When I was a kid, I remember a time driving with my Dad about a mile down a dusty old road. We stood on a semi-level square of patchy grass surrounded by 18 acres of trees and rolling hills. 

That year I watched my Dad build our family home from the ground up; everything from surveying the land, digging the foundation, laying down the roof and wood floors to painting the crown molding. 

This experience shaped my idea of what it takes to build a strong and resilient body as it’s very similar to building a home. 

The first lesson is patience as it takes time to build a welcoming and comfortable home so give yourself at least 6 months to truly make a significant upgrade. 

The second lesson is you’re always going to be doing maintenance. 

Our bodies are constantly in a state of remodeling as we generate new cells and tissues. How you code those cells is up to you. 

Cells speak the language of force so you have to talk to them in a way they can understand. The means to do that is through movement. Your cells adapt to the information you give them. This is the principle of progressive adaptation. “Incremental loads imparted on tissue results in adaptation of said tissue such that the load absorption capacity improves.” 

When the load absorption capacity within your tissues is greater than an external force say a fall while snowboarding or stubbing your toe on the corner table then you say “ouch, that was a close one,” rather than, “shoot!, now I’m out of commission for a few weeks!” 

Mobility training, unlike pure flexibility, is not passive, it’s active.

It’s being able to bend, but strong enough to not break. Mobility training sends information from your body to your brain and vice versa to get your nervous system onboard so you make lasting changes in your ranges of motion and movement abilities. 

Here are 5 Ways Being More Mobile Can Radically Improve Your Life: 

1. You don’t feel stiff and achy all the time; old sports injuries and repetitive use injuries begin to fade away. Mobility training is like nature’s anti-inflammatory pill.
2. Mobility improves your ability to DO ANYTHING– playing with your kids, walking up the stairs, surfing/snowboarding/training, reaching into the cabinets and cleaning underneath the sofa.
3. Bulletproof your body from injury. I’m not saying it won’t happen, but stronger connective tissue and greater ranges of motion don’t get battered nearly as badly as weak fibrotic (scar) tissue and arthritic joints.
4. You remodel and re-pattern your body as you lay down new tissues that are responsive and active.
5. Improved body control and kinesthetic awareness. You get to know yourself and how you operate.

How to Get Started: 

A fantastic starting point is to perform a joint mobility routine every morning. It’s wise to start with the joints, because we rarely take each join though it’s full range of motion on a regular basis, plus, our cartilage has no direct blood supply. Cartilage relies on movement to receive oxygen and nutrition via the process of fluid diffusion from the surrounding joint.