Holistic Fitness Master Guide, Part III: Mobility

This is part three of the four part Holistic Fitness Master Guide, aimed to help you create a fitness routine that covers all aspects of fitness, in as time-efficient a manner as possible while still delivering great results.

What is Mobility?

Let's start by defining mobility as I mean it in this context.

Mobility: the ability to freely and easily move the body through your natural ranges of motion. Not only do the muscles have the capacity to move through long ranges of motion, but they are also limber - meaning, that they can move through those ranges of motion at just about any time of day, and do not require extensive warming up or stretching before being able to do so.

I prefer this more all-encompassing definition, due to issues I've had with joint and muscle stiffness even when my mobility was 'good'.

Sure, I could get into a deep squat... But I'd need to warm up extensively, and the actual squatting movement would feel stiff and unnatural until I warmed up quite a bit. Maybe my knee was bothering me at first, too - but if you warm up enough and do enough warm up sets, you get this analgesic (pain relieving) effect from exercise, and the pain goes away... Only for it to come back the next day. And the cycle repeats.

Sure, I had the 'mobility' to do a deep squat, but what's the point if I'm stiff and achy otherwise? If my muscles are so stiff at any other time that I can't even do a proper body weight squat, what is the point? Is that really mobility?

So, I prefer to add the limberness component to my definition of mobility.

Don't get me wrong, good strength training is going to make you sore oftentimes. But I can tell you with absolute certainty that there's a difference between soreness and stiffness. You can still move well even when you're sore - if you incorporate some of the practices in this guide.

That's just one benefit of this though - you'll also move better in the gym, which will likely lead to better results from your training. But the biggest benefit? Simply being able to move better, in more ways, with less pain and stiffness, at any time of day. This is a holistic guide, after all.

Now, onto the meat and potatoes: the what, when, why and how.

Let's dive in.

Doesn't Strength Training Improve Mobility?

It does.

Proper strength training, at least - done with control and full range of motion (or at least as much range of motion as you can control and move through at the moment, with intent to improve it over time).

...But, only in the ways that you move in your training.

If you train your body to squat, and you focus on range of motion, then you will over time improve your mobility in the squatting pattern. You will get to a point where you can squat to full depth, and as long as you do that on a regular basis you will maintain that mobility simply by squatting. But… not if you do quarter or half squats and never try to squat lower.

This is the issue we run into:

Most exercises that are top-tier for strength training and muscle building take place within the sagittal plane of movement - think: forward and backward, relative to the body. So, there's not a ton of exercises you'd use for effective strength training that involve lateral or rotational movement. Some, but not a ton.

This means we're missing some natural human movement patterns within our strength training routine on its own.

Sure, you could try to force a bunch of rotation-based exercises, lateral lunges and so on into your program, but it won't be that effective.

You're better off separating your cardio, strength and mobility training rather than combining all 3 at the same time and doing a bad job at all of them.

The thing is, we don't need to do hard strength training to improve or restore these movement patterns. We just need to move through those patterns. This is where dedicated mobility work comes into play.

It doesn't take long to do, it can help you prep for strength training, and now we don't have to bastardize our strength training session with goofy, ineffective exercises.

Primal Flows - Restoring Natural Movement

As with cardio in the past, I often skipped stretching or mobility exercises. I told myself I didn't need them because 'the strength training was mobility training'. As I wrote above, there's a lot of truth to that, so it was easy to convince myself it was enough. But after enough bouts of muscle stiffness, achy knees, and simply just not being able to move the way I want to move, I knew I needed to take this seriously.

Chasing a two year old around will also show you how stiff your muscles and joints are, from the constant getting down on the floor, back up off the floor, jumping off the couch, etc.

Me being a nerd, I knew that if I gave it a cool name, I'd be more likely to do it.

Thus Primal Flows were born.

These aren't just random words thrown together though - it is to convey the real purpose behind doing these mobility routines.

It is to restore natural human movement - to help us move in the ways we are meant to be able to move.

The Primal Flows do a good job of covering many of these types of movements not often covered in strength training:

• Lateral (side to side) movement and stretching

• Rotation of: spine, shoulders, hips, lower leg

• Focused Breathing

• Core Isometrics

• Foot and Ankle

The fact that we are not doing any of these movements with the same intensity as our strength training actually has another hidden benefit: this type of light movement trains our nervous system to be in a more relaxed state while still allowing for movement.

Doing ONLY really hard strength training tends to teach the nervous system to be highly active even when it doesn't need to be, which can lead to stiffness. Primal Flows help balance this out.

Think that's enough explanation of 'why'. Let's move on to the stuff that you can take and use today.

What

Primal Flows - head to the Primal Flow Dojo‍ ‍to pick one. You can stick with one for a couple weeks at a time before switching, or mix it up every time - doesn't matter much, just get one done a few days a week.

Note: these are pulled directly from my coaching program - this is exactly what I use, and what my clients use. You can bookmark the Primal Flow Dojo page for easy access at any time. Bonus points for downloading the Notion app, then making a Notion widget and selecting this page - now you have one-tap access to mobility routines on the go.

When

Any of the following times work well:

• Before training (as warmup)

• After training (as cooldown)

• Off days (2-3x a week - the day after a workout is a great day to do it)

Note: pick the time/day that will lead to the most consistency. You might have to experiment with it a bit to see what works best for you. Maybe you mix and match, or maybe you end up doing it every day. The precise timing doesn't matter a ton - getting it done, period, is what matters.

How Long

A Primal Flow should take you about 5-7 minutes to complete.

'Part IV: Play' covers unstructured physical activity, and rounds out the series.

-Shane