Why we should all work on our Mobility
Summary
SummaryIn this episode, Coach LM and Coach Mike discuss the importance of mobility and why it is necessary for maintaining a healthy and functional body. They define mobility as the ability to move freely without restriction and highlight the common issues people face, such as tight hip flexors and shoulders. The hosts emphasize the need for a mobility routine to improve joint flexibility, stretch and contract major muscle groups, and enhance balance and stability. They also discuss the benefits of mobility for aging and how it can help individuals maintain independence and perform daily tasks with ease. The episode concludes with a reminder that the body is designed to move and that incorporating a mobility routine is essential for overall well-being.
Keywordsmobility, joint flexibility, muscle stretching, balance, stability, aging, independence, daily tasks
Takeaways
Mobility is the ability to move freely without restriction.
A mobility routine is important for improving joint flexibility and muscle mobility.
Stretching and contracting major muscle groups helps maintain balance and stability.
Mobility exercises can enhance independence and make daily tasks easier, especially as we age.
Incorporating a mobility routine is essential for overall well-being.
Titles
Improving Joint Flexibility and Muscle Mobility
Enhancing Balance and Stability Through Mobility
Sound Bites
"Mobility is moving freely without restriction."
"My goal with mobility is to get my hip flexor as loose as the other side."
"The mobility routine warms up joints and stretches major muscle groups."
Chapters
00:00Introduction: What is Mobility?
02:03The Components of a Mobility Routine
03:01Warming Up Joints and Stretching Major Muscle Groups
05:22Incorporating Mobility on Non-Workout Days
08:52Mobility and Daily Functionality
11:21Mobility as a Foundation for Strength
13:08The Accessibility of a Mobility Routine
13:56Conclusion: The Body is Made to MoveChapters
Lisa Marie Stearns (00:01.43)
Hey everyone, this is Coach LM. Welcome to the After 40 Review podcast. I'm here with my partner in crime, Coach Mike. And today we are gonna be talking about mobility. Why a mobility routine is important. What exactly is mobility? Why are we talking about it? And actually, let's just jump right in. Mike, what is mobility? Why are we even talking about it?
Mike (00:24.182)
Yeah, what is mobility? That's a great question. I mean, people always think it's, you know, maybe it's yoga or something else. And that certainly can help mobility, but mobility is just, you know, I always think of it as moving freely without restriction, right? So you get up and you got a cranky knee or you go to do something and you got a shoulder that's tighter than the other one or, you know, something that just doesn't feel natural, right? Like for me right now, I have a tight hip flexor on the left.
Lisa Marie Stearns (00:30.83)
Thank you.
Mike (00:50.05)
But the right's fine. So sometimes I feel it, sometimes I don't, but I'm like, why can't one side just feel as good as the other side? And then that would be, but my mobility is really focused on getting that hip flexor loose, right? Same thing from years of throwing, my right shoulder's a little tighter than my left, so when I swim, I feel it. My goal with the right shoulder is to get it as mobile as the left. So the left, I never feel pain with it, it moves freely, and I'm like, man, I wish everything could do this. So even as a fitness coach, this is still my goal to reach that.
Lisa Marie Stearns (00:56.794)
Why can't we be balanced?
Lisa Marie Stearns (01:13.203)
No.
Mike (01:18.51)
you know, zenith or that peak of like, what is, what can I get my mobility to still feel like when I was, you know, 25, 35, even 45, right? So you're always striving for that.
Lisa Marie Stearns (01:24.75)
Sure, sure. Well, that sounds great. So how do you do it? How do you go about balancing your mobility throughout your body? Yeah.
Mike (01:32.618)
Yeah, how do you do it? Yeah, or maybe why do you do it, right? So, I mean, not only to move freely, but think about, you know, bending over to pick up the laundry basket, push the shopping cart, reach for a glass on the high shelf, right? That shoulder mobility, tying your shoes, knees and ankle joints, right? Stuff like that. So how do you do it? Well, you follow a good routine, right? And so lucky for the people listening, we have a good routine. So why don't you take us through some of the exercises and just this...
Lisa Marie Stearns (01:49.322)
Yeah.
Mike (02:00.834)
not maybe the specifics, but maybe just kind of the general outlook of the program.
Lisa Marie Stearns (02:03.582)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so the mobility, we call it mobility and warmup, right? Really, it's, the mobility routine has a couple of different parts to it. It works on warming up your joints and moving joints purposefully, which many of us don't do every day. We just get out of bed and we go, we just go to it. And many times, if you just take the time to maybe,
Mike (02:11.192)
Hmm?
Lisa Marie Stearns (02:33.266)
warm up the hip, warm up the ankle, warm up your shoulder, you are giving your body a better shot at working better for you throughout the day. So that's one thing is warming up the joints. There's a fair amount of stretching and contracting major muscle groups. And so it sounds like you're doing opposite things, but really the way we've put it together and then really one exercise flows into the next.
What's happening is you're just conditioning your body to tell it. Hey, it's time to start moving I expect certain things from you today and I am setting you up for success That's how I think about it You know like we start with a little bit of foam rolling just to Kind of get the density of the muscle and the water and the muscle moved around it helps with any hotspots You might have then we start with the joint stuff and then we do some major muscle groups stretching and contracting
And then we add balance work in. With almost every exercise, there is a piece of stability work in there. And why do we do that? Well, stability and balance, it's a skill, and it's just like anything else. If you stop doing it, you're going to lose it. So when you were 10 years old, you could stand on one leg with no problem. Like you could jump around, you could probably even shoot a basketball off a one leg.
Mike (03:50.451)
Bye.
Lisa Marie Stearns (04:00.258)
As we age, because we stop using those movement patterns because we don't play as much, right? Those skills go away. So we work and, you know, we don't have you jumping around on one leg, don't worry. But we do have you balancing on one leg while you're sometimes stretching a major muscle group or contracting a major muscle group. And some of that stuff can seem pretty challenging to people when they first start.
Mike (04:14.775)
Not yet.
Mike (04:22.572)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa Marie Stearns (04:27.146)
but boy does it feel good when you get it. You think, oh, I can, you know, so many people say, God, it felt good when I finally got that. I didn't, you know, I didn't really believe I was ever gonna be able to do that again. So, and then we finish the mobility warmup with just some movement that gets the heart rate up just a little bit, just to get the muscles warm. And really the whole thing start to finish.
Mike (04:29.934)
Yeah, yeah.
Mike (04:39.223)
Right.
Lisa Marie Stearns (04:55.006)
once you're in the routine of doing it only takes a few minutes maybe five, six, ten minutes the most. When you first start doing it, it might take longer because you're learning the individual pieces of the routine and you have to put it all together but once you've done it for a week or two then you've got this great mobility warm-up routine in place that you can do before a workout to warm up your body.
Mike (05:06.12)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa Marie Stearns (05:22.27)
I think it's even more important to do it on the days when you aren't working out so you are at least doing something for your body. You're telling your body, okay, I may not be playing pickleball today, I may not be going for that bike ride, I may not be lifting weights, but you know what? I still have to climb the stairs, I still have to carry the groceries in, I still have to bend down and pick up the laundry basket, I still have to unload the dishwasher. So let me set you up for success.
Mike (05:45.774)
Right, that's a great point. Do you think that this mobility, I mean, obviously we know about strength, you think mobility helps with aging as well? I mean, you think there's some tie in there?
Lisa Marie Stearns (05:58.058)
Oh gosh, it's, I would say you can't really have one without the other mic. You know, we start our clients off on the mobility and warm up routine first and foremost, because you know, many of our clients come to us and say, I can't lift weights the way I used to. I know what I'm supposed to do, but it doesn't feel right. I can't squat, I can't hinge, my hips are pinching, I can't press the dumbbell up, my shoulder's pinching.
Mike (06:03.27)
right.
Mike (06:19.109)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa Marie Stearns (06:27.278)
And we know what that is, right? We know that they haven't taken the time to warm up their muscles properly and stick to a good mobility routine. They haven't given their joints and their muscles the love that they need to be able to exercise in the way that they used to do. So not only is it as important, I mean, it kind of goes hand in hand. You can't really have one without the other. It's imperative.
Mike (06:40.954)
Right.
Mike (06:52.462)
Right, makes sense. You know, I had a, we had a little camp a few, two years ago before COVID, so it was 2020. And we had some athletes in the gym and these are athletes who are racetrathlons, Ironman, half Ironman. I mean, these are long, long events, a lot of endurance, five to 12 hours worth of fitness in a given day. And, you know, we took them in the gym and we said, you know, I'm demonstrating a deadlift and getting down in my hinge and pulling the deadlift up. And I would say if there were 15 people there, 12 of them could not reach the bar.
they could not hip hinge to reach the bar. These are people that run and bike and swim very quickly, but the mobility and what I got across to them was if you can improve the mobility to even get into that squat or that hinge, you're gonna run so much better because look at all the, you know.
the way you're gonna free up your hips and there's gonna be more movement, more mobility, more power, right? This recovery goes faster, I mean, all of it. And these are, you know, these are 40 and up athletes. And it's not gonna be long before they're into that aging of, you know, the 60s and the 70s, but they gotta be able to move well, you know? It's not just one plane, right? It's always left and right and up and down.
Lisa Marie Stearns (07:56.278)
No.
Lisa Marie Stearns (08:00.818)
Right. Well, you know, my personal goal for every single one of my clients, my personal training clients, my martial arts clients, my after 40 reboot clients. And I know you're going to roll my eyes, your eyes at me, but you know, I want everyone who I work with to be able to get up off the ground without using their hands. And you would be shocked at how many people over 40.
Cannot do that and this is not super hard when you were little you could get up off the ground Or actually when you were younger you could get up off the ground three different ways without using your hands You could do it while sitting Indian style. You could get up using one leg. You could put your knees together We've just lost the skill because we don't practice enough. So this is what the mobility routine is and It really has tremendous benefits
Mike (08:31.444)
100%.
Lisa Marie Stearns (08:52.998)
as you age, okay, because you will be able to continue to climb the stairs. You won't need one of those chair things that goes up on the rail to bring you upstairs to the second floor of your house. You will be able to bend down and switch your laundry or carry the laundry basket from one room or the other. My favorite is that you will be able to push a grocery cart while standing upright because man do I have a pet peeve with people who push a grocery cart with their arms on the front.
Mike (09:04.129)
Right.
Lisa Marie Stearns (09:22.13)
and they're walking around and I think, okay, why are you doing that? You are not helping your body. You're putting strain on your lower back. You're telling your glutes to be weak. There's no reason for you to do that. Stand up straight the way your grandma used to tell you. Throw your shoulders back and push the carriage. So much better for your body than leaning over. But you look the next time you go to the grocery store, the people who are leaning on the carriage are people who are.
elderly and have lost the ability for their muscles to hold their spine upright. Or people who really have no glutes, they have really weak glutes, so they depend on their back to propel themselves forward. And I just find that so sad. And my personal goal is, and yours too, as I know, is to just educate people about the importance of
keeping those major muscle groups strong and mobile and stable. Period, amen.
Mike (10:22.274)
Right. 100%. And that only, as we move into strength with our clients, that you gotta be a mobile before you can ever load a muscle, right? So you gotta be, have the flexible, have the depth to do certain things. Because then you're just creating more problems by putting weight on top of a body that's unstable. I will tell you my favorite exercise within the group that you put together with the mobility routine is literally the standing quad stretch, which I've done my entire life.
Lisa Marie Stearns (10:34.495)
All right.
Mike (10:51.95)
And I'll start out with my hand like on the wall or something just to give myself a little bit of balance and then I can open up and just really feel you know The quad opening up as I'm pulling my foot into my into my glute and then putting my hand up Like i'm doing that yoga pose and getting that balance and that feels like such an accomplishment when I do it And i've been doing that stretch, you know forever right since I was 10 or 12 or whatever it is Um, but things like that. I mean they just get you in the right mindset that like well I can still move well, right? I just have to practice it
It doesn't matter if you've been sitting for 30 years, like you can't, your body is made to move. And if you actually give it the chance to do that, it will do that. If you wanna stay in the chair, you can do that too. It's not gonna be very fun. You know, aging is gonna be miserable. I can tell you right now, seen it so many times, right? But if you can get your body.
Lisa Marie Stearns (11:27.202)
Yeah.
Lisa Marie Stearns (11:31.136)
It will.
Lisa Marie Stearns (11:34.562)
No.
Lisa Marie Stearns (11:40.33)
Well, and we see it, I don't mean to interrupt, but go into a nursing home, go into an assisted living facility. The exercise classes that they offer, what are they called? They're called sitter size. It blows my mind. I'm like, no, no. Put bars on the side of the chairs and teach people how to stand up and sit down again using their glutes. Don't.
Mike (11:54.85)
Yep.
Lisa Marie Stearns (12:07.598)
don't make them sit and exercise, you're defeating the point. I mean, I realize some people have severe, you know, physical limitations and some movement is better than no movement. But when you walk into independent living or assisted living and you've got 60 year olds and 70 year olds, I think you're really shortchanging what the human body can do. The human body is made to move and you are shortchanging that person by not giving them the proper movements.
Mike (12:10.926)
Yeah, no, we... Sure.
Mike (12:28.002)
Right.
Mike (12:38.014)
100%. That's why I.
Lisa Marie Stearns (12:38.098)
Yeah, going back to that movement you were talking about on the quad mic, what I love so much about that quad stretch is then when you're stretching one side, you add the contraction on the other side and lean forward. That is the most difficult piece of the mobility warmup, and that's the one people really, really work towards perfecting. And I know it's hard to understand what we're talking about. I think we're going to link the actual full mobility program in the show notes.
Mike (12:49.626)
Mm-hmm.
Mike (13:03.606)
Yes, in the show notes, you'll see a link and you'll be able to get the mobility routine. And it'll probably take you 20 to 30 minutes first time through and you'll cut it down to 18, 15 minutes, 12, you'll end up at eight to 10 minutes, eight to 12 minutes of it. Especially once you can have it on your phone and take it to the gym or do it in your living room or wherever, bedroom before bed, or when you get up in the morning, super simple to follow. And...
Lisa Marie Stearns (13:08.053)
if you're...
Lisa Marie Stearns (13:23.886)
Yeah.
Lisa Marie Stearns (13:27.602)
And really the only thing you need is you don't need any special equipment. If you have a foam roller, that's the best way to start rolling out your muscles. But if you don't, you can just start with the stretching part. That's kind of like the second section. So if you're sitting there listening, wondering what the heck we're talking about, and you want a visual to go along with it, just do check out the link in the show notes page and you'll have a much better idea. Give it a shot. What have you got to lose?
Mike (13:42.229)
Thank you.
Lisa Marie Stearns (13:56.65)
Let us know how it worked out for you.
Mike (13:57.707)
Yeah, just remember the body is made to move and make that be your takeaway today. All right, thanks for listening.
Lisa Marie Stearns (14:03.854)
Great.
