Balancing sports and mobility training

How can we balance mobility training, stretching and strength work so we can spend more time doing the things we love, and less time injured.

The key word here is balance.

As a young boy growing up i was always active and playing a variety of different sports. Running ,climbing, rugby, football, cricket etc. I have always loved using my body and trying new movement practices. In these younger years we are usually less ‘serious’ about our activites, have less wear and tear and our bodies are much better at recovering and healing from knocks and bumps. This isn’t the case as we age, but it doesn’t mean we need to stop doing the things we love. We just need to learn some practices that balance out the stress we put on ourselves.

At some point our practices become less playful and i would say more serious, and for some of us much more competetive where we start to pushing our bodies to it’s limits, and at times beyond those limits where we pick up injuries. I’m not against finding these lmits withn our movement practices, but we have to be honest and realisitic about the consequences of this. For many years i did a variety of competetive sports which i loved. Running, climbing, and in particular BJJ, Judo and wrestling where i was an active competitior.

I loved the learning aspect of these sports, the community and pushing my body, which at the time i was often doing daily, some days twice a day, and when i could 7 days a week. I fell in love with martial arts and saw my body as more of a tool to achieve / accomplish getting better at these arts, rather than what i would say was having a healthy relationship with my body. I was pushing my body beyond it’s limits and especially as i got older it was starting to break down. Twice a year i would have my back ‘go out’ and i would see physio’s and other health care practitioners to get me moving again. If something was damaged or twisted i would tape it up and get back on the mats to avoid having any time off and allow injuries to heal fully. I ate very well and would definitely say i was very health concious as an athlete, but as my friend used to say about the iron man community, a phrase they would often use was to 'use your body like a rental car.’

‘Competetive sports are like using a credit card. At some point you have to pay it back.’

After many years of this it starts to catch up with you. Seeing some of my older peers in the community of sports i was involved in and the injuries they had picked up and were living with i felt i had to make some changes. I was tired of being injured and not knowing how to fix my body so i starting investing time into Yoga, mobility training and stretching to balance out the damage i was doing to my body on the mats. At the time this was a concious decision that i talked to my coach about, dropping one of my sessions a week to do Yoga, but it was the best decision i could have made becasue it led me on a path to learn new practices to heal my body and ultimately to cultivate a better relatonship with myself and my body.

‘Competetive sports were damaging my body and Yoga was healing it'.’

Fast forward a number of years and i can say that Yoga and mobility trianing have ‘fixed’ my body. I don’t suffer from chronic back pain any more, my knee’s neck, shoulders etc feel great, and as a man in his 40’s i feel physically better than when i was in my late 20’s . The key to building a better relationship with your body and to be able to spend more time doing the activites you love and less time injued is to find some balance with those activities. You don’t need to stop what you are doing, but as you age you need to be honest with yourself about the intensity of those sports and implement a yoga / mobility practice that ‘undoes’ or repairs the stress you are putting on yourself pushing your body to those limits. It’s not impossible, and can easily be done, but you will have to make some changes in your life to cultivate this.

I’ve put together a series / system of postures that i have call ‘The Element Series’. It’s aimed at all levels of practitioners and ages so you can find some balance in your movement practices and less time injured. It’s broken down into a basic supine sequence you can do every day and progresses in time allowances up to an hour that you can try to implement 2 to 3 times a week. Along side the Element Series i have put together a library of mobility drills and stretches for the main areas of the body to help understand and breakdown how to move correctly.

The key here is consistency and making stretching / mobility work a part of your lifestyle. Start now, start while you can as it will only get harder as you get older. I’m not saying this to deter you, but rather i’m saying it to be realistic. Having better mobility as we age will benefit your life in so many ways and in reality it is not so much work that it can’t be done which is why i have created 'The Better Moblity Guide.’

As a Yoga teacher over the years i’ve worked with a variety of different people or different ages and backgrounds who have unfortunately been given very negative advice from different health care practitioers often suggesting surgery, givng up thier beloved sports / activities and creating a negative mindset in them with thier bodies and whether they can do thier activites or not. This saddens me a lot as i have found it is often incorrect, and more often than not i have seen people heal themselves from all sorts of chronic pain and injuries with the practices of yoga / mobility training so they can continue the things they love doing. Again, balance and consistency are the key.

Find out more about The Element Series and my Better Mobility Guide below.