How stretching can dramatically improve your fitness gains

Performing mobility exercises will help you improve your fitness gains immensely regardless of what your end goal is.

We all know the comfort we feel after performing basic stretches and mobility exercises. That’s our body encouraging us to perform them on a more regular basis. The best part is, mobility exercises not only makes you feel incredible, they also help you age and lift heavy without the risk of injuries.

However, when it comes to stretches, it is an afterthought for most people and something they try to just get through during their warm-up or cool-down routine at the gym.

What makes the problem even worse is that we spend the entire day doing immobility training - working in front of screens with hunched backs and bad postures - and do not spend enough time on re-working our mobility. We’re a generation bowed down before our tech, so almost everything is making us gradually less mobile.

Even when we’re at the gym working on our bodies, most people prefer to work on the muscle groups that make them look attractive at the beach. They do a lot of chest, shoulders, arms exercises but the back doesn’t get enough attention.

Mobility training is moving muscles with the specific goal of gaining a fuller range of motion. A 10-minute session before or after the primary workout at the gym is encouraged but longer sessions at home are necessary at least thrice a week.

The lesson from a session with a mobility expert is that every body part is connected. That knee issue is probably being created in your feet, that back complaint is likely being generated in your neck. Your body is twisting and contorting to compensate for weaknesses and imbalances. 

Mobility will allow the muscles to lengthen then shorten a lot more efficiently, and this will help you to achieve a greater range of motion. The muscle will also work harder, therefore, you can tolerate more and put on more muscle.

Now that we know the benefits of stretching and the importance of mobility exercises, which are some of the exercises that can get you started?

Rolling the fascia of the feet for as long as necessary as most people train wearing soft running shoes which means that the soles of the feet aren’t working at full capacity. Squat reach up is another great movement that can be incorporated into your routine as it helps both the hip and lumbar spine.

Down dog cobra exercise help to achieve greater flexibility of the hamstring, ankle, hip flexion, lower spin, upper spine, and shoulders. We also need to ensure that we are getting some rotational movements and this can be achieved with Side lying T spine rotations for the upper spine.

Finally, the workout can be completed with Door Knocks to take care of internal rotation of the shoulder and promote their overall health.