage of being active between sessions is that you are also burning some extra calories on top of what you accomplished during the main workout. This gains greater significance if your workout objective is to maximize on burning those extra calories. In addition, active rest helps in keeping your heart rate up. This is good as it boosts your workout’s cardiovascular benefits.

Active Rest Can Produce Game-Changing Results 

Active recovery assists you to maximize and prepare yourself mentally for the next strenuous or intense workout. Often, you will hear of over-training due to inadequate or improper resting. In many cases more is, in fact, better than less. So rather than take to the bench or mat in between workout sessions, engage in active rest. The above simple methods of active rest can produce game-changing results.

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Anything taken or done excessively, even a good thing, can be harmful. The same applies to fitness training. Overtraining is not a reserve of the long-term and experienced trainer. Even the newbie can easily also fall into the trap of overtraining. For the best results, every trainer must follow the simple principle of progression. If that doesn’t happen, the trainer may find herself or himself getting unmotivated to attain the set goals, getting over trained, and possibly injured in the process.

But how can you tell if you are overtraining? Overtraining can be described as an increase in the intensity and/or volume of exercise that tends to lead a reduction in performance. Often, recovering from this condition may take many days or even several weeks. A less severe or shorter overtraining variation is known as overreaching, from which you can easily recover in a couple of days.

Look for these warning signs that will tell you that a break/change is needed with your fitness training.

Incomplete Workouts 

Overtraining is normally the result of the trainer getting overzealous in attempts to improve performance and feeling that he or she need to continue training without taking a vital break. It can easily amount to you being unable to complete a routine workout. Here, we are not referring to normal training failure-the kind of failure experienced when you are trying to break your personal records.

If suddenly you find yourself struggling hard to lift weights that previously were lifted without too much stress, odds are high that you are overtrained. If your body doesn’t get adequate rest, you won’t have the capacity to function properly for some time, let alone lifting heavier weights.

Increased Injury Incidences 

If constantly you are pushing your body beyond what it can cope with, then eventually, something will give. Injuries will become more frequent. In order for your body to repair itself, it needs rest, there’s no shortcut. And you can be sure that you will not want to experience something like a torn muscle – very nasty stuff.

Rising Resting Heart Rate 

This is recognized as one of the easiest methods of finding out whether you could be overtrained. Before you embark on your training session, take your RHR (resting heart rate)-this ought to be your training baseline. Your RHR should decrease slowly as your level of fitness improves. If your body is overtraining, you will begin to notice the RHR going up. A resting heart rate that is increasing is a sure sign that you need to lower your training intensity.

Other signs of overtraining include trouble sleeping, irritability, loss of appetite, fatigue, tight & sore muscles. At times, however, it’s good to recognize that recovery from sessions of intense training can also elicit lots of the signs associated with overtraining. In case these signs continue for a couple of days after one or two bouts of intense training, it may be more of overreaching and not overtraining. With proper rest, you will successfully overcome that and your body will be ready to face the next challenge. However, without proper recovery, your state of overreaching can easily grow to that of overtraining.

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