Doing mobility exercises regularly is one way to make your daily life easier. While you'll have to put in the effort, these simple exercises can help to reduce the risk of injury and falls, improve your posture, and increase flexibility, all of which are needed for healthy ageing.
Whether it's 50 squats a day or just using one of the best stretching apps a few times a week, it's important to have a couple of regular practices to improve your mobility if you can't touch your toes.
It might not sound like very much, but being able to touch your toes is an indicator of better health. Recent studies show a link between greater flexibility and a lower risk of premature death, even when accounting for health and age. Others have linked better mobility with a better quality of life.
"It's your ability to move fluidly and comfortably. [Good mobility] makes everything from daily tasks to exercise ambitions easier. It's also a key predictor of issues like back pain as being supple and able to move naturally helps prevent the overloading of your body," says Dr Charlie Bertoia, a chiropractor and Brazilian jiu-jitsu coach. Grab your thick yoga mat for support and try these five exercises to improve your mobility in a few weeks.
Mobility exercises to try
1. Full hip extension
- Lunge down to the ground so that your right knee is on the floor and your left leg is bent in front of you with the foot on the floor.
- Squeeze your buttock muscle and tip your hips under you (tucking your tail).
- As you push your hips forward you should feel a nice stretch at the front of your hips.
- Raising your arms in the air will exaggerate this stretch.
- To turn it into a mobility exercise, simply oscillate in and out of this position, gradually getting deeper into the stretch with each pulse.
- Breathe in as you relax and breathe out as you drop into the stretch.
- Repeat on both legs.
2. Wall squat
- Standing facing a wall, leaving half a foot's worth of distance between yourself and the wall. Keep your feet hip-width apart.
- Raise your arms over your head, creating a V-shape.
- Squat back (as if sitting down on a chair) and touch the tip of your fingers against the wall in front of you.
- Push down through your heels and lift yourself back up to standing.
- Repeat.
The wall squat is a tried and tested wall Pilates move. If you're struggling to sit down into the squat, you may need to prop a small platform under each foot. This could be a stack of magazines or a Pilates block - anything to bring your heels up will give you more ankle flexibility and make the squat easier.
3. Touch hands behind your back
- After rotating your shoulders slowly a few times - clockwise and anti-clockwise - to warm up, take a deep breath in.
- Stretch both arms out and behind your back.
- Try to bring them together to meet in the middle, one hand overlapping and grasping the other.
- Hold this stretch for 30 seconds if you can.
"To improve this stretch, hold a towel in your left hand," says Dr Bertoia, who is also a co-founder of MOVE.Shrewsbury. "Put your arm up and bend as if you are scratching your upper back. With your right hand, place it behind your back and grab the towel.
"Using your left hand, pull up on the towel to stretch the front of your right shoulder. Pulsing in and about, trying to stretch further with each stretch. Doing this on both sides will help you be able to link your arms on both sides."
4. Hamstring stretch with strap
- Find your yoga strap or resistance bands and take a seat on your yoga mat with your legs stretched out.
- Loop the strap around your foot and lie back on the mat.
- Keeping your knee straight and your back tight to the floor, slowly life your leg with the strap or band until you feel the stretch in your hamstring (back of your thigh).
- Make sure to keep your other leg straight out on the floor.
- Hold the stretch right at the point where you can feel it for 30 seconds.
- Switch legs and repeat the exercise.
This will be one of the most useful mobility exercises if you struggle to touch your toes - and it's also one of the safest, with less rapid leg movement than other exercises. Make sure to keep your back on the floor to prevent any lower back pain.
5. Upper back extension
- Kneel on the ground with both knees in front of a bench, bed, or chair.
- Place both elbows on the surface in front of you.
- As you breathe out, drop your chest towards the floor, keeping your lower back and neck relaxed. If this feels too tight you can do it higher (say a kitchen work surface) and this will help.
"As with the above, pulsing in and out slowly will help to encourage ‘mobility’ rather than simply ‘flexibility’ and you will get more benefit through the mid back," says Dr Bertoia.
6. Cat cow
- On your hands and knees, make sure your shoulders are directly in line with your wrists and your knees in line with your hips.
- Take a deep breath in, and curve your lower back down, tilting your pelvis up, and bringing your head up (cow).
- Breathe out and pull your stomach in, arch your spine, bring your pelvis down, bring your head down (cat).
- Repeat this a few times.
The cat cow is one of the best yoga stretches for beginners. If you're unsure of your technique, try practising it in front of a mirror. You should see your back, pelvis, and head all moving in unison as you move between cat and cow.
The big mobility myth
Like any other measure of fitness, there are many myths about mobility. Just like how you don't need to be able to run a marathon to have good cardiovascular fitness, you don't need to be able to contort yourself into various uncomfortable positions (splits - we're looking at you) to have good mobility.
"We all see things on the internet of people doing crazing things, mobility-wise, but is this realistic and necessary for your lifestyle and needs? For me, the 'needs' are required for a comfortable daily life; things like getting on the floor and up again comfortably, being able to brush your hair, undo your bra, scratch your back, etc. There are also the ‘wants’, which pertain to specific things you want to do that are dependant on sports or hobbies - not everyone needs Olympic gymnast mobility to live a healthy, happy life," says Dr Bertoia.
You don't need to devote loads of time to these exercises either. The hand touch exercise, for instance, is one of the many desk exercises you can do on your lunch break to loosen up. Equally, you can try a chair workout to limber up from your sofa at home.
