Welcome to this eight-week video series brought to you exclusively by Whole Life Challenge in partnership with MobilityWOD. Each week, physical therapist Dr. Kelly Starrett will present you with a simple concept regarding anatomy and movement — as well as some techniques you can incorporate into your daily mobility practice. Note: These techniques are optional and are simply one of the many ways you can accomplish your ten daily minutes of mobility.
This week, we continue to work on our positional competency and mobility by asking ourselves two important questions:
- Do I have the range of motion required to do the things a human is supposed to be able to do?
- Do I have the motor control or technique to control that range of motion?
These two questions represent the two components of “mobility.” With these in mind, we’re going to spend time in our vital end-ranges of motion. Last week, we worked on the squat; this week, we’ll put our hip into extension. These are basic human movements essential to both your performance and health.
Download our free e-book for 11 stretches everyone who sits at a desk should be doing!
But just because we’re extending our hip, doesn’t mean we’re relaxing our backside. It’s important to control your glutes in this position to protect your back and strengthen your glutes. This position has a number of scaling options to adjust to your current flexibility, strength, and mobility. Stay at whatever position you can achieve while still contracting your glutes.
We’re going to spend five minutes per leg working on this position. We’re also going to prioritize our breathing throughout this practice as a way to signal our brain to relax. By using our breath and the scaling options, we can gradually work on improving our position and increasing our range of motion.
This stretch should be part of your daily mobility practice. If you do this one regularly, you’ll have less knee pain and less back pain. Give it a try this week and report back on how it goes for you!
Kelly is the co-author of two New York Times bestselling books Becoming A Supple Leopard and Ready to Run. He created the wildly popular CrossFit Movement & Mobility Trainer course and has worked with and lectured for every branch of the military, the NBA, NFL, NHL, professional soccer, ballet dancers, cyclists, Olympians, and more.
Kelly’s background as an athlete and coach includes paddling whitewater slalom canoe on the US Canoe and Kayak Teams, and leading the Men’s Extreme Whitewater Team to two national titles and competition in two World Championships. In his free time, Kelly enjoys spending time with his wife, Juliet, and two daughters, Georgia and Caroline, surfing, paddling, CrossFitting, and dancing.
