Warriors, how many of you are confused by mobility work? This seems to be a bit of a hot topic in fitness lately. Mobility is important, but as most things fitness can get overly complicated really quickly. So, let’s chat about it today!

Mobility is the ability to move, or be moved, freely and easily. From a fitness and wellness perspective, this refers to how our joints function to create movement. Each joint in the body has its own unique range of motion and set of motions it helps to create. For example, the elbow is a pretty basic joint. The anatomical structure means that this joint opens and closes like a door hinge to move our forearms and hands to specific positions. The shoulder joint, on the other hand, is a super complex joint. Its anatomy is completely different and it allows many different motions. We can raise our arms up in front, out to the side, and behind us. We can press over head, out in front, down to the sides. We can bring our arms from wide open to closed in front of our chests.

If you’ve ever injured a joint, you instinctively know how that injury changes mobility and your ability to do things. An injured shoulder can cause not only pain, but difficulty getting your arms in the position needed for daily activities like getting something off a high shelf. An injured ankle or knee can immensely impact gait. Walking may be painful, slower, with a limp or hitch, you get the idea.

It is important in strength training to have an understanding of which joints are going to be called on to create the motions and make sure they get a proper warm up. This means a general warm up, or light cardio to raise the heart rate and temperature of the muscles, and a specific warm up. The specific warm up should include mobility exercises in addition to unweighted or unloaded practice motions.

The mobility exercises you choose should gently move the joints in question through their entire range of motion. And while these exercises appear very simple, the idea is to really focus on the joint and the motion so that the movement in these exercises is precise and thoughtful.

I tend to concentrate on the larger and more mobile joints as my training is pretty general and elbows and knees will get a decent warm up here. If your training is more complicated, you are injury prone in a particular joint, or have mobility issues, I’d recommend seeking some one on one coaching for this.

If you are looking for simple exercises for shoulders, hips, ankles, and spine then check out the video below. This is by no means a definitive list and completing every one of these is prior to a workout is also not necessary. Pick 2-3 for the joints you intend on using in your workout. Complete 8-10 reps of each exercise and you should be good to go.

If you’ve got specific questions, drop them in the comments and until next time, be well friends.