While most of us understand mobility as the concept of “being mobile,” you may not know exactly what mobility training aims to achieve.
“Mobility” is your joints’ ability to move freely through their full range of motion. This includes your ankles, hips, thoracic spine, shoulders, and wrists.
A lot of everyday activities put your joints in uncomfortable or compromising positions. In the short term, this stress isn’t a big deal. But when you add up hours, months, and years, your joints lose some of their natural range of motion, says Carolina Araujo, a New York City-based strength and conditioning coach.
When you don’t rotate your joints through their natural range of motion, they become stiff and pinched, affecting your ability to move pain-free in your daily life, says Jereme Schumacher, DPT, a physical therapist based in Del Mar, California. That’s why it’s so important to make mobility training a part of your daily routine.
Working on your mobility can also promote blood flow through the joints and improve your posture over time, says Schumacher. It can improve your movement in the gym as well, helping you, for example, squat deeper or perform an overhead press with better form.
But mobility training takes some patience.
“Improving your overall mobility doesn’t happen overnight,” says Schumacher. “It’s something that takes consistency and practice over a period of time.”
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