I make my wife laugh often. Sometimes on purpose. Sometimes by accident, but almost always when I get on the floor to work on my mobility.
I have a confession…
I have terrible mobility and am wildly inflexible, but that is also why I have almost every gadget available to help me improve my mobility.
Why do I invest time and money into mobility?
When it comes to longevity and injury prevention, one of the key considerations of any athlete is range of motion.
As a triathlete who lifts, swims, bikes, and runs, having full mobility has extreme advantages. In strength training, it allows me to stretch the muscles fully and stimulate greater growth and power development. In triathlon training, it creates power and efficiency advantages across all three disciplines.
Aside from those advantages, the most important benefit is injury prevention.
A lack of mobility – an inability to move through a full range of motion with control – forces other parts of your body to compensate and this compensation often leads to undue stress, pain, and even damage.
Damage and injury can leave you sidelined and unable to perform at your best (if at all).
What does range of motion have to do with life?
I’ve been reflecting on this for the past two weeks.
There is a massive correlation between fitness and life when it comes to mobility and range of motion!
Just as a full range of motion enables us to move freely and optimize the efficiency of our movements, it also minimizes unnecessary stress on other parts of the body. Likewise, being flexible and challenging ourselves beyond our comfort zones of life can help prevent additional stress or compensation in other areas of our personal lives.
How do you assess mobility?
The CDC has guidelines for what it deems a “normal” range of motion, but one of my favorite tools is Kelly Starrett, from The Ready State, mobility test. (you can try it for free with The Ready State’s 7-day free trial).
Kelly identifies 7 primary movement patterns of our body and runs participants through a series of tests to see if they can get into each position. Based on your results, you can see where you have a limited range of motion.
From there, daily mobility routines are provided to improve the areas where your range of motion is limited and to help avoid future injury and pain.
It’s enlightening and sometimes fun.
But it’s made me wonder:
Are there certain patterns we follow in our own lives where we can identify an inability to move through a full range of motion?
Assessing mobility in our personal lives
Just as physical movement relies on healthy movement patterns, our lives are dynamic and are composed of similar movements.
Full range of motion in life is when we can move freely and without hindrance in each of these areas without causing undue stress or weight on other aspects of our lives.
I’ve made a list of the 7 “movement archetypes” of our lives, which, when limited (as with the physical archetypes), reveal a “mobility issue” that should be addressed to reduce personal stress and damage.
Here are the 7 Life Movement Archetypes:
- Physical Well-being
- Spiritual Connection
- Emotional Richness
- Environmental Peace
- Career or Vocational Fulfillment
- Social Connectedness
- Personal Growth
The life mobility test:
Taking time to run routine tests on how we are doing is healthy, but before going any further, I’ll just preface that I use these questions to help me gut check where I’m at in life and where I think I may need to put more effort.
I am sharing them as a self-reflection tool but they are not diagnostic in any way other than the meaning you want to give them.
You’re also free to replace categories or questions with your own! (If you do, please send them to me; I’d love to see them)
Instructions:
- Ask yourself the following questions
- If you answer “no” to more than one question, you may have a “mobility” problem
Physical Well-being:
- Do you exercise at least 3-4x a week?
- Do you maintain a healthy weight?
- Do you feel confident in your own skin?
Spiritual Connection:
- Do you feel like you are contributing to something greater than yourself?
- Do you spend time each day in prayer or meditating?
- Do you have a sense of peace that everything is going to be OK?
Emotional Richness:
- Do you laugh often?
- Have you let go of grudges and past pain?
- Do you have a healthy relationship with social media? Or does it rob you of joy?
Environmental Peace:
- Do you enjoy coming home and being home?
- Does wanderlust rob you of the joy of being where you live?
- Does going to your place of work stress you out?
Career or Vocational Fulfillment:
- Do you feel like your work is valuable?
- Do you feel like your efforts are seen by others?
- Does it contribute to the life you want to have?
Social Connectedness:
- Do you love other people? Are you loved by other people?
- Do you have close friends and relationships?
- Do you have an avenue to give back and bless others?
Personal Growth:
- Do you have things in your life that challenge you?
- Are you learning new things?
- Do you dream, and are there things ahead of you that excite you?
What to do with your results
Like movement archetypes, these life drivers are what propel us forward in our lives and the world, and when there are issues with one or some of them, stress and injury are bound to follow…
Some examples:
- Feeling unhealthy or unwell can keep us from engaging with others
- Not feeling like your job is important can lead to stagnation in your personal growth
- A lack of spiritual meaning can make environmental peace elusive
- Having loving people in your life can impact your emotional richness
Next steps:
If you haven’t already,
- Take some time to assess what the core movement patterns of your life are
- Assess if you’ve gotten stuck in a certain pattern, or if you’re fully moving and thriving
- Identify 1-2 areas where you are struggling
- Pick some daily activities or milestone goals to work on to improve the struggle areas
The result… less stress, less damage, and a more wonderful life.