Mobility and Recovery; What You Want to Know

Posted on August 01 2018

Mobility and Recovery; What You Want to Know

Less Pain More Gain

When it comes to fitness, there are a number of things that you have to do to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your workout. Strength, flexibility, and endurance are major components of your exercise routine, and today we’re going to talk about mobility and recovery. Mobility is making sure that your body can move in all the different ways it has to to make sure that you’re following proper technique, and recovery is making sure that you don’t injure yourself by giving you everything you need to bounce back from an intense workout.

Avoid Static Stretching

You’ve probably been told to stretch before a workout. While that seems like it would be an important thing to do, it turns out that it can have an adverse impact on your body. In fact, studies have shown that static stretching can lead to a decrease in overall mobility when compared to no stretching at all.

Instead, try a dynamic warmup that gets your blood pumping and makes you sweat. Whether you are doing cardio or weight lifting, a dynamic warmup can have a much more positive impact on your mobility overall. Things like lunges and squats, are great to get your body more limber and ready to go. Even if you’re new to the fitness game, start off by doing a few of these exercises initially and then move into your routine. The difference between a novice and a veteran is practice, so start with whatever you’re comfortable with and then go from there.

Improve Your Stance

Form and technique are essential when exercising. Someone who has perfect position lifting fifty kgs is going to get much better results than someone who is lifting 100kg with sloppy movements.

In this case, it’s actually better for you if you’re just starting out, as you can train yourself before you start to learn bad habits. If you’re a veteran, then hopefully you have perfect form for all of your routines. If you don’t, then that should be your priority before anything else.

The best way to get your technique and position down is to start with less weight and focus on that, rather than “feeling the burn.” Until you can keep your form straight and perfect without thinking about it, don’t worry about increasing your weight or changing things up. Technique is the foundation upon which all of your fitness goals lie, so make sure that it’s precise before moving on.

Maintaining a tight form will make sure that you get faster results and will help you improve your endurance.

Focus on Problem Areas

If you’re noticing that some parts of your body are more mobile than others, that is all too common. When that happens, make sure that you are focusing on the areas that are giving you trouble so that they can catch up to the rest of your body. The most common points of issue are the shoulders, hips, hamstrings, back, and ankles.

There are plenty of exercises out there that concentrate on each body part, but the overall basis of them is that you should push and pull your joints and body in every direction until you can get a full range of mobility. Best of all, even if you suffer from things like back or shoulder pain, doing these exercises will benefit you in the long run.

Recovery

Just as positioning and form are crucial to making sure that you’re getting the most out of your workout, recovery is imperative so that you don’t lose out on your gains. With that in mind, here are the most important things you should know.

Don’t Rest on Your Rest Days

While it may seem like a good idea to crash on the couch on days that you’re not at the gym, the fact is that that can have an adverse effect on your body. To help your muscles and internal systems stay up to speed, give them some light, low-impact exercise on your off days. This will get the blood flowing and help your muscles repair themselves much faster than if you stayed static all day. One particular workout that is great for recovery is swimming. It has no impact on your body but will increase your heart rate and help you get the most out of your normal routine. Swimming a couple of times a week should do the trick.

Sleep

Finally, the best way to ensure a proper recovery is to get plenty of sleep. If you are going all out with your exercise, then you need to be sleeping around eight to ten hours a day for your body to repair yourself properly. If, however, you can’t get enough sleep for whatever reason cause life gets busy), regular massages help the recovery process. Don’t wait until you are so tense that you can’t move. Massages are great at any time and can help you even if you don’t feel sore.

Recent Posts