10 Mobility Training Exercises That Makes A Difference!

I know everyone is working in uncharted territory. The things happening in the world have no comparison so we are all trying to figure out ways to make our communities better. The only way we know how is to continue to try to get people excited about doing something positive. That is honestly why we were giving away 3 workout programs and trying to help people now that are trying to train from home with a 25% sale. We just want to give people something good to think about during this very challenging time!

That said, we know all of a sudden there is a lot of “stuff” online. Our goal has always been to be a reliable and honest resource of training information and after 20 years of writing blogs (seriously, it has been 20 years, that is A LOT of blogs!) we want you to feel confident that we are always going to give you something good.

Funny how 10 years ago we thought this was a great improvement!

Of course everyone is trying to figure out how to deal with these unique circumstances and we hope to do our part in giving you valuable information so you can do great work and do something to make you feel better about your day. While so many people are going to focus on soul crushing workouts because of all the stress, it is still important to think about how to keep ourselves healthy and moving well. So, that made me think about discussing mobility training and simple things that make a big difference.

Mobility training actually has a lot of layers to it, it is far more than “move this joint, stretch this muscle”. What makes mobility training really effective is wrapping your head around these 3 important principles…

Things Just Don’t Get “Tight”

While there are so many in-depth programs about mobility training, most give an oversimplification of why people aren’t moving well. Ideas like we “sit too much” are common themes and while they aren’t necessarily wrong they don’t tell much of the story. Okay, we sit too much, what does that mean?

Most tend to assume that means our muscles shorten and stay that way. So, mobility training is just getting the body to move. Eh, not really. While I am sitting here writing this post I have muscles shortening but they aren’t active and not asked to perform really any task. However, mobility training and sitting too much do have a relationship.

Because our society doesn’t move very much (current events withstanding) and that does cause an issue. It causes many of our important stabilizers and postural muscles to become “dumb” or “turn off” because our body doesn’t need to use them while sitting and our body is thinking efficiency. When we get up and get ourselves ready to go to the gym, because those muscles don’t magically turn back “on” the dominant flexors of our body become more active and we appear “tight”.

I almost want to get this Gray Cook quote tattooed so people understand what is really happening. 

This means that mobility training should focus on re-establishing our core to work correctly. Which takes us to point number two!

Mobility Training Has To Involve the Core

Saying mobility training has to engage the core doesn’t really help much. It is HOW we teach people to use their core correctly that really matters. After all, what does it mean to “use your core”?

As we have often said, it is a matter of the hands and feet! The study below shows how when the feet/lower leg get damaged how it impacts our ability to use our glutes (a key core muscle) so, there must be a lot to do when our body interacts with our outside world through our hands and feet.

How do we do that in DVRT? These DVRT mobility training drills are about how we engage the ground and Ultimate Sandbag to develop the core integration that makes a powerful difference to our mobility training.

What Jessica shows are great mobility training drills that can be modified many different ways. One important way is to do everything she is showing at the top of the shinbox position as many people can NOT sit in that position but can work from the top. Working from the top we can lower ourselves as much as we feel comfortable as we don’t want to invoke the painful look that causes our body to get tighter!

DVRT mobility training drills like Jessica shows above may not outwardly LOOK like mobility training, but when you listen to what she is actually teaching our body, it is exactly what many people need. This is also a much friendlier drill for many people that have a lot of hip mobility restrictions.

Tension for Great Mobility Training

The last big point that many people will hear about is using Sherrington’s Law of Irradiation to help their mobility training. Why would this apply? Irradiation basically says that if I create tension at a point like my hand, it creates a chain reaction down the arm, shoulder, and core. This “linkage” is what can give stability that allows for better mobility training and core work. However, just creating tension doesn’t actually help.

Robin Paget does a great job showing how mobility and strength can and should work together!

When you understand these principles, you start to appreciate that just creating tension to create tension isn’t very purposeful. So, even well meaning strategies like you see below don’t create the same effect to our mobility because it doesn’t offer the proper connection.

The elbows coming away from the body and the shoulders rounded forward encourage flexors likes the biceps and pecs, not the lats and more of your core muscles. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9MTMxTH0ZD/

What is important to notice what DVRT UK Master, Greg Perlaki shows is HOW he is creating tension with the Ultimate Sandbag and how the superband forces him to use his feet more!

The same with DVRT Master, Sean Lettero. The way we grip and try to “break apart” the Ultimate Sandbag along with the reinforcement of the band is huge in giving us instant success in our mobility training.

That is strategies like DVRT Master, Cory Cripe show actually work so much better than mobility training strategies that are being thrown out by a lot of people. Far too often, the mobility training that people give are for people that are already mobile! Let’s think about how to develop better strategies for those that need it the most!

We know right now is a tough time for many, that is why we are giving 3 DVRT workout programs away HERE for people and have 25% ALL throughout our DVRT site with code “save25” HERE. We can only hope to be a place where people get ideas and excitement for something good!