“All human beings should be able to provide basic maintenance on themselves”

Kelly Starrett, Founder of MobilityWOD.

What’s MobilityWOD?

IndyCore founder Kim Rockey is a certified MobilityWOD trainer.  This week we’ll cover the history and background to the MobilityWOD approach to fitness. 

MobilityWOD the ultimate guide to eliminating pain, preventing injury and maximizing athletic performance. The WOD is short for “Workout Of (The) Day. The MobilityWOD program got its start with CrossFit at one of their San Francisco gyms during 2005.  It was one of the first CrossFit gyms in the world and the first one to include an on-site physical therapy program.

Soon, CrossFit became an internationally-recognized training center for elite athletes and weekend warriors alike.  The membership community included Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and Olympic gold medalists.

Kelly Starrett’s years spent simultaneously coaching athletes through thousands of hours of training sessions and running the clinic as a doctor of physical therapy gave him a unique and innovative perspective.  Kelly recognized clear patterns driving pain and injury. He also realized that 98% of these orthopedic injuries were preventable.

Equally important, is the recognized that any distinctions between injury prevention and increased performance were essentially meaningless. Athletes’ safest movement patterns are also their strongest. Gyms should not only be a place to sweat but should be a setting to observe, diagnose and correct movement errors that lead to pain and injury

Kelly concluded that athletes did not have an understanding of the body’s basic mechanics and needed tools to improve those mechanics. The Movement & Mobility Trainer Course was launched in 2005.   CrossFit trained thousands of coaches and athletes in the U.S. and abroad to identify and correct these errors, simultaneously reducing injuries and improving performance.

This brings us back to Kim Rockey, the founder of IndyCore Fitness. Kim achieved certification in the MobilityWOD fitness regimen.

MobilityWOD Program At IndyCore Fitness

The IndyCore Fitness program is all about Improving Flexibility and Function. Flexibility is the ability of your joints to move through their full range of motion without pain or stiffness. It also refers to the flexibility of the muscles that support the joints.

Being mobile is a crucial aspect of being healthy. If a person is not able to move a joint freely through its full range of motion, then they are already putting themselves at an increased risk of injury before even attempting to pick up a weight and load that range of motion

Here are some of the key things that Kim will focus on as you move through here program:

• Mobility training can improve the range of motion of our joints and muscles. It can assist in improving our posture. Mobility training can alleviate ‘everyday’ aches and pains as well as improve our body awareness. Mobility refers to the total range of motion through which a particular joint is able to move, which can be expressed as a measurement in degrees. Mobility affects your ability to perform certain isolation (single joint) movements and compound movements (multi-joint).
• Warm-ups are key mobility exercises to prepare the body for action. Static stretching exercises, in which you’re not moving around at all but are simply elongating a particular muscle or group of muscles, need to be part of your training program, but their value and proper usage are often misunderstood. At bare minimum, your warm-up period should be five minutes long. If you are practicing an intricate sport like gymnastics or ballet, you need much longer than five minutes to properly warm up. Also, when your muscles are extremely sore from a previous workout, you will need to take more time to warm up.
• Flexibility refers to the ability of your soft tissue (muscles) to stretch. Mobility, on the other hand, is an umbrella term for the many elements that contribute to movement with full range of motion, including restricted muscle tissue, joints, the joint capsules, motor control, AND your soft tissue.
• Stretching should be performed a minimum of three days a week for 5-10 minutes at a time. For maximum effectiveness you can stretch 5-7 days per week. Perform 1-2 sets per muscle group. Focus on muscles that are particularly tight. Since every person is different, how far you move into a stretch varies by the tightness of the muscle you are stretching. A good rule of thumb is to move slowly into every stretch until you reach the first feeling of tension in the muscle. Then, hold that position for 30 seconds to help lengthen (stretch) the muscle.
• Dynamic stretching is ideal as the core of a warm-up routine for several reasons: It activates muscles you will use during your workout. For example, a lunge with a twist is a dynamic stretching exercise that engages your hips, legs, and core muscles. Dynamic stretching improves range of motion.
• Five Easy Stretches should be incorporated into your fitness routine to improve your flexibility and get that fit body of your dreams.

1. Hamstring Stretches. These stretched target the back of your legs.
2. Glutes Stretches
3. Shoulder Stretches
4. Abdominal Stretches
5. Neck Stretches