People often make the mistake of focusing on things that they CAN do, instead of the things that they CAN’T do.
Yes, it might still be a bit uncomfortable, and you probably will still be getting a stretch/wobble… but it’s all so achievable.
This is why people get stuck for ages and start to believe they’re unlucky, or getting “too old”, or “need to be erased and drawn again”.
I don't mean you can't do the splits, so you'd best go out at learn them! I mean finding basic exercises that should be easy, yet for whatever reason you find them nearly impossible. Clinging onto achieveable movements especially occurs if something gets injured or hurt you find (or are given) an exercise that you can already do which seems to target the right area and you start repping it out.
Hip or back or knee pain? The most common exercise given/done is clamshells… and you do it to death, you could probably win the clamshell Olympics!
But you can’t hold a side plank on one leg for 30 seconds?
Can you stand on one leg, with your eyes closed and not fall over for 30-60 seconds?
You could sit on your foam roller for 6 hours if you wanted to….
But… YOU CAN’T BALANCE?!
It’s these simple things which are hard, or maybe even seem impossible, that get ignored or dismissed as “not important” because they’re genuinely uncomfortable. They are things you can’t do, which is exactly why you should be trying.
If you’re ever wondering what exercises or stretches you should be doing in your warm ups/cool downs/activity recovery/mobility days…….. it’s the ones you know you don’t want to do.
Your Body Craves Good Movement
It’s no wonder your body stiffens up, it wants to have balanced mobility & joint stability. If it lacks this, it just doesn’t feel strong or safe causing it to tighten you up - essentially to SLOW YOU DOWN so you don’t hurt yourself if you’re suddenly taken off guard.
It sounds too simple and that’s why people don’t like it. Instead, they want to be told exactly which muscle is causing all their problems and want one special exercise that’s all they need to fix it, but in reality, there’s multiple things they struggle which that are the real root cause of the issue.
If you can’t do something then there is adaptation & change to be had, whereas if you can do something reps then what more do you expect to get from that exercise?
“If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got”
You need to find a way to teach your body a better way to move, and the only way do that is by learning new movements, or relearning movements you’re already doing better.
Focusing on Weakness is Essential - Regardless of Your Sport or Level of Training
You might only run casually a couple of times a week and think you don’t do enough to require mobility training, or you might powerlift at a national level and think aches & pains are just part of the territory - but all the things we talk about in our channels & programs is essential stuff to how your body needs to move. This means living, moving & training pain-free regardless of your sport or level.
I’ve worked with athletes who have medals for all sorts, who can lift weights that I could never dream of even getting close to… yet they’ve got to the point where pain is holding them back.
When you dismiss these glaring weaknesses, you get caught in the never-ending loop of collecting exercises you CAN do, ending up with 30 minute warm ups and a fear that if you skip it you’ll get injured. (Or worse, you end up giving up training all together).
The reason you keep running in to issues is because your body isn’t feeling connected in the right ways. You don’t need to lift heavy weights, or run marathons, but you DO need to understand how to move your body in foundational ways, with as little imbalance between each side as possible, like we develop in the Simplistic Mobility Method®.
You Might Already Be Doing the Right Exercises, Wrong
To delve into one last thing that I notice often, even when someone has the right exercises to genuinely address their weaknesses, they still do them incorrectly by going through the motions without understanding what the exercise is meant to achieve.
So even if you think you can do an exercise already, it’s always worth checking if you actually can.
There are so, so many exercises I did before I severely injured my back, yet it was only when I was in immense amounts of pain that I realised I was getting no benefits from the way I was doing them.
Imagine that - spending years doing “all the right things” wrong.
This isn’t to put you down or make you feel like it’s difficult to even do the right things right, instead it’s more of a liberating thought: training, mobility & movement is a lifetime practice. You won’t get it right first time, so why not just give something a try anyway?
Every time you try something, think to yourself “how can I do this better?”. To this day, I’m still learning more about exercises I’ve been using with myself and with clients for YEARS.
This is when you start to realise you don’t need more exercises, you only need to do a few select things properly and regularly, then you’ll have real confidence in your body and your training - and genuinely be in control of how your body feels!
