Some Beginner Mobility Movements You Can Do To Move Better

Below are some simple and highly recommended mobility movements that we recommend to all our athletes when they start down the mobility path.

Band Shoulder Distraction

Using the Bands to enhance the stretch in the Shoulder/Lat region is key to a better working joint. Once we mobilize these structures around the joint it will be far easier to throw stuff overhead, or smash out bunches of pull ups and muscle ups.

For the overhead one, place your hand in the band. Get hold of it and walk back till you feel some tension. Fold at the hips like you are bowing forward. Keep knees soft and turn your palm up (external rotation). Keep square and push your chest to the floor. You should feel it stretch through your Lat and back of shoulder. Hang there for at least a minute each side.

For the first chest one turn away away from the object you have attached the band. Your thumb is aiming at the roof, BUT don’t let go of the band. Let the knuckle face up. Feel the stretch on the chest and across the front of the shoulder. If you not feeling it the slowly turn your chest away from the band, use small steps to ensure your feet are under you and your body is upright.

For the last one, do all of the above BUT your thumb will face down and this will send the stretch into your Bicep. Note that the Tendon that connects your Bicep to your shoulder attaches inside the shoulder joint at the front.

Spend minimum of 1 min per arm.

Mobility: It’s More Than Just Stretching

Think of a rubber band. One end is thick and the other end is thin. If two people pulled on the band, the person holding the thin end would have that end stretch far more than the person holding the thick end. That is how many of our muscles are laid out on our skeleton. That is why when we do a hamstring stretch we feel it around the knee and not really up into the butt. The hamstring attaches at the hip and then crosses the knee, the butt bit is the thick part and the knee bit is the thin part.

We also have ligaments which connect bone to bone. Tendons which connect muscle to bone so we can move our skeleton and a bunch of joint capsules to keep our joints in place. All of these structures are covered by skin, all of these structures overlap each other all over our body in differing levels of frequency. When we move in daily life, NOT even talking WOD’s, the skin slides over the underlying surfaces and they in turn slide over each other. This causes things to become glued down.

That is why Movement and Mobility combine to restore sliding surface integrity and range of motion. Movement focusses on being in an organized position during whatever we do, if we adhere to that we will allow our bodies to be mobile in the functional ranges of movement we need, for us that is CrossFit which means we need to do anything and everything. Correct form when executing the exercise in a WOD goes a long way to helping us become more mobile.

Mobility uses rollers, balls, kegs, bands, Super Friends and stretching techniques to help us improve our position, not nessasrily to get into splits. We need to look at what our movement goal is and program from there.

Think of your daily work week, all day everyday you sit. Sitting becomes your default position. Your hip muscles become short and your bum muscles become long. When you hit the Box in the evening and you need to Squat or Jump or Oly Lift you actually want your hip muscles to be long to allow you to gain full extension and your bum muscles to be able to shorten at a rapid rate so you can drive out of the bottom of a Squat or receive the Oly Lift and bounce out the hole. However you have done nothing to correct the BAD position you have been in all day, so you cannot expect super glory in a WOD or Comp.\

That is why there is NO REST day for Movement and Mobility. 15-20mins EACH day EVERYDAY will accumulate and start helping not only to excel at CrossFit, but daily life in general.