Mobility plays a huge role not only in your workouts but in your everyday life. So what is Mobility?
Well, It’s the ability to move freely and easily. It’s the active range of motion through your joints and muscles. But it’s often confused with flexibility because the two are so intertwined.
HOW IS MOBILITY DIFFERENT FROM FLEXIBILITY?
Here’s a simple example of mobility vs. flexibility:
Lie on the floor on your back, with knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Raise one knee toward your chest.
Your hip mobility is how far up your knee can get without any assistance.
Now, grab your knee and pull it closer to your chest (keeping your back close to the floor for safety). This assisted stretch shows your overall hip flexibility.
So, the difference is that while flexibility tends to be more passive, mobility is active.
4 EVERYDAY BENEFITS OF MOBILITY:
1. Lower risk of injury
Studies show that having a smaller range of motion through a joint raises your risk of getting injured.
2. Improved posture
Tight joints can throw your whole body out of whack. For example, if your hips lack mobility, it can affect your spine, cause shoulder stiffness, and even affect your neck.
3. Ease of movement
Have you ever tried to reach your arms overhead and found that they wouldn’t straighten … or that they wouldn’t extend without shrugging your shoulders?
Over time this can lead to a cycle of less activity, even less mobility, and potentially an increase in pain.
4. Active aging
If you think this doesn’t apply to you, I’ve got news for you: unless you are active, your mobility starts to go downhill at age 30!
The steps you take NOW can pay off for decades to come. We will cover a few mobility exercises in our next blog that can help in improving the range of motion of a few VERY important areas in your body. So stay tuned for our next blog.
Meanwhile, we are running a free 6-Day Mobility Challenge. As part of the challenge, you will have access to our incredible Mobility Workbook, giving you lots of advice and exercises to improve both mobility and flexibility.
You can download our guide and join the challenge here https://www.educogymsecrets.com/6-day-mobility-challeng