Do you even Mobility bro???

Now that we are confined to working (& working out) from home how is your body feeling? Be honest now. Do you feel in your usual tip-tip shape as compared to when you were allowed out & about and generally moving more than you are now?

Don’t know about you but I (Karl) am feeling physically different than the “usual”. My routine has changed dramatically. On a “normal” day I would crank out anywhere between 12,000 - 20,000 steps per day (Yes, I’m a geek and I look at those numbers). Nowadays I have noticed that in the first week of lockdown alone it dropped to between 3,000 - 5,000!! 

Apart from making me realise that I very deliberately need to get out of the house to make a concerted effort to get some Non-Exercise-Activity-Thermogenesis (or “NEAT”) in it also made me more aware that the simple act of constant & free-range movement works to aid our general mobility effort. 

We would normally tell everyone in the gym that mobility work is something that should be added & pieced into your training regimen at least a few times per week, and for you to work on the key points to which you find “sticky” or “tight”. Couple that with general stretching routines such as yoga poses or ROMWOD sessions we could potentially get away with doing as little as 30-40 minutes a week if we find we are naturally supple and “flexible”.

Now we are at home working away we are in different positions than usual. We may have brought a stand-up desk home, or some sort of work space solution, to work at but I can guarantee it is not the same as you had at your work place. No longer do you now pop off for a meeting or head out for a coffee stop (both of which which involved you walking to wherever that was). Now we walk all of 10 yards to the kitchen to get it. We are all in danger of falling into the trap of being both sedentary & active all at the same time! (yes it is possible to do both!).

You get the gist of where this is going right??

Now we are out of our normal routines we need to find a new one to fill the gap for however long this lockdown will take. I am sure that all of you have settled into some kind of work schedule/routine to keep your days productive and we have made great strides & efforts here at CrossFit CBD to keep your daily workout schedule as normal as possible. (Zoom is a truly wonderful thing hey?!)

BUT how is the rest of your schedule & routine going? For sure your sleep may actually be better with less travel time. However, is your water intake where it needs to be and are you eating differently now you are at home all day? This blog post is intended as a series of posts about setting up protocols to become the new norm. Today we look at your MOBILITY

(hurrah, we got there in the end!!)

Yes. YOUR mobility. How is it? Are you feeling more sore/tight/stiff than usual? We are doing our level best to not allow the general overall volume of reps overwrought us and make us sore just for the sake of it. However we are all doing things differently at the moment and it will take time for the body to adjust. We are jumping on harder surfaces, lunging on hard floors, NOT running, rowing, or biking nearly as much as before. Our bodies are slowly but surely becoming accustomed to certain positions and as a result we are becoming more stiff. Plain & simple we need to do more about it. 

Mobility work (Foam rolling, Lacrosse Balling, Smashing, Flossing, etc) & Flexibility work (Stretching, Yoga, etc) needs to play a bigger, more key part of our regime now. No longer can we “get away” with 30 minutes accumulated over a week. We need to do this day in, day out for the foreseeable future. Yes, we can hear the groans from here & the “there’s no chance I can do that every day!”. Well to put it bluntly, you are going to have to! 

For the sake of what your wellbeing & positional/postural health coming out the other side of lockdown. We ALL need to do something each day!

Before you switch off this blog post (well done you by the way for sticking around this long), what we are proposing is not too drastic. If you think about your mobility work in more ways than endless minutes of foam rolling & torture you will see just how realistic it can be. 

Across your 7 day week see if you are able to do some, or all, of these things…… 

• Try to partition yourself each & every day just 10-15 mins (in your 24 hour day) to do a stretch or mobility move somewhere along the way. It could be as little as sitting in pigeon for 5 mins at 10am, then sitting in the "couch stretch" for 5 mins at say 3pm. 
• Try doing our weekly pre-recorded yoga/stretching class once or twice a week (posted on Saturday afternoons).
• Try joining in on our weekly Zoom Mobility class on Thursday at 5:30pm (also posted to YouTube to do in your own time).
• Try walking briskly 10-15 mins around your block at home every day or every other day to stretch the legs.
• Turn up to your zoom class 10 mins early to work in some extra broom pass throughs & pull aparts.
• Try setting aside one day in which you allow yourself to run or jog (yes exercise is mobility too!) for 30+ continuous minutes.
• Try doing 5 CrossFit CBD classes a week (again, see point just above about exercise being mobility).
• Try to not let work be the reason why you cannot do any of these things. You worked 8-9 hours a day when you went to a workplace. What has changed now you are doing in the comfort of your own home??

These are just a few suggestions that can help you free up your body from new aches going on. Make notes on what is actually sore so you can make a plan to combat it. Soreness & stiffness is part of any good exercise program but so is recovery. Remember you are only as fit as you are recovered and that is solely down to how much recovery time we put into ourselves. 

At the end of the day if we want to feel better in between workouts we need to make it happen ourselves. Mobility, along with decent sleep, decent nutrition & decent hydration will all play their part. We will cover the last three components in future blog posts but for now let this be a call to action to take your mobility by the scruff of the neck and start a plan to make it better. We here at CrossFit CBD HQ have. Now we want you to as well. 

See you in our next Zoom Mobility Class!