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Bodyweight Mobility Routine suggestions

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alex88

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Hello comrades,

I normaly start the day with a mobility series. At first I started out with Pavels super joints and after half a year I swichted to Maxwell's Daily dozen (article on his page). After a half year has passed I am looking for a new routine I can do first thing in the morning.

Do you have any suggestions? It usually took me 10 minutes, which means I don't neccessarily want to exceed that time. I am looking forward to your ideas

Alex
 
Thank you for your suggestion KernLittle. As I understand it, it is a routine for the lower body.
Do you have any ideas for the upper body too?
 
Have you tried an Original Strength Reset? Although it might not feel like a classic mobility/flexibility routine it might be what you're looking for - movement awareness, linking the body together, gentle strengthening all have had a good effect on my mobility.
 
Flexible Steel
Feldenkrais
Home and Todd Hargrove's book

...all worth taking a look at.

I do joint circles. Neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, thoracic, lumbar, hip, single leg rotations(from hip), knees and ankles most days, not necessarily in the mornings. And squats. I include mobility work when walking my dog, shoulder dislocates, figure 8s with my dog lead and hip flexor stretches. Some hanging from my rings on return. My mainstays that I try to do most days. And I do a variety of movement things during the day, popping into a squat here and there, crawling in my hallway gtg -ing, type of thing, bretzzels in the evening. I like the structure of a strength programme/practice, currently ROP post S&S, and spontaneous unstructured low intensity varied movements at anytime, anywhere whatever takes my fancy. I saw a Wonderful Life again this Xmas and James Stewart performs 2 parkour style easy vaults over a desk in his bank! Never noticed that the last time I watched it. Now that's what we all need to do more of!! Not that I work in a bank but if a suitable wall or fence approaches me, I vault it.
 
you can try mobilitywod.com / also the ROMwod is good program ( range of motion workout of the day - basically online yoga)
 
Another +1 to Original Strengths Resets. in the morning, at night, as an A2 paired with another exercise, I love them.

I personally started the "10 minute daily reset" every morning about 3 weeks ago. As luck would have it, I was deadlifting about 1 week ago, lost my tension and arched a bit and all of a sudden felt a pop near L4-5. Any movement hurt. As soon as I went back and did my breathing, neck nods and rocking my back pain started to magically go away. Kept up with it whenever I started to feel a twinge and now I feel I am almost back to normal. Its amazing how the resets can open up the right joints and clean up your movement patterns without even thinking about it.

I don't necessarily do the 10 minute reset exactly as described in the book (I do 4-5 hard rolls rather than three for all 8 movements - see Gray Cook's Movement for the hard rolls but basically its knee and elbow together then roll to the side with the arm down) and am thinking of increasing my crawling time to 5 minutes. The book recommends going up to 10 minutes after the resets - I'm smoked after 2!

Also worthy of note - I've started adding in rocking in between sets of deadlifts or swings and I feel that my hip hinge is just that much more stronger and "locked in". I was pretty comfortable with a 24kg one handed before I tweaked my back (still waiting on a 32 kg...Santa forgot it!) but went back to swings for the first time yesterday with a 16kg directly after a set of 20 rocking resets and it felt like a feather. Can't wait to build back up again!
 
After reading this thread is it right to conclude Original Strength Reset can be a good use for shoulder mobility?
 
Rayhzel said:
After reading this thread is it right to conclude Original Strength Reset can be a good use for shoulder mobility?
Click to expand...

Yes. Not sure where you live but you can look up a coach or attend a Pressing Reset workshop. OS is like a reboot for your body.
 
Rayhzel said:
After reading this thread is it right to conclude Original Strength Reset can be a good use for shoulder mobility?
Click to expand...

Yes; indirectly. There is no "shoulder mobility" portion, but the combined movements are extremely beneficial. I found my posture (typical rounded shoulders) has seen great benefit from OS. I feel rocking and crawling contribute the most to shoulders. One thing that really helps during the neck nods/rocking/crawling portion - make sure your hands are equally weighted around the edges of your palm and on the joint just below where your finger meets your palm where most of us kettlebell people will experience a blister or two; eg you don't want your hand slightly cupped, or a finger in the air rather than on the ground. Not sure how many practitioners are on here, but the Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization crowd out of Prague is huge on proper weight bearing through the hands. You can literally feel the increased stability when you do this.

Again, since I began OS I have basically dropped any other mobility exercises I was practicing. Now, my mobility is good already but I still find I feel better, seen better results, and notice improvement in many lifts. I am a big FMS guy, have my level II, practice the correctives on clients (I work in the field) and get fantastic results, but I think both are great tools. I have used some OS resets on clients that were not responding to some FMS style correctives and got the change I was looking for.

Honestly is any one better than the other? Is FMS the way? Kelly Starrett's smash and floss and all that stuff (which has helped me as well)? OS? Super Joints/Relax into Stretch? I think the answer is like picking a training program - Test, do the program properly without jumping between other programs, re-assess and evaluate. Different things work for different people. If its working, keep it. If not, try something new.

Steve Freides said:
@alex88, why did you change and why are you changing again?

-S-
Click to expand...

This fits into my last comment as well I think. What prompted a change, was it because you were not seeing results?
 
@wespom9 actually the hard roll is more a test than something to be done daily.

About mobility. I also recommend the OS stuff. If I'm short on time I can be done three minutes. The movements have a playful element and bring me joy. I got easily bored by normal mobility practices and didn't feel much of an effect.
 
I do hard rolls for reps in my OS practice. Is there a reason not to do them daily, Marlon? Wespom has his level II FMS with experience in the field, so I'm curious about why that's an issue that he would need correction on. The way I understand progressions is that when a higher difficulty move becomes easy, you don't really need to go back down to the regressions as often, and the hard roll is kind of the king of rolling, right? I've found that its one of the most beneficial moves for the initial part of the TGU. I still do segmental rolling every once in a while, but hard rolls are my bread and butter (unless we're talking about real bread, in which case I prefer my roll a little softer).
 
I think between Pavel's work (Relax into Stretch, Super Joints), Flexible Steel, and The FMS library of drills if you can't improve your mobility problems you should see someone to make sure something else isn't going.

Not to kick a hornets nest, but truly trying to figure this out - If the OS resets are as awesome as everyone says they are at fixing things, then why do they need to be done daily (or twice daily). I just fixed a hole in my drywall, I'm not going to fix it again tomorrow unless it breaks again. My understanding of correctives is - #1 they should correct and #2 they should lead to sustained independence. I may be off base, but it wouldn't be the first time. I don't want to hijack this topic, but its the first one I read today to reference daily OS Resets.
 
That's a fair question. If you fixed a hole in your drywall, you probably wouldn't be throwing baseballs at it right after you finish, but we kind of do the same with our bodies. We sit in chairs for hours a day. Anyone in fitness will tell you that if you think 3 hours of exercise a week, even with correctives, will counter 80 hours of sitting, driving cars, and slouching, you have some hard truths to swallow. For the most part, we are ALL sedentary. Even if someone trains 7 hours a week, if they make their living indoors, they are VERY likely sedentary whether they want to call themselves that or not. The idea of doing something daily is constant maintenance, rather than letting something break and then needing correctives.

"If something is important, do it every day."
-Dan John
The guy knows stuff.
Also, Pavel seems to be a bigger fan of daily exercise than the average strength trainer, so I'm not sure why the idea of daily work would sound crazy to a fan of Pavel.

I also brush my teeth every day, for what its worth :)

In all seriousness, most healthy people in the world have never heard of Original Strength, so its no problem if someone doesn't want to do it. It's really a matter of personal preference. It feels great to do every day, kind of like someone who takes on a meditative breathing practice. If you want to restore great breathing after all the stressed, poor posture breathing we do, its great to do it every day. OS is like that for the body. It's not about correctives, its about a movement practice, and a mindful one at that. (In fact, at its core, origina strength IS a breathing practice).
 
That's a good answer. There is a difference between preventative and restorative. We brush our teeth everyday to prevent cavities. If that doesn't work and we get a cavity, brushing won't fix it at that point.

OS is marketed as restorative, not preventative - restoring lost movement, restoring a pain free status, etc.

Any movement that has to be prepped every day raises a question - are we just "prepping" or warming up our compensations? Because if we fix the compensations they go away. There is a difference between fixing a hole in drywall, and hanging a picture in front of the hole.
 
Yeah, I think there's a definition barrier, because I'm not catching the distinctions you are making. If I don't need to foam roll anymore or do correctives because my daily activity is keeping me healthy, that is good. If OS is a chore to someone, then I guess they shouldn't do it, although they might want to at least force themselves to give a try. I see it as enjoyable. It's fun. It isn't a prescribed corrective to me. It's freedom of movement. Children are healthy when they move every day. I don't see that as prepping compensations. When children stop moving and running and swinging their arms, their bodies begin to stiffen up. We should move everyday. We should engage our core, our shoulders, our diaphragms. Unfortunately, there is no magic cure where "do this once and then sit in your sofa the rest of your life and preserve perfect body mechanics." Actually, I should say "fortunately."

There are approaches based on 3xs a week using targeted correctives with set and rep schemes, but I'll take 10 minutes a day of playing around. I don't think everyone has to like OS, but I hope they can see why its effective for those who use it.
 
I have to agree with @jca17

OS works great for me. Improved my mobility. Decreased the amount of knots I would get in my upper back. Made my pressing strength go way up. I use it daily.

It may not be for everyone but I will keep using it as it has done a lot more good in 2 x10 minute sessions a day than all the other things I tried.
 
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