Fitness is nothing without mobility, as Fiona Adams discovers...
Can you touch your toes? Do you know how well your hip flexors function? Can you do a couch stretch? And by that, I do not mean lolling on the sofa in your pyjamas. If the answers to those questions are ‘no’, then it’s time for you to consider mobility exercises.
Many of us go to the gym, but with packed schedules – both for the gym and ourselves – caring for our joints and muscles is often neglected in favour of getting a cardio fix. A five-minute stretch at the end of a strenuous session does little to look after your body, and without proper mobility, you are more likely to get injured.
I try to do a 30-minute stretching class each week, which helps a bit, but inspired by – and more than a bit jealous of – my husband’s new-found flexibility, I decided to join him at a weekly mobility session led by Ben Brooks at the Crossfit 2012 gym in East Molesey. Ben is a personal trainer and FRC (Functional Range Conditioning) practitioner who specialises in ‘strength development, movement practice and mobility’.
“Mobility is essentially teaching someone to use their body correctly,” explains Ben. “It’s all about maintenance. Mobility is maintenance. Of course, strength training and cardio are good too and can help keep you healthy, but mobility is the glue that underlies it all. Mobility will enhance your performance because it allows your body to use patterns of movement and keep your joints healthy.”
The hour’s class began with neck CARs – controlled articular rotations, before we worked through mobilising our whole bodies, with exercises that included a cat-camel stretch for our backs, swimming motions for our arms and shoulders, routines for our hip flexors and for me, the real killer, a couch stretch (kneel down in front of a flat surface, placing one leg in front of the other; the aim is to get the rear leg and foot flat on the wall behind you). Trust me, it’s harder than it sounds.
So what exactly is the difference between flexibility and movement?
“Flexibility is passive stretching,” Ben tells me. “It is key to mobility and if you just do that then you will improve, but mobility is more active, working on your usable range, giving you more control.”
Ben has more than 10 years’ experience as a personal fitness trainer, but he is especially passionate about improving his clients’ mobility and says that anyone can make positive changes.
“Age is irrelevant. Even if you have someone who suffers from arthritis… it won’t make it go away but it can make it more bearable and reduce the pain. If you can load the tissue, you can get it stronger and it will improve. Unfortunately, people don’t see stretching or mobility as something they should practise, just something that their body should be able to do automatically.”
And, of course, today’s sedentary lifestyle is not helping.
“The average working day involves maybe a drive or sitting on a train, then sitting all day in the office… some may go to the gym after work but some go home and sit on the sofa all evening. It’s no surprise they twinge a calf if they go for a run at the weekend, as they have literally not used it for the previous six days!” he says, clearly exasperated.
So, what should we do to keep moving?
“You should get up and move as often as you can. But, if you have to sit down for six hours straight, be aware that is what you’ve done. Don’t expect too much from your body without giving it a little bit of help. If you get tension in your neck, try holding it down towards your chest a couple of times a day; if you have tight hip flexors, try stretching them once a day. Create an awareness of what your body needs.”
After our session, Ben told me he could see that while I had good flexibility in my hips, I had tension in my thoracic spine and that one of my shoulders functioned better than the other. So with that in mind, I am definitely adding mobility to my weekly to-do list. Not to be outdone by my flexible husband, I’m going to nail that couch stretch if it kills me.
Find Ben at Crossfit 2012 in East Molesey; or visit brooksmovement.com or crossfit2012.co.uk
