Improve Your Performance Using Mobility Circuits (Videos)

I’m always on the hunt for ways to improve my performance as well as my clients’. Recovery is a key part to the elite performance equation, and one that may not always get enough love.

I know, I know, recovery is boring, can be time consuming, and you feel like you’re not making gainnnzzzzz. Well, guess what?! Most of your “gainz” are going to happen when you’re recovering. When you’re lifting hard you’re doing damage and your body needs a chance to recover and figure out a way to adapt to the stress you’ve placed it under.

Our bodies are pretty amazing and they generally adapt quickly, as long as we allow adequate time and train intelligently. But, if you’re already eating well, sleeping enough, and hydrating and you want to give yourself a leg up, mobility circuits might be helpful.

Light aerobic activity has long been used for recovery from intense training. However, for athletes whose sports are based on anaerobic power and performed exclusively in the ATP-CP (phosphagen) system, aerobic exercise may reduce power output, or at the very least act as a competing demand to improving power. While the risk to inhibiting performance may be relatively low, there must be a better and more productive way for these athletes to spend their recovery time. Enter mobility circuits.

Mobility is just the active range of motion you can access, and it helps to move through these ranges of motion regularly (provided you don’t have significant joint laxity with end ranges past neutral). I first saw these on Eric Cressey’s site and decided to try them out for myself. I’ve tried quite a few variations based on what I need to improve at any given time. For me, this generally relates to portions of my pitching delivery, and gaining range of motion in areas that will help me improve velocity. But, you can make them fit pretty much any mobility related goals.

The way I’ve set them up is I choose 5-10 mobility drills and put them together like a circuit. I pick rep ranges for each of them, usually 5-10, and then a time I want to do them for, usually 15-30 minutes, and I go through them as many times as possible. My heart rate goes up, but it’s not crazy, and I get to work through ranges of motion that I need to use regularly.

After you’re done it should feel like you did a light workout, but you shouldn’t be exhausted. You’ve helped your recovery, and as a bonus you’ve helped your mobility as well.

Here’s a sample mobility circuit to try:

Alternating OH Lateral Lunge