Mobility Training for your (office) life

Mobility Training is important! If you don't feel like getting hurt or don't want to put up with not being able to touch your toes while standing, then you should do something about your movement restrictions. In the following article, you will learn why exercising mobility is so important and how to integrate it into your everyday life.

What is Mobility Training?

Mobility Training or Mobility for short describes the training of flexibility. Together with the stretching ability of the muscle and connective tissue, this results in total mobility. Often different methods of mobility training are summarized under the term Mobility Training. Hence, mobility is also used colloquially as a synonym for mobility. The training of mobility has been moving ever further into the focus of the training for several years and plays an important role for athletic performance and the freedom to complain.

Why Mobility Training is important

A limited mobility of your joints is definitely not something you have to and should come to terms with. In addition to strength, endurance, speed and coordination, mobility is one of the five basic motor skills and cannot be considered in isolation from the other aspects. Due to suboptimal mobility, you may be able to apply less strength or speed and thus train less efficiently.

Furthermore, sufficient mobility protects you from injuries such as strains. Imagine if you make a clumsy movement during Training or you stumble, slip or have to take an unusually wide joint position for other reasons, for which your body is not prepared. If your mobility is not enough for movement, your musculoskeletal system will give way slightly and you will hurt yourself.

Mobility Training can help you to increase the natural range of motion and thus reduce the risk of injury.

Whether and how much you benefit from Mobility Training is of course a very individual question. So you should find out which joints need special attention. The following questions can help:

• Can some exercises not be performed over the full range of motion?
• Do you notice differences in mobility in the page comparison?
• Do you have pain in some joints, especially during training?
• Do your muscles often feel stiff and firm?

If you have one or more of these questions with " yes!"answer, you should always perform specific Mobility Training. Conversely, however, this does not mean that if you do not yet feel these limitations, targeted mobility training would be pointless for you. Because on the one hand, Training can save you from these risks and on the other hand improve your training potential even further.

What mobility techniques are there?

For the training of mobility several approaches are possible. Probably the best known method is stretching. Stretching alone can already improve mobility, but is usually not sufficient to achieve long-term effects. Therefore, stretching exercises should be supplemented by other methods, such as mobility exercises and fascia training. Mobility exercises move your joints and move them into end-grade positions to increase their range. Fascia training in the form of Foam Rolling means mobilizing your muscles and connective tissue via a foam roller or Ball. Foam Rolling leads in the short term to an improvement in mobility and in the long term to a positive restructuring of the connective tissue.

Risk factor for your Mobility

After you know how to improve your mobility, you should also know how not to make it worse. Risk factor number 1 is Sitting. Hardly any activity or inactivity affects your mobility in such a negative way as sitting for too long and too often. Therefore, it is extremely important for your mobility and thus also for your health to sit less on the one hand and to counteract it with suitable exercises on the other.

If you have to sit a lot in your profession and everyday life, it is all the more important to counteract with a suitable "Office Routine".

In addition to needs - based stretching and mobilization exercises that you can integrate into your Training, you will find here some exercises that can be integrated into everyday life without much effort. Especially if you can't avoid sitting, you can mobilize quickly through simple exercises.

Mobility exercises while sitting (for the office)

Cervical spine

The cervical spine is particularly often the victim of suboptimal posture and Unphysiological stress during sitting. To make the HWS movable again, you should move them in all directions. Start with the lateral tilt and thus stretch the neck muscles of the opposite side. Perform both sides. Then move your chin towards the chest and bring the central neck muscles into the stretch. From this Position you can now move your head to the right and left.

In addition, you should also consciously move your head forward and back by stretching your chin forward and then forming a double chin all the way back. This optimally mobilizes all cervical vertebrae.

Gluteus stretching while sitting

While sitting, beat one leg over the other so that your ankle is above the knee of the other leg. Then press the knee of the leg down and move your upper body forward down with your back straight to stretch your glutes.

Roll out the sole of the foot

With a small fascia roller or a Tennis or golf ball under the desk, the muscles above the plantar fascia can be optimally mobilized. This is important for a healthy arch and is also connected to the entire back of the body. Thus, you can also improve the mobility of your calves, thigh backs as well as your lower back by simply rolling out the feet. You can also place the Ball under the back of your thighs and slowly stretch out the knee to mobilize your hamstrings.

Upper body stretch

Place your palms on the desk and roll with the office chair slightly to the back. Dive with your upper body between your arms and stretch your chest and shoulder muscles. The thoracic spine is stretched. To enhance the effect, you can press the table down with your hands for five seconds.

Release ,press with upper body and repeat a few times. At the very bottom, you can also alternately loosen the hands from the edge of the table and rotate them upwards.

Mobility exercises while standing

Whenever possible, you should take the opportunity to get up. So if you have a few minutes, it is beneficial to do your mobility exercises standing up.

Squat-Sit

Sitting again? Yes! The deep squat mobilizes your hocks, knee and hip joints in an everyday and functional movement pattern. Therefore, you should consider squats not only as a strengthening exercise, but also as a Mobility Tool. Even sitting in the lowest Position can be very demanding.

Spine mobility standing up

Very often the spine is perceived only as a static Element that is important for an upright posture. However, the spine should also be mobile, especially in the upper segments. The spine can be moved in all directions. While during the training we still partially bend and stretch, we usually rotate much too little.

Stand upright for this exercise sequence and bend your upper body down as far as you can. Now place the back of your left hand on the outside of your right lower leg and open up with your right hand to rotate in the thoracic spine.

Repeat this a few times and then change the page. To perform a BWS Rotation while sitting, hold onto the edge of your table with your palms facing upwards and turn the rest of your body onto your office chair in one direction – then in the other.

Spine traction

In order to train your spine, which has been blocked by sitting, you bend down while standing and tighten your arms. Let your arms hang down as far as you can while you make circling movements with your head. Then you can keep your head still and circle with your arms folded.

With these exercises, you should be able to integrate your mobility training into your everyday life without much extra effort. In just a few minutes of Mobility Training daily, you will soon feel a difference.

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