All posts tagged: mobility

7 glute stretches for better mobility and less pain

7 glute stretches for better mobility and less pain

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. For the largest muscle group in the body, glutes get relatively little attention outside their cosmetic contributions. Bridges, squats, and kickbacks help develop size and shape, but they paint an incomplete picture; for total hip health and function, your regimen should include a wide variety of movements. This includes glute stretches that take your body’s second-most mobile joint through its fullest possible range of motion. “Our hips are where we move from. They’re our center point, where we’re supposed to be bending from. And if we’re not bending well from them, then the body’s going to tense up,” says Dr. Jen Fraboni, PT, DPT, co-host of The Optimal Body Podcast. That tension has the potential to wreak all sorts of downstream havoc for your health, including pain in the surrounding areas and increased risk of injury. But Dr. Jen has hand selected a fire playlist of glute stretches and movements intended to nip hip complications in the butt. What …

Why yoga is better than a run for your mobility

Why yoga is better than a run for your mobility

Mobility is critical to quality of life and helps to prevent falls and injuries, particularly as we age. About one in four older adults experiences a fall each year, with 10 percent of those falls resulting in an injury that restricts activities for a day or more, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Having a full range of motion is key to staying safe while performing daily tasks, and people can improve their mobility through exercise. But some workouts are better than others. While running is one of the most popular fitness activities in the U.S., it can actually make muscles stiffer and moving harder. Researchers have pinpointed yoga as a far better exercise for flexibility, finding that two sessions a week helped to enhance athletic performance in just a couple of months. open image in gallery A man runs in Mount Tamalpais State Park in Mill Valley, California, in June 2020. Running is great for heart and respiratory health – but can leave muscles feeling stiff (Getty Images) “There are so …

I started my day doing this one stretch from bed for 30 days and it made a big difference to my hip mobility

I started my day doing this one stretch from bed for 30 days and it made a big difference to my hip mobility

I often wake up with stiff and achy muscles. Sometimes it’s because I’ve exercised—lifting weights or playing tennis—but more often, it’s because I’ve spent the previous day hunched over my laptop. I work from home full-time and spend most of my day sitting, and the impact this has on my body is undeniable. My hips, in particular, have become noticeably tight. Long periods of sitting can naturally weaken and shorten the hip muscles, so I’m always looking for ways to undo some of the damage that comes from working at a desk. One stretch that always feels especially great in my hips is the figure four. It feels great in the moment, but one-off stretches aren’t enough to make long-term improvements to my mobility and flexibility. So I decided to try the figure-four stretch every day for 30 days. You may like What is the figure-four stretch? This version of the movement is done lying down (it can also be done seated), which makes it ideal to do at the start or end of the …