FIT FOR LIFE IMPROVING YOUR MOBILIT Y
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Having set up his own personal training business back in 2003, Ady Watts opened his first facility in 2012. His fitness business has grown to incorporate two Hereford gyms and employs a team of eight highly skilled trainers as well as a growing team of health care professionals.
One of the biggest requests we get is to help people increase mobility. And rightly so. Mobility is an essential quality for us all to maintain so that we can stay physically active and therefore maintain health. But what is it and why should many of us prioritise it?
MOBILITY OR FLEXIBILITY The terms mobility and flexibility often get confused and easily so. Flexibility is your range of movement whereas mobility is the quality and control of the range of movement. For example, two people perform a squat exercise. One person slowly and smoothly moves to the end range where’s the second person shifts sideways, the joints moan and eventually they end up at the same end point as the first person. They both have the same flexibility, but the first person has better mobility.
Very few people need extreme flexibility, but we do need to be able to control what we’ve got.
HOW DO WE GET IT AND WHERE DOES IT GO? We all start off on the same path with mobility from the day we’re born through learning to roll, crawl and walk and then into our infant years with unstructured play. So why by mid adulthood do we see so many people struggling with very basic movement?
If we reflect upon our Western lifestyle, from our teenage years we are
using less of our available mobility. Rather than chasing each other around and climbing trees, our play tends to be sat down and more sedentary.
Moving into adulthood, far more occupations are sedentary and we’re less physically active than we were a generation or two ago. Add the odd injury or accident that we didn’t fully recover from and by the time we’re into our 40s it’s common to see people unable to get up and down off the floor without a struggle, raise their arms above their head in full extension or even sit to stand without assistance.
USE IT OR LOSE IT Lack of mobility is often associated with ageing when in fact, it can normally be maintained with regular practice. It’s more the lack of mobility, the odd injury and perhaps illness or surgery that have fast forwarded our lack of mobility.
If we think of a cat’s behaviour, you’ll note that having slept for a prolonged period they’ll wake and then go through a mobility routine. This daily practice is enough to maintain great mobility. Have you ever seen a cat with poor mobility?
FLEXIBILITY FOR INJURY MANAGEMENT Flexibility is intrinsically linked to injury management but the science on this concept is poor, both as a tool to prevent injury and one to manage them. What does seem to work better is
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FASHION, HEALTH & BEAUT Y ADY WAT T S - PERSONAL TRAINER
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