We focus a heck of a lot on mobility at Beyond Strength. Healthy joints that move well are the foundation of an active life. We layer strength and endurance on top of them, but you ain’t building strength and endurance without healthy joints – at least not with any kind of longevity. So, we build mobility training into every workout. Every warm-up starts with mobility work and we sprinkle it throughout our Strength classes, Endurance classes, and Resilience classes.
Much of our mobility training focuses on the biggest problem areas created by all the sitting we do at our jobs and at home – the ankles, the hips, the spine, and the shoulders. That way we don’t end up looking like Quasimodo, and we achieve good positions while strength training.
While we have staple exercises, we consistently introduce new mobility exercises to the rolodex. This month’s program features two new movements that we really dig. Both of them focus on improving hip and spine mobility, which you know is important if you’ve ever experienced back pain. And, while we’d love it if you came in and did them with us at the gym, you can do these puppies in your living room. They make your hips and back feel great.
Let’s check them out.
Prisoner T-spine – ½ Kneeling Hamstring Rock for Hip and Spine Mobility
This puppy rotates your thoracic spine (t-spine) in both directions while also having it flex and extend. That helps fight the round-back posture we get from sitting all the time while helping to keep our shoulders healthy. At the same time, it opens up our hips by stretching our adductors (think groin), our hip flexors, and our hamstrings.
To do the prisoner t-spine – ½ kneeling hamstring rock, get into the half-kneeling position and put your hands behind your head. Then, push your hips forward while you rotate toward your down leg. Come back to the starting position, then straighten your up leg while rotating your opposite elbow toward that knee. It looks like this:
Do 5 reps per side.
90/90 HIp Extension to 3-Way Reach for Hip Mobility
Hip extension is important for hip and back health. Many folks end up with back trouble because they can’t fully extend their hips. This causes them to take some range of motion from their lower back, which leads to trouble. So, we focus on training hip extension in a lot of different ways.
We really like the 90/90 hip extension to 3-way reach for that. It has you extend your hips from a position that wouldn’t normally think of extending your hips. That trains a new hip extension pathway and gives your body more movement options. The reaches also influence hip movement from different angles while stretching muscle on all sides of the hip.
To do the 90/90 hip extension to 3-way reach, set up on the floor in the 90/90 position. Then drive through your front leg and your back knee to extend your hips. Slowly lower yourself back to the starting position and fold yourself over your front leg while reaching as far forward as you can. Then, put your hand beside your front leg and drive your hips up in the same way while reaching toward that side with your other arm. Finally, put your hand slightly behind you, then extend your hips while reaching over your head and arching your body back.
It looks like this:
Do 3 reps per side (1 rep = reaching in all 3 directions).
Two Killer Exercises to Help Your Hips Move and Feel Better
You can do these two exercises while you’re hanging out watching TV. They’re also great as part of a warm-up, as a filler between strength exercises, and during a cool down. You can also add them to your cardio training to break up the monotony.