What is Flexibility and Mobility?
Programme design is the art and science of creating exercise programmes for people based on their needs, goals, and limitations — equipment, injuries, learning ability, and prior experience.
There are three major qualities we work on when giving people exercise programmes:
- Flexibility/Mobility — the ability to move the joints through greater range without injury.
- Strength — the ability to lift heavier and heavier things.
- Endurance/Cardio — the ability to do work for longer.
Over time, training should make people able to handle heavier, more stressful physical activities for longer — while possessing a body flexible enough to move in any required direction without injury. Like a spider's web: strong and supple.
Range of motion is a lengthy study in itself. For simplicity:
- Flexibility — the ability to put your body into a certain position using gravity or implements (passive).
- Mobility — the ability to put your joints into certain positions using only muscular force (active).
For normal healthy life, all of the body's joints need to be able to move within a comfortable range. Rather than dedicated stretching sessions, the more effective approach is to train with full range of motion in your exercises.
Examples:
- Doing push-ups on handles to stretch out the shoulders.
- Slowly working up to full range squats to open up the knees and ankles.
- Doing side raises to make the side muscles and ribs more flexible.
- Jefferson curls for keeping the back loose and strong through its full range.
Post-Workout Stretches
Stretching does improve flexibility when done consistently. Hold each stretch for 1–5 minutes. Focus on what each individual client feels most — not a generic sequence.
- Bretzel
- Supine hook-lying ankle holds (move head)
- Supine legs-to-wall stretch
- Figure-4 stretch
- Weighted T-spine rotation (Cavaliere)
- Chest wall stretch
- Incline calf stretch
- Seiza (seated on heels)
What is the Best Way to Warm Up?
One thing must be made very clear — the best warm-up is simply the exercise itself, done at a lower weight. If you are going to squat 70kg today, warm up with 40kg, then 50kg, then 60kg before the working set. For most people, this is all that is needed.
That said, a thorough warm-up has many other conditions to it — particularly for athletic work, people with injuries, or those who arrive fatigued. Here are some suggested drills:
- Downdog to Lunge Rotations — probably the most effective warm-up drill. This exercise stretches almost all major muscles, increases body temperature rapidly, and can make the body feel open in under 5 minutes.
- Lunge Snatch — similar to the previous exercise but loaded. Excellent chest and shoulder opener, especially for clients with tight thoracic regions. Start very light (even 2.5kg).
- Poliquin to Hamstring Stretch — thoroughly warms and stretches the legs.
- Modified Suryanamaskar — taken from yoga, this 7-step flow warms the body from head to toe. Modified to prevent lower back overuse.
- Active Hang — 3–5 sets of hanging before upper body work activates the shoulder musculature and reduces joint clicking.
- Bodyline Drills — Plank → Side Plank → Reverse Plank in succession, 1–2 minutes each, 2–3 rounds. A thorough core warm-up.
Exercise Selection
One of the simplest methods for selecting exercises is to divide them into categories:
- Push (anterior — chest, shoulders, triceps)
- Pull (posterior — back, rear delts, biceps)
- Front legs (anterior — quads, hip flexors)
- Back legs (posterior — hamstrings, glutes)
- Core
- Cardio
Making sure to use a combination of exercises from all these categories ensures all major muscle groups are stimulated each week.
Exercise Order
Perform heavier, faster, lower-rep activities first, followed by lighter, slower, higher-rep work. Ask yourself: "If you had to play a 45-minute basketball match and run a 2-hour jog, which would you do first?" The basketball — because fatigue from the jog would impair explosive performance far more than the reverse.
Sets, Repetitions and Rest
Lower reps (heavier weights) require more sets and longer rest. Higher reps require fewer sets and less rest. However, advanced trainees pushing close to failure on high-rep sets may still need 3–4 minutes rest regardless of load.
As a rough starting framework for a general population client: 1–5 reps calls for 3–5 minutes of rest since the nervous system needs time to recover between near-maximal efforts; 6–12 reps (the most common range for general fitness and muscle gain) works well with 60–120 seconds; and 15+ rep sets aimed at muscular endurance can often be followed with as little as 30–60 seconds. These are starting points to adjust based on how quickly an individual client actually recovers, not fixed rules.
Lifting Tempo
Generally speaking, as long as you don't yank weights up and down and control the movement, the tempo is fine for most purposes. Slower speeds may be used with elderly clients or during rehabilitation. Isometric exercises (holding positions) are also excellent for both of these populations.
A Word on the Nervous System
Whenever we work hard, push ourselves to the limits, or work for a very long time, the nervous system fatigues alongside the muscles. This is why rest periods must be respected — your muscles and cardiovascular system may recover faster than your nervous system.
A Word on Muscle Soreness
Many people experience pain in the muscles they've worked 24–48 hours after training — called Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). Most consider soreness to be a sign of a "good workout." This is a fallacy.
Soreness most commonly occurs from:
- Doing something very different — a new exercise variation.
- Doing much more of something than you are used to.
- Having a very poor diet before exercising hard — the body doesn't have the nutrients needed to recover.
Soreness by itself does NOT indicate anything about the effectiveness of a workout. Don't chase soreness — chase progressive overload.
Cardio
Your lungs and heart are muscles. Like all other muscles, they require progressive overload to get stronger. Cardio can be divided into two types:
- Long Cardio (like jogging, gentle swimming) — cardio you can do for long durations at a gentle pace. Produces a great cardiovascular adaptation over time.
- Interval Cardio (like interval sprints, tabata circuits, or HIIT) — short bursts of high intensity alternated with rest. More demanding, requiring more recovery.
Some form of long cardio should be done daily or whenever possible. Ideally at least 3 hours of long cardio per week.