The Mobility Project

For many of you that train with me I'm sure you have had your fill of hearing about how I tweaked my lower back squatting about 2 months ago. I went to an RMT, Physiotherapist, Doctor and even gave acupuncture a go with varying degrees of results, though almost all practitioners informed me that my lower back is giving me problems because my glutes and hamstrings are too tight. Tight muscles in those two groups are pulling down on my hips and causing my lower back to come out of alignment. So what did I do about it? Nothing but whine about my back to anyone who would listen and secretly hope my back would heal enough so I could get back to doing what I love to do and lift heavy (for me at least) weights. Although I always spend the time to do a dynamic warmup before exercise for some reason in my mind mobility and post exercise stretching is something I only treat my clients to and months of paying more attention to other peoples posterior chains and none to my own has left me in a bad spot. Now as discussed in the last entry one of the reasons we do exercises through a full range of motion is to keep or expand joint mobility while building strength. You've probably heard me say "long strong muscles" if you started shorting depth on a lunge. I use such range of motion cues as I'm more concerned about how your body moves and works than how it looks. Now stretching and mobility can be a bit of a confusing issue with so much information out there (often conflicting) about what kind of stretching (static, dynamic, PNF, ballistic..) and when its most beneficial to do them (before, after, during exercise) but I sincerely believe as with allot of things in fitness and exercise its not so much what you are doing its how consistently you are doing it, you can over think things in the gym and good old "time to task" method usually beats out programs that spend more time planning than doing. So for the next 60 days I'm going to spend 30 minutes 5 days a week focusing on my mobility and flexibility. I'll be following a routine outlined for me by my physiotherapist that has static stretching and some band distraction and doing an online daily mobility workout. 

This is me on day 1 trying to get into a position called a straddle...

And this is what its supposed to look like (smile and all)!

So over the next 2 months I'm going to stick to my routine and see if I can get my forehead to tough the ground between my legs while maintain a decent spine alignment. If I fail I'm going to donate $200 to my local SPCA and if I succeed.... I'm still going to donate $200 to the SPCA (I just like to use a bit of $ as motivation even if I can't 'win'). Will update the blog from time to time with observations. Wish me luck!