Mobility Drills to do at Home

tara mobility

Improving your mobility will help you in your training as well as your daily life in so many ways. Mobility exercises will improve your flexibility, help you activate more of your muscles and reduce risk of injury. It’s one of my favourite ways to workout, as it’s challenging both mentally and physically, feels amazing, and I know it’s doing great for my body in both short and long term.

These moves have been designed with the goal of improving flexibility and strengthening important muscle groups to keep you injury-free during your workouts.

plank to squat

1. Plank to squat

Find a strong plank before you jump (push the floor away, straighten legs and arms, tuck your pelvis under and squeeze your bum), then jump your feet outside of your hands to find a strong low squat position (knees facing the direction that your toes are pointing out to, as close to 10 and 2 o’clock as possible), raise arms up by ears, then back to squat, jump to plank and repeat. You should feel your entire body working during this one. Try to go as slowly and steadily as possible, hitting full range of motion in each step.

side lunge

2. Side lunge

Get ready for a good hip flexor burn! You can use your hands on the floor to guide you until you’re able to get yourself back to the side lunge without them. As you lunge, make sure that you’re driving your knee out to keep the glue engaged and the hip flexor working. This is a tough one!

For a modification of this killer exercise, place your hands on the floor, engage core to product your glutes and back. Do the movement slowly. It should be challenging but not painful!

side lunge

3. Moving plank

When sending your hips back towards your heels, push the floor away as much as you can with your hands. For an added challenge, stay in the squat position for a few seconds in each rep, you’ll feel a burn in the quads. When pushing back to plank try and send your shoulders over your wrists.

inchworms

4. Inchworms

Tiptoe your way up from downward dog to forward fold. If you can’t quite make it with your legs straight, bend them so that your core and shoulders feel the burn and you’re still stretching your hamstrings, this will have the same effect. The slower you can pick a foot up and put it down, the more work your core is doing.

kick through

5. Kick through

Start in a beast hold (tabletop, knees 2 inches off the ground), jump left for by left hand, list right hand, push the floor away as hard as you can with your right hand and kick the right leg through the gap between left foot and right hand- phew. Start this one really slow, and as the movement starts to feel a bit more natural, pick up the pace.

table compression

6. Compression lift to table top

Make sure your hands start half way between your knees and hips, so you can see them and they’re not behind you. Think about lifting your bum up and backwards, so you’re leaning forwards (this movement is tough, don’t worry if you don’t manage to lift very high off the ground!) then push the hips forward, make sure you’re really squeezing your bum and lift as high as you can. This is a great exercise to target your shoulders, core and glutes, whilst also improving the mobility though your shoulders and stretching out your hamstrings. Lots of good things going on there!

If you need any further support, drop me a message on Instagram - @movewithTara. Happy training!