3 Moves Your Body Is Begging You to Do (Undo Lost Mobility)

[00:01] strength or mobility and flexibility as you age? Which one do you need to as a strength coach that I would obviously say strength. And while it's the pyramid as I've actually shown here in previous videos. Ultimately, what

[00:16] flexibility and mobility. Today, I want to show you how you can start from the ground up again, literally from the ground up, back to the basics to be able every decade and you don't even know it because it's more of a silent loss than

[00:31] actually an absolute loss of strength would be. Surprisingly, we are losing 7% we're losing more flexibility because a lot of people can't even cross their feet like this and just stand up from that position.

[00:44] able to stand up and down without using your hands. More people even just struggle to get up off the floor cuz they'll just feel more aches and pains or it just becomes more of a labor to get up off the ground and that's a bad

[00:57] thing, too. Others will actually have a hard time touching their fingers, right, behind their back, one arm or the other. The issue is you're losing mobility and you have to reclaim it. And the best way to think of mobility is to think of it

[01:10] as an insurance policy for everything else you do in the gym cuz you need to the strength that you're building. So, what we do is we start here at the ground. And all I want you to be able to do is actually get into this deep squat

[01:23] position with your hands flat on the ground. So, if you can get into this position here, then we know you're starting off in a good place. But the are watching this video right now won't be able to get into this deep squat

[01:36] position here with an upright back, hands down flat to the ground, and heels what you're going to see is either a rounding of the back, which we want to work on progressively by just pushing off of the fingers, okay, not working on

[01:51] pushing off of the fingers to get to to make sure that those heels are in contact with the ground. And so, what get them down when you're squared up, but if I turn to one side, now I've

[02:06] actually freed up some mobility to get into that ankle. So, I can work on one ankle at a time if you're losing or missing mobility there. Same thing on they're both off the ground, if I just turned in one direction here, now that

[02:20] ankle goes back down to the ground flat and I can work on leaning into it get more of that ankle mobility and flexibility of the calf. Okay, the next thing is I want you to be able to move from these positions and have dynamic

[02:33] mobility. So, what that means is can I move to the side from this position? Cuz every time I step here, there's more of an adductor stretch and a mobility requirement in this frontal plane that a lot of us don't have. So, can you get in

[02:48] this position and just simply work on moving side to side one or two steps in each direction? And again, trying to keep your hands as flat as possible and trying to keep these heels down. Okay, the next thing is can you go

[03:02] backwards? When I go backwards, now I'm kind of opening up the hip. I'm opening, so more of this adductor mobility and here flexibility and also hip mobility and rotation. So, as I step back, I'm dropping. I'm actually using my elbow to

[03:16] push and assist with that mobility. So, drive it back. Take this elbow, drive it back, push in, drive it back. Another step, drive it back. Finally, can you walk forward? So, when you're in this place here, walk and

[03:32] lean. So, what is this doing? I'm leaning more into hip flexion on this side. If I turn, you can see it. I'm here, step, lean. getting in here. And hip flexion is one of the first

[03:47] areas that we lose mobility, especially when we start to get degeneration of a hip. So, if we can keep hip flexion mobility, then we're doing something strength question I asked in the beginning? If you took an 800-lb

[03:59] squatter and had them squat on a Bosu ball, you're not going to have an 800-lb squatter anymore. That strength is being undercut by that lack of stability. Stability tied into all this mobility is incredibly important. We got to talk

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[04:26] actually have it every single day and not have it taste like lawn clippings there. So, doing these ground-based movements is important, but if you're just focusing on the ones that have you facing down, then you're missing a giant

[04:40] opportunity to not only mobilize specifically the hips and shoulders, but also to increase the strength of the hips and shoulders and therefore the you have to do is flip over to this other position here. Now, for some, just

[04:54] sitting like this with the chest open and the head up is difficult because wrist to be able to get down to this position, let alone put any kind of weight on it. So, if that's you, you want to progressively work on getting

[05:07] more of that mobility by getting in this position and just leaning back further more and more of that flexibility through the flexors and into the joint that point though, you're looking for more of a challenge, then what you do is

[05:21] you just simply lift up, right? We get to a sort of reverse crab position. Now, is some glute activation to get as high as you can, but you don't want to let the shoulders stay behind cuz a lot of us will try this position and we'll just

[05:34] round the shoulders to compensate for the mobility we don't have in our thoracic spine or shoulders. That's not really good enough cuz here is where you really have to work on getting open. Okay, open here. Even if you don't have

[05:47] that wrist mobility to work on getting open, I'm okay with you kind of cupping your hands or tenting your hands like this, putting the bones of your fingers on the ground here and getting them off of the completely flat position cuz that

[06:00] gives me some leverage that I can actually push off of and get higher. And this will allow me to open my shoulders as far as I can, try to push my chest up position is really, really important. Now, we take this ground-based movement,

[06:15] we make it even more of a challenge by adding some of that dynamic mobility just with this saw movement. I'm just trying to slide back and forth. So, when I slide here, what's happening at the shoulder? I'm getting more

[06:29] of that extension at the shoulder, more mobility to actually move my arm back behind my body and still keep my chest open. And when you get all that mobility it now from that flat position. So, now I can do that same rock here out of that

[06:44] And now we're working on all these joints and we're actually letting the ground assist us. You're not having to do all the work cuz the ground is could take it one step further now. If I slide back just a little bit more, now I

[06:58] can work on getting some more of that dynamic glute strength to support it. So, if I take one leg and I march it out and I take the other leg and I march it out, now I need the muscles of the posterior chain to be able to support my

[07:11] body up. Okay, and then I come back and back and I perform in this sort of alternating march. Out and out, try not to fall, keep them up, back and back, to fall, keep them up, back and back, out, out, back and back. And that's a

[07:26] pretty challenging exercise, but again, it's not just strengthening you, but it's also building up that flexibility and mobility that you're lacking right now and actually allowing the floor to help you along the way.

[07:38] this point in the video that if you just focus on doing some stretches to gain to be fine. As a matter of fact, that actually might be the the wrong thing to do because flexibility without that stability combined could actually

[07:52] introduce more risk for injury. Cuz if you can get into new ranges of motion, but can't control them, you can become more vulnerable to an injury. So, what I want you to do is really focus on how we can combine those two. The last thing I

[08:04] want you to do is a drill that's really simple, but it has good functional carryover to even helping people get off the floor even easier. So, if I was down had to get up, the first thing I want to be able to do is roll to my side and at

[08:18] least get to this position here. If I'm in this position here, then I can use my hands to walk myself up in this way, right, and get myself up to a standing position like that. However, I can reinforce the mobility and

[08:34] flexibility needed to do that if I focus on a few key things. When I'm in this position, as soon as I come up, I'm in that classic bear stance or that bear crawl position. What I want to do is I want to try to drive my knees back and

[08:48] push at the same time. So, as I'm pushing off the heels of my hands, I'm driving my knees back, which is going to reinforce the need for a lot of will find it challenging to keep your heels down and your knees back, but I

[09:02] want you to work on forcing that to be the case and pushing through all the way back to where you're here. Now, you'll find it easy to actually stand up. You go back in the same position, you walk yourself out. So, now I go back down,

[09:15] push my knees backwards, use my fingertips until I can get my hands flat on the ground, I walk myself all the way out. I'm in this good classic plank or push-up position and I push myself back again all the way, keeping those knees

[09:30] driven backwards and trying to walk myself in. The idea here is that something as simple as getting off the floor, you can hear I'm out of breath because I'm focusing, I'm using a lot of muscles and controlling joints that are

[09:46] not in control right now and they're costing you in terms of how you can move day. Remember, this is the insurance policy for making sure that everything don't want to lose your flexibility and mobility as you get older. Guys, if

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[10:14] have it every single day and not have it taste like lawn clippings like most of helpful. If you're looking for more of them, make sure you click subscribe, looking for complete programs as a physical therapist, guys, we focus on

[10:26] All right, guys. You can find them at athleanx.com. See you soon.