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Try these simple tips to improve your mobility

Incorporating these drills into your daily routine will be hugely beneficial, writes David Last.

IF YOU ONLY had 15 minutes to train each day what would you do?

People need to start doing things they really need rather than what they want to do a lot of the time.

I’ve previously suggested how to structure a typical week of training but I’ve also highlighted how important it is to look after your body for at least 15 minutes each day.

Most of the time I would have this as a priority before looking at any other areas like strength training or conditioning work.

Mobility and flexibility standards are always the first thing I assess when working with a client on their first visit.

I generally assess the client in different movements, positions and stretches and this can show up areas they need to work on before increasing movement, load, volume or intensity.

When it comes to training and exercise people often get injured because of poor movement and technique with a very tight and weak body.

Rounded shoulders, tight hamstrings/hips, inactive glutes and a weak core are some of the areas that need daily attention before moving onwards.

As I say time and time again, ‘sometimes you’ve got to slow down to speed back up again’.

I generally bury a lot of this mobility/flexibility work into my warm-up or even look at doing some yoga every now and then.

Take a look at the video below for some tips on staying on top of your mobility.

David Last / YouTube

In the video above you noticed I had access to a couple of pieces of equipment including different resistance bands, trigger point balls, a PVC pipe and a foam roller.

These are great tools to have access to in your gym and perfect for working on your mobility, especially if you are quite tight and stiff in many areas of your body.

A foam roller can help with massaging the thighs, glutes and hamstrings which directly relate to hip mobility. But overall the missing link for most people is that they simply need to do targeted mobility work more often, and ideally daily.

Having said that, using foam rolling or soft tissue tools, such as a hard rubber ball, can be useful to break down adhesions and scar tissue that limit mobility.

But if this is a constant issue then you need to get yourself to a physical therapist to help you get to the point where you can maintain your muscle tissue quality.

A lot of us find ourselves in a seated position for a lot of the time in our day. All of this excessive sitting down puts your body into very unnatural, lazy positions.

This results in parts of our body becoming very inactive, shortened and weak which leads to the problems above which can then lead to poor posture, lower-back pain and many other issues.

Statistics show that the majority of us will experience back pain at some point in our life. I did a piece on lower-back pain before and some of the drills and tips included might help you out.

If your body is tight, stiff or weak and you’re going about workouts with lots of intensity and poor technique or movement, with little to no stretching or mobility work, you are running the risk of injury.

Most of the time you don’t even need equipment to get some mobility work into your daily routine.

Below are four super drills, that can be done anywhere, I would suggest doing them once or twice a day to help you stay on top of things.

David Last / YouTube

I hope you’ve found this information useful and if you need any more advice you can pop me a direct message from the links below.

You can also get more advice on my social media pages, which are also linked below.

David Last is a personal trainer based in Dublin. For more information you can follow him on FacebookInstagram and Twitter. Or you can send him a direct message here.

You can also see some of his previous articles here.

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