How and When to Do Mobility Work

I always get a lot of questions about when to do mobility, how often to do it, and whether it should be done alone or with other exercises.

Mobility work is important because our joints and muscles need to move properly in order to prevent pain and injuries. Mobility work is also a very important part of a rehab or injury recovery program. When our joints and muscles can function throughout their full range of motion, we can improve our strength and improve our movement efficiency. This decreases pain and decreases our future risk of injury.

So, when should I do mobility work?

The answer to that is that it doesn't really matter when you do it. You can do it whenever you want to during the day. There is no best time to do it. As long as you make some time to do it, you can do it whenever you want to!

If you are doing a strength training or cardio workout on a certain day, however, there are certain ways you can work mobility in around your workout. 

You can do a mobility routine or dynamic warm up before your workout to increase your heart rate and warm up your muscles. This can help decrease your injury risk and help you feel better during the workout. 

I would also avoid static stretching before a workout because it can actually cause weakness and a delayed response from your muscles.

How long and how often should I do mobility work for?

I like doing mobility work once a day. I spend around 10-15 minutes working on mobility work and targeting the areas of my body that I feel need it the most. 

My hamstrings are always super tight, so I spend some extra time there. I also feel like my upper back is often very tight, so I work on that for a little extra time as well.

Do I need to do anything after I'm done with the mobility work?

If you're doing a strength workout or cardio after the mobility work, just move on to that.

If you are doing mobility before bed, just hop into bed. Hopefully the mobility work helped you relax and will help you sleep better.

You don't have to do anything after you are finished with mobility work, but you can also do a few strengthening exercises. Mobility is defined as the ability of joints to move through their range of motion and also requires strength. You can't just work on mobility and neglect strengthening. Strong muscles will help support mobile joints!

If you have never done much mobility and don't know where to start, check out this YouTube Video.

I also upload weekly strength and mobility workouts in my Monthly Membership!