Very few individuals come to our studio requesting mobility training. They inform us that their lower back catches when they pick something up up off the ground, or their neck is stiff by mid-afternoon, or their knees complain when they step on the stairs. Walking is now becoming a chore.Daily activities are beginning to become challenging.
Mobility training focuses on just that. It increases your joint’s full range of motion, and then trains your body to take that range of motion into its hands and use it with force, so everyday activities cease to cost you.
Mobility and flexibility are different things
Flexibility refers to how much a muscle can be stretched, with or without assistance, such as moving your foot to your hand in the quad stretch. Mobility is the range of movement achieved by a joint, whilst maintaining control. Being flexible does not have to mean that you are having difficulty squatting well: Getting into a position and then getting into the position to hold it well are different.
That’s why, after a day at the desk, someone can touch their toes and still come home with a sore back!
What is the cause of stiffness?What causes stiffness?
Gravity is constantly affecting us throughout the day. Some muscles stay engaged and some are disengaged if we sit or stand in the same position for hours. This is exacerbated for many in Hong Kong who spend long days sitting at their desks, and commuting by phone.
When the shoulders are rounded and the head is pushed forward they over-load the neck and front of the shoulders. When the lower back is curved up, the muscles on the back are taut and fatigued. When performing exercises with a rounded lower back, particularly those involving heavy lifting, the discs in the lower back are under significant amount of strain.
Typically, none of this does you one harm. The trouble is repetition. Many people suffer from a lack of flexibility and aches in their body or even chronic pain, which are the result of small amounts of stress, repeated thousands of times. Posture is one factor, and it’s a factor that you can change, when it comes to the complexity and difficulty of pain.
Where the usual advice falls short
“Just stretch more” is the most common advice, and it only does part of the job. Sometimes a muscle feels tight because it’s guarding: the body limits a range it doesn’t trust and can’t control. Stretching gives short relief, and the tightness comes back.
Then there’s the idea of holding perfect posture all day. Nobody can, and you don’t need to. The best posture is your next one. What matters is not staying locked in one position for hours, and moving well when it counts, like lifting, squatting and reaching.
A sensible order
Mobility work goes in a sequence, and skipping steps is why many programs stall.
- Free up what’s tight. Stretching or releasing muscles that have been short for a long time gives the joints room to move.
- Strengthen what’s weak. Once there’s range, the right muscles need to hold you there and move you through it, so the load is shared across joints instead of landing on one. This is where cues like “knees tracking in line with your toes” in a squat come from.
- Repeat the good movement. At first you think about every detail. After enough repetitions, it becomes automatic. Remember learning to drive? You thought about the clutch, the gears, the mirrors and the turn all at once. Now you can chat to a passenger and barely recall the route. The goal is the same for picking something up off the floor: no thought, no discomfort.
- Support recovery. Muscles and joints repair from what you give them. Enough protein, water and sleep matter, and so does stress, because a body under constant strain recovers slowly.
Try this first
A few small things you can start this week:
- Change position every 30 to 45 minutes. Stand, walk, refill your water.
- When you pick something up, push your hips back, keep your back long, and let your knees follow the line of your toes.
- Try an “open book”: lie on your side with knees bent and arms stretched in front, then slowly open your top arm across your body and follow it with your eyes. Do eight slow reps each side.
- Walk every day.
If pain is sharp, getting worse, or comes with numbness or weakness down an arm or leg, see a doctor first.
How we approach it at EPT
At Elite Personal Training in Wong Chuk Hang, we start with assessment, not exercise. A postural assessment shows how you stand and move, where you’re stiff and where you’re weak, before anyone writes a program. From there, training is built around you, one-to-one or in a small group, with physiotherapy and rehabilitation therapy alongside when pain is part of the picture.
One client came to us after more than 20 years of recurring back injury that had stopped him exercising. With a personalised program built around strength, flexibility and mobility, he reports being pain-free for the first time in two decades. Results differ from person to person, but the approach is the same: find the cause, then train around it.
If you aren’t sure where to start, a posture assessment is a low-pressure way to find out. You can message us on WhatsApp at +852 5631 8018 or use the contact page. We’ve also written about why a posture assessment should come before your first workout.