What Constitutes A Mobility Issue?
Mobility issues are defined as any difficulty trying to move around your surroundings safely and easily. The ability to move a joint throughout its motion range facilitates your ability to maneuver around and walk comfortably and freely. That is vital for functioning properly and living independently.
What Can Cause You To Lack Sufficient Mobility
Among the most common goals among athletes is to optimize their hip mobility. This is a worthy goal because proper hip motion range is linked to increased performance and significantly reduced risk of injury. However, hip tightness problems can have a real, measurable restriction on flexion and extension, or athletes may experience a “normal” range of motion and yet encounter hip tightness.
Aging
A lack of mobility leads to diminishing independence and an increased risk of falls, illness, impaired function, or even death over time. In addition, without decent joint mobility, you could feel stiff or sore, making it difficult to participate in activities or perform daily tasks. Therefore, a lack of sufficient mobility can significantly influence your quality of life.
Inefficient Stretching In Athletes
Hip mobility is complicated, and some athletes might have to seek the assistance of a strength and conditioning professional. With that said, let us look at some of the possible causes of this problem.
Deficient Hip Stabilizers
The most obvious component is actual weakness in the hips as well as surrounding muscles. For example, athletes could perform a strong squat or deadlift but also be weak in the hips. Weakness in the glutes, hamstrings, trunk muscles, flexor rotators, and adductors could cause muscular imbalances, causing hip and pelvic tightness.
Therefore, the more range one has, the more strength may be required to maintain hip stability and control. The inefficient posture of the pelvis can result in reduced hip mobility. The exaggerated pelvic tilt is a widely discussed attribute found in athletes and the general public.
This could evolve into the body’s default condition over time. Whenever the pelvis is tilted forward, the muscles connected to the pelvis, thigh bone, and spine can be elongated or shortened. As a result, those muscles may be unable to stretch to their fullest capacity. These muscles may be placed at a mechanical disadvantage, causing them to contract inefficiently.
Hip restrictions are a very complex problem that can be addressed by regular flexibility training and mobility exercises.
Signs You May Lack Sufficient Mobility?
Mobility challenges can manifest themselves in a wide range of ways, such as:
- Prolonged Standing
Weakening of muscles as well as painful pressure in the legs while standing for more than a few minutes in a row can imply future mobility issues.
- Difficulty Climbing or Descending Stairs
More difficult environments that involve you shifting weight-bearing legs and maneuvering inclines or declines could even highlight potential mobility issues. Losing balance and experiencing weakness when standing or sitting can indicate more significant mobility problems, which must be addressed.
- Loss of Balance
The sensation of feeling unbalanced, faint, or dizzy all could impair your capability to remain upright, let alone mobile.
- Fatigue
Feeling exhausted after short bursts of physical activity, such as taking a short walk through the neighborhood or simply bringing in groceries from the car, it’s possible that you lack sufficient mobility as well as endurance.
- Frequent Falls
Even if you believe you can get around without difficulty, if you have fallen more than once recently, you may have an underlying issue affecting your mobility.
Why Does Mobility Deteriorate With Age?
Some flexibility loss is simply an aspect of aging. A natural result of the aging process is much-needed collagen breaking down in the body, an edifice that retains water and gives fluidity as well as suppleness to joints. This impedes the ability of joints to reach the optimal range of motion.
Likewise, conditions like high blood pressure, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, as well as osteoarthritis have been linked to mobility loss as you age.
Our Habits Are The Primary Cause Of The Decrease In Our Range Of Motion. Furthermore, repetitive motions become ingrained over time. Ultimately, when you are not regularly active, your joints are not being trained to move or function at their complete range of motion.
Counteract Mobility issues
Counteract your lack sufficient mobility with 7 Hip Mobility Exercises For a Full Range of Motion. Here are other ways to combat this issue:
Continue to be Active
Make every effort to incorporate exercise into your day. If you keep moving, you can counteract some lack of sufficient mobility caused by aging. Walking is one of the most straightforward exercises. That’s an excellent starting point. Schedule walks that you can take daily and begin small.
Get Flexible
Stretching that targets your hips, spine, shoulders, and thighs can help combat persistent stiffness, contributing to mobility loss. Stretching is an excellent method of moving your muscles and joints in positions they may not even move very often otherwise.
Change Up Your Steps
Finding an exercise routine you enjoy is excellent, but repeating the same exercises daily is also not suitable for proper mobility of the joint. Workouts that are different on various days throughout the week are beneficial.
Take Standing Breaks
Desk jobs leave us spending extended periods of time sitting still at our desks. We’ve all experienced that sensation of standing up after sitting for some time and feeling tight or achy.
A way of counteracting that is to move as often as possible. This may look like standing. Standing up interrupts our time spent sitting, activating, and engaging our muscles when performed daily—or even taking a quick walk around the room.
Challenge Yourself But Keep Safety First. Stretching Too Hard Can Cause Injury.
Fortunately, increasing your range of motion could reduce or alleviate pain, depression, or anxiety while improving your capacity to perform daily tasks.
The bottom line is that preserving and regaining mobility is pivotal for healthy living and aging. And it is never too late to begin.
