Increase Physical Performance With A Daily Mobility Practice

20 Jul

Every day your body is under a constant battle between the accumulation and breakdown of tissue, which is facilitated by your daily movement behaviours. With sustainable movement training, we can model our tissue to improve movement function and maintain joint integrity. If our regular movement is restricted (sedentary lifestyle), our joints will not explore the outer ranges of motion. If we fail to use our full movement potential, over time, we will allow the tissues to become short, tight, and immobile. The old saying goes:

“if you don’t use it, you lose it."

The accumulation of tissue tightness can hinder blood flow and decrease movement potential that can lead to biomechanics degeneration. This often creates chronic pain and injury resulting from limited movement throughout the day. To maintain tissue health and longevity, we must aim to move daily and use the full potential of each joint.

There are three main benefits of having a daily mobility practice:

Improved mobility and flexibility, which leads to an increase in athletic performance - mobility refers to the amount of active and stable motion one possesses. The more mobile we are, the more we can maximise our movement potential safely, efficiently, and effectively. High-quality movers increase energy efficient and therefore increase overall endurance.
Improved balance and body control - leading to a reduction in pain and injury, increasing joint strength, health and longevity, as well as increasing the ability to move freely and easily.

Decreased injury rates - ‘bulletproofs’ the joints so the movement can be executed safely. This also links to injury rehabilitation by restoring articular awareness, retraining the central nervous system (CNS) and increasing strength and stability.

The best BANG for you buck mobility training

Active, rotational movements at the outer limits of articular motion help to teach the nervous system to control these movement ranges. The quality of our movement is controlled by neurological patterning and to safely prepare for advanced strength, skills and mobility challenges, we must ensure neurological control at all times.

To prepare neurological control, we must consistently programme the CNS with articulate feedback to upgrade the programming in the system for more complex tasks. The higher the levels of base programming, the greater the foundation becomes for more advanced movements.

Unlike muscles, joint capsules can provide complex multi-directional and rotational information to the CNS, and give feedback of where the body is in terms of 3-dimensional space. Because the capsules make up the inner-most tissue of our joints, they are the first to perceive movement and therefore give feedback.

By training joint articular rotations (multi-directional and rotational), we can establish higher levels of CNS awareness. Hence, the active motion of Controlled Articulate Rotations (CARS) ensures constant articular feedback to upgrades the CNS.

CARS is actively controlled rotational movement performed at the outer limits while attempting to “expand the circle.” The outer limits are used to:

Give the CNS feedback on the available range of motion at each joint
Teach control at the outer limits = Joint stability
Increases mobility through adaptations in ligaments and capsule tissues = Joint protection

It is important to note; we can have a significant amount of movement and remain stable. To have a stable joint, the joint must be under control as it’s moving. When we lose control, we lose stability and increase the chance of injury. By stressing the outer limits of movement, we are programming the CNS and tissue adaptations to prepare the joints to guard the joints in the outer limits of accessible movement.

I started including a daily morning CARS programme around eight months ago. I’ve not had a single injury or niggle since. I’m starting to introduce a daily mobility routine to all of my remote online client's training programmes as I feel CARS is an essential practice for health and longevity.

If your keen to start using CARS, please check out this video: