Aches, pains and restricted movement may be the result of a lack of mobility training. Gemma Ferguson and I go deep into what mobility is, how to integrate it into life and other exercise activities.

Mobility is way more than a bit of stretching. It's a foundation for all other movement - in every area of life. The positive effects on the body and how I feel make this a non-negotiable part of my training.

Gemma and I both teach Yoga and movement disciplines and we discuss the differences between yoga and mobility. We also call out the negative impact and risk factors a lack of mobility has on strength training and exercise. Gemma has such a positive energy and and I think you'll get a lot from this episode to support your body and fitness training.

Get in touch with Gemma

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Website: https://gem.fit/

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If this episode has caught your attention and you wish to learn more, then please contact me. I offer a free 20 min call where we can discuss a challenge your facing and how I may be able to help you.

Welcome to Mindset, mood and Movement, a systemic approach to human

behavior, performance, and wellbeing.

Our psychological, emotional, and physical health are all connected,

and my guests and I endeavor to share knowledge, strategies, and tools for

you to enrich your life and work.

Today we are looking at why you need to be doing mobility training if you want

to avoid aches, pains, and injuries.

I'm delighted to have Gemma Ferguson off Gem Fit.

Joining me, Gemer is a specialist in mobility, so I have a

reasonable knowledge in the space.

Gemma has lots of knowledge.

Together we're gonna look at how mobility training is super important

and how it's gonna benefit you.

Gemma, welcome.

Thanks for having me.

Good to have you.

I'm, uh, I want to go straight into mobility because mobility, we want

to describe what it is and, and perhaps understand where and how you

got into it and, and why it matters.

And perhaps can we, can we get your definition of mobility

to start with so we understand exactly what we're talking about?

And then secondly, perhaps you can take us like when you started

to pay a lot of attention to

Yeah.

So, for me, mobility is this like beautiful hybrid of flexibility,

stability and strength put together.

So there's a lot of ties there.

and I'm sure we'll unpack what each of those means and how we can have this.

Beautiful relationship with all of them.

but personally for me, whenever I started to do mobility training was definitely

when I, uh, really wanted to get into long distance running, triathlons, et cetera.

And I also knew that I was nursing a couple of autoimmune diseases.

So keeping the inflammation down in the body, uh, helping my joints have longevity

and then also increasing my performance.

On as well as that.

and also decreasing injury.

So yeah, it was a no-brainer for me to be honest.

Uh, when I heard about it, it sounded a bit like a magical formula.

when was that?

Cause I, I know we've spoken and you've said about, you know, distance

running triathlon, so some, some challenging, uh, areas of sport.

When, when, how, how long ago did you actually start paying a lot

of attention to mobility as part of your training and part of your

lifestyle?

I'd say it was probably about six to seven years ago, I'd

been practicing yoga for, I'd say probably over like 10 to 12 years.

And, uh, it was serving me really well, but I was also feeling like

I'm, I'm flexible, but am I strong?

And, and then I was trying to find this sort of hybrid element of it as well.

That's really interesting to hear about your

journey from yoga and into mobility.

I too, uh, practice yoga, and I've taught yoga for many years

and yoga's a great discipline.

What I see with yoga is that sometimes some pieces are missing elements

of strength and some aspects.

So for complete mobility, I, I think yoga's brilliant.

I wonder if we need a bit more so.

Can we go a little deeper into those three components that you described

beautifully about what actually is mobility and, and of course to think

about if you've got aches, if you've got pains, if you've got injuries,

or you definitely don't want them.

Why we, why we need to understand these, these three pieces of what

mobility is.

like what you mentioned before, yoga is, is an amazing tool

both for the body and the mind.

And I'm also a yoga teacher.

I, I love yoga.

I teach it many, many classes.

And to be honest, most of my yoga classes are a bit of a

hybrid of both mobility and.

And yoga.

So it's a bit more like sports based stuff.

but.

If we were to really delve down into each and every single section of it, for

example, with a yoga posture, let's say at the end of the class when we do our

stretchy, stretchy sections, potentially, that's quite often what happens.

Uh, let's lie on our back and do a hamstring stretch.

So we're lying on our back.

We've got one leg up towards the sky and we're wrapping our fingers around the

back of the leg with us, the hamstrings.

and we're just lying there.

And every time we excel, maybe we pull the leg a little bit closer.

That's essentially flexibility.

Trying to let the nervous system calm down a bit, try and melt

into the stretch, and trying to find your passive range of motion.

So when there's nothing really active going on in the body quite

often it's a little bit of a letting the mind relax and getting the

parasympathetic nervous system to.

Allow yourself to get in to find that final and passive range of motion.

stability, however, is a little bit more around trying to find strength

around the joint capsule itself.

So if you were to try and hold that posture, But take the hand away.

Would you still be able to keep the leg exactly where it

is or will it fall back a bit?

Will it move back a bit?

And another way of doing it is that exact same stretch standing up.

Cause it's even harder.

You've got gravity to resist then as well.

and that is sort of where the relationship goes.

You're finding length still in your hamstring, but suddenly

your hips are like, ooh.

Oh my God, I've really gotta work hard here.

I've got stuff to hold onto.

I've got gravity to resist.

I've gotta still try and pull the leg in towards the chest, but my arms

aren't here to help, and that's whenever the magic can really start to happen.

So you need strength within your hips.

You need stability within the ligaments and the tendons around your hips.

And then you also need.

The flexibility of your hamstring to allow yourself to have the length

and the flexibility around many of the muscles around your hips as

well to bring yourself into that.

So maybe that answers your question a little bit as to

the difference between them.

and that's where I think we can then bring it into an actual real life scenario

where if you, for example, are doing trail running and suddenly you have

to run up a hill and you've got this.

Big step to get up onto.

You've gotta get your leg up there, you've gotta get your knee up there,

and then you've got to push yourself up.

So not only do you need the flexibility, you need the strength, you need the

stability, you need the mobility, and it all becomes like functional in this

sort of beautiful hybrid together.

and that's what mobility training can really help develop and yeah, bring

you into being a stronger athlete.

Increase in your range of motion and the power output that

you have at these new ranges.

That's, in my opinion of it.

Of course, maybe you will have something else to add.

That's, that is a, as an excellent description.

And yes, there's a lot of misunderstandings around

what mobility actually is.

And, and of course we have go language.

Language is like, there's signposts and they take our brain to a certain

description like, oh, I know what that is.

And you've described that beautifully.

It's interesting.

I, I mean, I do a full range.

I do the full pate, I do cardiovascular and zone two, which is, you know,

sort of, front cross swimming, running, that sort of thing.

I go to zone five, so I play volleyball.

I do plyometrics, which is jumping about lots, explosion.

I do heavy, heavy weights.

I do all, everything.

And, and, and again, if, if, if you're not into activity that much

at the moment, don't be intimidated.

It's, I've been doing this a long time.

It's all a start, but our body is amazing, our.

A nervous system is an adaptive system.

It can adapt to the environment we give it.

So whatever we want to do, whether we want to be simply more mobile,

uh, stronger, uh, more energetic, all of these things into play.

One thing I see with certainly strength work, it's very common in the gym.

You got the, the big strong.

Practitioners, there's a lot of strength going on, and I might observe somebody

and there's, I dunno, a lack of range of movement in the, in the ankles.

In the hips, and they're gonna go for heavy squats.

It's like, okay, you haven't got the range.

And the structure and the stability to take that safely.

So what happens with the weight and that displaces perhaps somewhere

inappropriate and causes the classic shoulder problem, back problem injury.

And this is where I think mobility is.

I mean, it's a non-negotiable for me, it's non negotiating my training.

It's non-negotiable people I work with.

It's easy to forget though if you are into running or cardio

or, or mainly strength work.

Or perhaps you don't do too much and you're sitting at a desk and think,

oh, I don't really, you need mobility.

Yeah.

Now let's, let's understand injury because it's all very well, isn't it?

We have a mindset in our culture, which is, you know, when there's

a problem, we go get it fixed.

It's unfortunate is the way we're wired, avoiding injury.

It's something I'm really interested in, gem.

So think of it like this.

If you got an injury, what would happen?

Let's say you are active, then you can't be active.

We know that tissue changes quickly.

So there's, uh, there's a guy called Professor Andy Galpin.

He's a professor of kinesiology in California, I think.

Super guy.

He says that we lose muscle strength three times quicker than we lose

muscle mass, and we lose muscle power three times quicker than strength.

So if we are injured, you can't go to work, you can't do your exercise.

The knock on effect of that physiologically is a massive problem.

What are you seeing with some of your experiences working with injury,

either prevention or cure, and how's mobility playing a good role in them?

What a question.

I love it.

Uh, so first and foremost, going back to all of the activities that you're doing.

Love that.

Music to my ears, like I do, do marathon running in the past and

long distance, medium distance, short distance, triathlon, and

probably everything in between.

From yoga to strength, I always say variety is a spice of life.

Also for your body.

So it's not about doing a million chats in a primary series Ashtanga class.

It's not about only doing shoulder cars.

Uh, for mobility training.

The body loves variety as much as we do.

Imagine if you were eating, I don't know, crunchy nut cornflakes every day, all day.

You get really bored of it and you probably get malnourished, and the body is

exactly the same if you go white and pine the concrete every single day running.

It's not gonna be super nice for your body in the long term.

So love that, preach that.

a hundred percent.

And also with mobility training, it's, uh, I would say it's also

not a one size fits all model.

Of course, you, you do it for the sports and the hobbies that you have or also

the lifestyle choices that you have.

Maybe it's the fact that, as you say, you sit at a desk for eight hours a day.

Oh my gosh, my neck, my shoulders, my lower back.

Mobility and training is there for you.

It's also there for you if you wanna run a marathon, everything.

Oh, everything in between it.

The only downside I think with mobility is that sometimes, in all honesty,

it's not that sexy in comparison to like hit training, and all those other

like buzzwords that are out there.

But I think that genuinely it's a humble unsung hero.

Of course, I'm a little biased towards it, but, I genuinely think it's a very

unsung hero in the sporting industry.

And also, as you said before, a bit misunderstood with stretching and yoga.

but if you are doing it now, bef whenever you are enjoying your sports,

I see it as nearly like prehab.

Prehab is more important than rehab because we don't wanna get to rehab.

Like we don't wanna be rehab in our body.

So if you really put a value on your movement, really put a value on your

health, the movements that you do right now, pain-free, actually having gratitude,

recognizing it, honor, like honoring it.

the best thing that you can do is.

Is to, to honor it, really, truly honor it by giving yourself this gift of mobility.

Because health and movement, it is genuinely a gift.

It's something that we take for granted until it's not there.

and that increase in your active range of motion.

Motion is lotion is motion.

Uh, motion is lotion.

It's, it goes around.

and if you don't use it, we lose it.

I'm saying all of the rhyming words right now.

but for example, if you are doing, as you said, with weight training and

overhead press in the gym, and you have got, uh, restrictional movements

in your shoulders, If you don't work on your shoulder mobility, suddenly

the ribs are gonna flare open.

The lower back's gonna take the load, and you are confused as to why you

have got a lower back injury whenever you haven't really looked at the root

cause as to, oh, it's actually because.

The only time I reach my hands over my head is whenever I'm in the gym and

suddenly I've put 40 kilograms on it.

And your body's like, ah, what's this, what's happening here?

I gotta find other ways to get this movement.

So, oh, what else?

Oh, I'm gonna tick my ribs.

They're gonna open up, that's gonna give me some, some movement.

Oh, oh, my lower back.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's jump into that vertebrae.

Uh, then suddenly you're just a bit confused about it.

so yeah, I genuinely believe whether it's your sport or your

movement, Adding mobility in with it.

And maybe you need a bit of guidance at the start.

Maybe it's organically there already in your head.

Maybe you need a bit of a kick up the bum with motivation, which

is also why we are here today.

but hopefully this will help guide and give you a bit of like, yeah,

give it a get up and go for it.

Let's see.

That's, that's really cool.

Injury is a big one.

If you've, uh, I've been injured.

I've had a shoulder injury that's gonna recurrent and I've done a lot of work.

I've done, all the physical work.

I've done rehab work, rehab work.

I've done psychological work on it because actually my shoulder, there's

a connection, the body to trauma, so it's an trauma I experience.

So there are these things that are, that are layered through and.

No, the whole premise of my, my work and mindset, mood and movement

is to help us see that our mind and our emotions and our body all

interrelating, inter affect each other.

And you, you make such a good point there, that if the body, the interrelationship

of the body, such as the shoulders aren't opening or they don't have the range, cuz

you haven't done the mobility work, but you ask your body to do the heavy work,

you push, uh, maybe you're picking up your kids or something like off the floor.

If you don't have the range of movement, you are gonna be compromised.

And the compromise generally ends up in an injury.

And an injury is expensive on a lot of levels.

First, you, you might have to pay for, for rehab and it can get price pricey.

But I think the real cost is in what happens to your mental and emotional

my gosh.

So multifaceted.

Yeah.

And this is so big, right?

You know, so those of us who like say active, if you, if you say to a person

like Covid, like you can't go and exercise, that's, that's a big problem.

There's all these reasons.

Exercise isn't just like, it makes you feel good.

It biochemically changes how we feel and it biochemically affects the brain.

And if we are injured, we have a big problem.

The other thing I think is really interesting to consider is timelines.

I, I'm all about timelines.

In the fitness world, we often talk about, uh, you know, you might

see a six week program, a 12 week program, and there's, there's some,

there's some val validities to that.

It can getting people into a thing.

But if you want muscles to get big, you could hit it hard in the gym

with a good trainer and you get some bigger muscles in 12 weeks.

Cause they take around 12 weeks to grow.

If you want range, then you want the fascia.

So that's all the connect issue in between the muscles and stri the muscles and

all around that takes, uh, around 12.

To 18 to sometimes 24 months to change.

Now I'm gonna put hands up.

When I first did yoga, and I've said this before, I was

awful, absolutely awful at it.

I'm not natural.

Uh, in terms of flexibility.

I had to work.

It took me two to three years to be able to do a downward dog

that resembled the correct shape.

But that's amazing.

But you, I bet you you're a much better teacher than those people who are bendy

and flexible and then can just go into those, you're the teacher that are,

is gonna really attract the people who really need yoga, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Because of course, if you are flexible, and I saw this as a teacher, I, I

remember teaching many classes and there was a student once and she

was so flexible and I, and I was observing the movement patterns.

Her body would, what I call.

Flop.

So those are super flexy people.

You can just flop into a forward fold or a back bend and, and I could

observe that her awareness of her body wasn't as good as it could be.

But the interesting thing, she didn't have strength to contain the range.

And this also can lead to injury.

This also can lead to a lot of serious joint problems for

hyper

gonna say hyper mobile people, they really need

mobility and strength training.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

Yeah.

Now let's touch into lower back.

Cause you mentioned lower back pain as an example of if the person doing overhead

presses didn't have shorter mobility.

Now there's some stats on, a global stats on back pain.

I think in the UK it's between one in four and one in six

people are gonna have back pain.

But globally it's something like 619.

619 million people worldwide.

Uh, got low back pain.

That's around 2020 that was studied and that was in the Lancet.

And it's just crazy.

And I mean, the impact on, on work, on output, you know, a lot of people who

might listen to, uh, our podcasts, uh, and people I coach are business owners.

If you can't work for a while, if you're a freelancer or founder, That's

expensive and damaging a lot of levels, and lower back pain is everywhere, and

there's a lot of things that are pointed at why do we have lower back pain.

One of the things that both studies and certainly I see is a lack

of movement on a regular basis.

So I was just gonna kind of caveat, it's if you haven't done a lot of

movement and you're starting, and this is where you're starting to

get your, your learning around it.

You're not gonna launch into do a marathon.

If you've done not done a 5k, you're not gonna bench press your body weight

if you haven't even lifted a dumbbell.

It all starts at the first stage.

But one of the things that we need to do is have mo uh, movement and mobility every

day, because if the joints and the tissues aren't working, if the range of movement.

Uh, and the movement patterns are not happening.

I e your sedentary, that's a big problem.

Jim, I, I wanna get your, your knowledge on how to get someone from,

let's say a, a sedentary situation.

Let's say they've been working in an office too long and just got out of

things and, and hearing us now and thinking, yeah, I really want to get

back into my exercise and, and so forth.

What would be your guidance?

Okay.

Where would we start with the mobility part to, to nurture that journey?

Well, actually probably my guidance would be quite similar to my

pre and postnatal ladies that I train.

Actually it's start low and go slow.

because it's all about trying to hone into mindful movement.

And quality over quantity.

And that's very true with mobility.

it's not about how many joint rotations you can do, it's about

actually how slow can you do it?

How much can you really segment the spine?

We go back to yoga a little bit.

A cat and a car.

If you know this exercise, if you're listening, like you're on an all fours

hands underneath the shoulders, knees underneath the hips, and then you tuck

the tailbone under, run the back into like an angry cat position, and then you just

let the belly go, the tailbone comes up.

Maybe the eye gaze neutral in front of you.

A lot of us in yoga are just like, inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale, exhale.

Flex, extend, flex, extend.

And.

What can you really do to actually vertebrae at a spot

like vertebrae at a time?

Nearly like, if you have a necklace of pearls, moving

each of those one at a time.

How much control, how much strength, how much actually mind, body connection

does it need for you to, to put that signal vertebrae at a time?

So my actual.

Big advice to people starting back into activity, back into movement is not

to jump into that, oh, shredded six pack abs in 12 weeks sort of program.

Or suddenly find yourself in a dark room at a really fast treadmill.

actually start very, very slowly and, and.

Actually listen to the story that your body's telling you.

Where is achy and pain at the moment, and what movements can you do?

For example, with the lower back pain, there's so many reasons why an

individual could have lower back pain, whether it's ergonomic setup at the

desk, how many hours you're at the desk, if you hold tension into your

hips and stress into your lower back.

That mind body trauma connection, as you mentioned with your shoulders.

It could be your inner thighs, it could be your glutes, your hips, et cetera.

And.

If you have a fitness professional who has that sort of care and attention,

then they can start to make a more like, uh, individualized program.

For the Xs and pains that you have.

It could be that segmentation of the spine and hip cars.

So hip joint rotations, cars is an acronym, a very fancy

way of saying joint rotations.

If you're listening, and thinking what on earth that is.

Uh, we just doing that movement, standing up and taking five minutes every hour.

Do some spine movements, do some hip movements, sit back down.

That's, that's probably gonna be amazing for you at the start.

So start low, start slow, bite size chunks, nearly like those smart goals that

you always hear the corporates talk about.

it doesn't have to be big and fancy and a big commitment.

It's just actually what you can commit to right now.

I've got clients at the moment who are coming back, big CEOs,

three kids under the age of, uh, four, really, really busy bu and.

I have her doing 10 minute workouts a day, mobility, and all about getting the

abdominal wall back knitted together, DR.

Focused trainings.

And that's all that she's doing at the minute because that's the

time that she can commit to me.

But it's also amazing for her to have that moment and have that time and

then she goes back to her pelvic floor specialist and is able to track and see

the progress and is also able to say, Hey, my hips are actually so much better.

I'm able to sleep at night cuz my back's not sore anymore.

I feel like my core is able to support me more.

So it's all starting to knit together again for her.

And then more movement can start to unlock for her.

So step by step.

Unlocking more movement to be a stronger individual for

whatever it is that you need.

Whether it's walking to the shops, lifting your kids, chucking a ball

for your dog, or playing backyard cricket with your, with your family.

It doesn't matter what it is, it has to just be important for you,

and it's a good goal to aim for or to even strive to maintain.

Really nice.

Yeah, really, really nice.

And so interesting to hear the description of, you know, 10 minutes with your climb

and coming back from childbirth, obviously taking care of the correct, uh, work

and level and that it's interesting.

That you also mentioned about how to do a cat cow really well.

if you've been in a yoga class with you at the front or the practitioner,

you know, it's a million extensions, flexions, uh, can be quite mindless

and, and often what I call a lot of flip

Yeah, that's a really nice way.

the spine, especially the flexible people and then

perhaps the, the people who got more restriction in their body.

It's kind of, it's just awkward and it's uncomfortable and.

Yeah, so one person could kind of flip in and out.

The other person is kind of clunky and struggling.

I really like this premise that you are suggesting.

It's something that I adhere to.

Slow it down, slow

Less is more.

I.

Yeah, if you can't get the neurological conversation from the motor cortex

in the brain to talk to the lower vertebrae, the middle vertebrae, the

left shoulder, then how are you gonna do, how are you gonna play tennis?

Well, how are you gonna pick up your kids if you dunno what

your lower back's telling you?

Because switching this whole, neurological conversation on from the feedback from

the body to the brain is really important.

And it's subtle.

And if you are, if you are, you know, we we're all about trying to

avoid aches and pains, but if you are listening thinking, yeah, but my back's

killing me and my shoulders achy.

Well, they're loud signals.

They're like the loudest signals.

The feedback system of the body can tell you or tell you your brain.

The subtle signals are, oh, does that, is that looser?

Is that more subtle?

And it does take the quieter practice.

Now, I, I do a warmup system called ramp, which is raise, uh,

activate, mobilize, potentiate.

This is based on a, a sort of scientific printer and.

Mobilizing for the right workout is vital in there.

And, and I think if we use the ramp system, uh, which is raising your blood

pressure, excuse me, raising your blood flow, uh, raising heat, raising everything

in the body, and then activating the right parts and mobilizing the right

parts, whether you are a runner.

Whether you're a tennis player, whether you're a weight trainer, it's, it's

mobilization can go in at this warmup.

And I, and I love that because it becomes a non-negotiable for, for my practice,

for my clients, that we do the ramp system, we go through it and it works

really well in terms of lower back.

I, I wanna touch on this cause I, you know, the stats are

ridiculously high, low starts.

We have low back pain and I used to have a lot of low back pain too.

And I, I want to talk a little bit about the.

Synthesis between the back pain or let's say another body area, but let's

say we're back pain and where that takes you emotionally, how that feels.

People who are in pain are often quite miserable.

Yeah.

You know, people who are physically struggling are

often quite snappy and short.

So then if we think about the ecology of what happens if you've got lower

back issue, well, you're a bit grumpy.

That might mean you're grumpy to your partner, to your colleague.

That might mean that you're snappy to the assistant you talk to in,

in the store, that sort of thing.

What is going on with that whole energy is directly correlated between

how well you feel or not and how well you express yourself in life.

So when we think about mobility, it isn't just a nice like, oh,

it's kind of helpful to do my overhead presses or pick up my kids.

It's actually part and parcel of how does your mind experience

life because injury is

Yes.

That's a very nice way, but it injury is misery.

Yeah.

and, and I think this is, I really, really strongly want to get across is

that if our body is not working well, We are gonna have emotional issues.

So if we've got anxiety and depression, you know, the, the two ends of the

spectrum of the nervous system into over mobilize or shut down, well,

what's happening with our body?

Is it strong enough for what we do?

Is it supple enough for your lifestyle?

And if those answer those questions are, are both, no, you know, we are not,

that supper can't really do what I want to do, or I think you're strong enough

and you're not attending to it, you, you're really missing an opportunity

to not only physically be better, But emotionally and mentally be better.

And this is one of the, my bug bears with the sort of psychotherapeutic

heating arts, is that if we talk mind and psychology, wonderful, we, I can

do loads of work with all the cool psychology psychological models, but if

a person is unable to hold their body in an upright posture with stability

and confidence, physical, then we are missing the, the, the embodied mind

And I, I have to say like I think we really do miss a trick in the fitness

industry and also in the psychotherapy industry and the, psychological industry

not interconnecting this stuff enough.

yeah.

In, in the.

In the fitness industry, it's so saturated on aesthetic outputs, and in the moment,

just go hard, go home, put on the flashing lights, have an instructor scream at

you, and it's all about getting 110%.

And there sometimes are moments for that.

But it's all about listening, as you say to those subtle cues.

Listen to the story that your body's telling you, because it's always talking.

We choose a lot of the time not to listen or we've forgotten

how to listen in all honesty.

So I love that.

Yeah, really nice.

A common thing that we all share is we probably all use either

a computer or a mobile phone, or both.

Now, these are normal, right?

We use 'em all the time and we can get some long-winded debates about whether

they're good, bad, or indifferent.

One of the structural issues I see with, uh, mobile phone usage is the positioning.

And laptops can be similar by default, if you, if we are using a phone,

we'll have our chin tucked down, our upper body rolled forward, we'll

be in a slightly flexed position.

The overstretch on the neck, the stress on the neck, the, the holding of that

pattern for a long time reconfigures the architecture of the body.

Now, I've said this before, both on podcasts and to, uh, many clients,

if we are flex forward, that.

Implicitly is a threat response position for our body.

So if we are generally folded forwards a lot, cuz we're using

our phone maybe more than we need to, this can be a serious problem.

And then we start to talk about, well, why do I feel anxious?

Why do I feel nervous?

Why, why is my nervous system in a threat response?

Well, how is the shape of your body?

So for, for this very nature, cause we're not gonna get rid of phones,

they're, they're with us, right?

We use, I use mine all the time.

How can we use mobility to deal with that?

Very Very common issuer.

We're using a phone, but the position's technically bad for us

and has all these extra effects.

What would your guidance pjm on how to address that using mobility?

well.

Oh, how much time do I have?

Uh, yeah, so this is a really common one.

and I even have like corporate programs with my work, like desk dwellers.

There's literally a whole section on my portal.

that's.

All around essentially Tex neck, uh, that's sort of hunched

over forward, over position.

and there's even loads of exercises that we can do literally right now seated.

those joint rotations for the neck, the neck cars, taking the neck

through its active range of motion, even drawing the shoulders back and

drawing the shoulder blades back.

And dawn a little brace of the court.

I can see you literally doing it right now, and

Pat Gem, perhaps, can we, can we do it?

I, I, I'd like to join in, so if you'd like to guide, I'm gonna join

you And if, and if, if you are, if, uh, if, uh, for, if you're listening.

Uh, and it's safe for you to do so you're not driving or something like that.

I, I invite you to, to follow along because this is ubiquitous.

So let's see if we can have a direct experience from

So, I mean, like even if you, for example, are sitting and you've

got a video call and maybe you've taken the actual video of the video call

off, but you're at work and you're just listening, you're in a conference

or something, you can literally be sitting in the seat right now and

think about softening the ribs.

So the ribs, drawing them down towards the hips.

Drawing the belly button in.

And then maybe in your next exhale, let's focus on drawing the shoulders back.

And together those shoulder blades like you're trying to hold a little tennis ball

in between your shoulder blades, there's still that little brace of the core.

And then in your next exhale, let's imagine that there's somebody at the top

of your head, like a little puppet master, and there's a string coming out and

lifting you up from the top of your head.

And then let's tuck the chin in.

And back.

So tuck the chin in and then draw your head back like it's trying to

push up against the back of your chair or the back of a wall, and feel

the length in the back of the neck.

Feel the spine stacked on top of each other and feel

the whole core and the whole.

Center of your body and the shoulders drop down from the ears.

It's a whole new position that you probably haven't sat in for

about three hours if you've been already at the desk all morning.

Right.

Which is pretty much what we've been doing, I'd imagine.

Uh, so even that moment, like taking a few breaths there and being aware of

it, suddenly whenever you relax back down into it, you don't automatically

fall back into this sludge, but you're a more relaxed, upright position.

And doing neck cars.

So taking your neck through the active range of motion.

I start every single one of my classes with it, whether they're doing a

running class or a hit class or a yoga class, because I think that we all, I.

Spend a lot of time looking down at our phone, hunched forward,

so opening up those shoulders and opening up the neck a bit.

Sometimes whenever I do this, it literally sounds like a crisp packet

getting scrunched up in my hand.

Like you could hear all the, the creaking and the popping, and as long as it

feels okay, you know, that's, That's great because it's everything being

like, oh, I've needed this for a while.

Thank you, thank you for this.

so they're like, , that's a simple little like movement that you can do.

Super small, super subtle.

You don't really need to, you don't need to change your clothes, you

don't need to warm up neck rotations.

Don't need to warm up.

Change your clothes.

So easy.

And for the upper back, I'd say one of my favorite exercises to do at

the desk is to literally get up and put your hands across the top of

the chair and hinge your hips back.

Let your head dive in between your arms, so nearly like

your ears are by your biceps.

And then let yourself like.

Sinked on.

Every time you exhale, allow your head and your nose come a little

bit closer towards the floor and feel that upper back go.

Oh gosh, I've been waiting for this.

Oh, where have you been?

Yeah, so yeah, de desk dwelling exercises.

So many of them,

Yeah, Thank you, Gemma That's a really helpful set of

exercises to do something that we can do quickly, immediately, and frequently.

I want to add, and I, I'm sensing you're the same quick fixes, so

there are quick things to do.

You can change things fairly quickly, but a quick fix to solving your neck

issue or your back issue or your shoulder issue, there aren't quick fixes as such.

It's about building a sustainable.

Uh, practice and sustainable body, and of course sustainable joints

if you're gonna hit the pavement and start pushing the miles.

If you're gonna do, you know, contact sport, if you're gonna lift heavy,

then if your joints aren't strong and stable, something's gonna give.

And I think the three spots that we all need to look at for a neck,

shoulders, Uh, so probably four spots.

So neck, shoulders, lower, back knees.

They, they seem to be the hotspots where there are issues cuz there's

a lot of load goes through a lot of transmission of force.

So we are transmission of force.

Uh, and thinking about that, how can we use cars?

So is it complete articular rotation?

I believe that means, yeah.

So how can we use cars?

So if we're thinking about, okay, I'm starting to understand mobility is

strength, stability, and flexibility as one whole system, but how can we use cars?

To really help support those key joints, knees, low back, shoulders, neck.

How are cars gonna help the stability and the safety?

So when we're putting, loading through it, they're gonna be good to go.

What's, what's your, what's your guidance on them?

Well, firstly I'd like to say that like joint rotations, in general,

the reason why I love them is because they're literally accessible to everyone

at any, it doesn't matter what your range of motion is, anyone can do it.

So whether you are a 95 year old, Chair based lady who maybe has got lots

of arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, you can still do joint rotations.

It will look very different from a six year old potentially doing joint

rotations, but that's the beauty of it, because it's accessible to everybody.

You're moving to your own range of motion.

Joint rotations.

I love them because you're essentially, Nu bringing nutrients first and

foremost into the joint by bringing in that fresh blood supply, bringing

in that, getting that salvi fluid around the joints moving and grooving.

And if again, we think about sitting on a desk all day.

Shoulders are frozen, neck is frozen, hips are frozen, knees are frozen.

You get up and you think, Hey, Oh, it's time for my dog walk, or it's

time to go and run, or it's time to go and play tennis, and then suddenly

you just go from, okay, I've been sitting at the desk for five to seven

hours straight into throwing a ball in the air and doing a big serve, and

then running around to tennis court.

Then the joints are like, ah.

so it's a really great warmup exercise in terms of getting all the blood flow

and all the nutrients going to the joints, but also bringing nutrients,

bringing blood flow to the joints is essentially giving your joints fuel.

And we all know what it feels like to be given fuel food wise.

The joints are exactly the same.

The blood is full of all the goodies that the joints really

like for longevity and health.

So without wanting to go into it super scientifically, feed your joints.

Then whenever we take our, our joints through the active range of motion,

again, we're looking at increasing them.

So even if we were to use the example of sitting at the chair and doing wrist

cars, wrist rotations, probably after one very strong mindful joint rotation, your

wrists might even be quite icky because you're suddenly doing new movements.

That you haven't done with your wrists because you've probably just had it frozen

over a mouse or a keyboard for an hour, and again, maybe you haven't really moved

through your wrists very much because the elbow will come in and help and

the shoulder will come in and help you isolate that joint, and then you actually

see what movement that you have within there and then start to increase it.

More movement, more range of motion, more life.

That's essentially what I sort of say.

If you've got more movement in your body, you've got more life, if you've got more.

Ability to have more movement.

Like we mentioned before, psychologically you are feeling much more able to do more

things with your life, much less limited.

Suddenly you're feeling more confident in yourself and your body

and it all is really interlinked.

So more movement, more life joint cars.

Is that a good, good enough plug for you?

I love it.

That's so good.

Yeah, and we're gonna kinda, I, I'm thinking back to when I've been un

uh, injured and unwell and I told you I had a shoulder injury and

that's been a massive challenge.

I've had to really, I've had to back off.

So as a back off strength work had to back off a lot of things,

and the impact of that was huge.

Now, of course, I'm in a place where I do this professionally and personally.

So I, I love to learn.

It didn't make it easy though.

It didn't make it easy to go back to doing tiny two kilo, uh, shoulder

rotation movements when I could probably overhead press a very large sum.

Now the numbers are arbitrary.

Really, it's just about can I, what can I do that's healthy and interesting and fun?

Cuz all training for me is fun.

I've said this many times to people be like, wow, you are so motivated.

I'm like, no, I'm having fun.

Because if you could find the joy in movement, Which I

think is absolutely natural.

What ki when, when were we kids, we weren't, we were always

running about doing stuff.

I, I mean, no.

Younger generation now might be more screen orientated, but generally

children are playful and they're moving.

It's utterly natural.

And yet as an adult it's so easy to become sedentary and not do anything.

And then that can create aches, pains.

My term is misery.

You know, you don't wanna be walking around feeling miserable and in aches

and pains and medicated all day.

You want to walk around, ideally as well as you can,

because that affects your body.

It affects your mood and it affects your mind.

And that then affects everything you do.

So there's such a, such a connection between all these parts, which I think

is absolutely vital to, to understand.

Why bother doing the rotations?

That's why it's all

interrelated.

I'll have to say like if you need a little bit of motivation for

it, because you're just like, oh yeah, Gemma joint rotations, yada, yada.

If you, if you genuinely find love in movement, because I always say

like, Personally, I really tried, whenever I teach my clients to really

intrinsically enjoy movement, we moved from, we moved from a place

of pleasure rather than punishment.

Essentially, a lot of people within the fitness industry

nearly see it as a punishment.

Oh, I had a cake at the weekend.

I had a bit massive blowout at the weekend.

I'm gonna go to the gym and just sit in a cross trader for 45 minutes, sweat it out.

Uh, and it's a, it's a bit of a toxic relationship.

And then, you know, why then would you want to be like, oh, I'm gonna do

joint rotations so that I can keep.

Standing on that cross trainer that I hate for two hours every week.

Whereas if, for example, playing tennis or dancing or hula hooping,

or chasing after your dog or running after your kids is what brings you joy.

Doing your joint rotations or doing your mobility so you can

keep that enriched moment in your life and that joy in your life.

Suddenly the purpose becomes very different because you're

not doing it because, Hey, I don't want arthritis, which, yes,

it helps prevent it in the future.

That's a very good extra thing, but right now, in this moment in time, you're doing

it so that you can, in not just two weeks time, think about that tennis tournament

or whatever your sport is, your triathlon.

You can think about.

Being a veteran in a, in your tennis club, and whenever you're

like 60 or 70, that's the aim.

That's the hope.

That's the dream, right?

Or whether you wanna weigh in your age category as a

veteran triathlon or whatever.

So I always think if you move from a place that's not of punishment

with exercise, really feel what intrinsically motivates you.

Those days where it might be a little bit less motivating, or cuz motivation

does come and go, then you know that actually you're gonna be better for it.

You're not doing like three minutes of burpees because you feel like you

should do three minutes of burpees.

You're doing it because you want to.

I mean, not many people do wanna do three minutes of burpees, but

there are some people, so yeah.

Yeah.

That's you.

I love it.

I love it.

Yeah, I really wanna speak to this point.

It, it's, again, it's ubiquitous and we have to really careful with

this sort of subtle cultural thing because it, it's, we just absorb it.

But this punishment model, which seems to be very pervasive and it's

incredibly toxic, such as, uh, I've over overeaten, I've over drank, or

I'm carrying a little body weight, or I'm undernourished, whatever it

is, I need to punish myself into it.

That is such a.

It is such an unhealthy mental model to bring to movement of any nature and.

Who says you need to be punished?

Who came out with that?

First thing I would do when I'm coaching someone is we challenge that, that

belief immediately, cuz that's toxic and erroneous, it's full of errors.

You do not need to punish yourself if you've, let's say,

had a blowout the weekend.

If you are moving, that's a nourishment, that's an investment.

That's a play that is not this task master beating you up.

And, and I know women get a bad rap on this.

It's, it's even more pervasive, uh, for women about you, you, the shoulds.

What you should do and, and it's, it just needs to stop.

So take punishment out of your vocabulary and your mind as best you can, and

look to find joy and playfulness.

It.

It's really, I'm gonna say if most people said to me, would you like more joy?

I don't think I or most people can go, no, thanks.

I'm

good.

I'm gonna be a bit

My cup is full.

I

I don't want any

possibly have anymore space

for this.

many more.

Yeah.

I'd rather just be kind, miserable for a bit.

Alright, we're being playful here.

But, you know, joy is one of the magic parts of life and it's so easy suddenly

as an adult to, to kind of get caught up in busyness, whether you are a

parent, whether you're a business owner, professional, and get caught up in the,

the, the seriousness of adulthood and.

It's a big problem if you're not missing joy, cuz this is a one way show.

You know, we, you can't sort of go back, oh, I'll do the next

10 years and be more joyful.

It's like, no, you can't go back.

That's not an option.

And as a midlife, uh, human being as I am now in the middle of life,

whatever that might be, I know that my body needs a different treatment.

I know that my mind needs different treatment and I know that if I don't stay

mobile and if I don't exercise and move.

There are our ho hosts of problems.

Now I wanna speak to something you said at the top of the show and, I

have an autoimmune condition as well.

Now autoimmune is, is, is a whole subject, which we probably can't

go into too much, but if you have a condition, it's tempting to.

To be challenged by that.

So my autoimmune condition is, uh, what is called ulcerative colitis.

So my along will Ulcerate and it's, uh, it's a horrible condition.

I've had it for 40 plus years.

Its origin was in trauma, uh, as most, uh, as according to gavel Matt's work.

Most autoimmune conditions are based in some kind of traumatic event.

Now, we are not gonna get too much into this, but, so I've done my work on that

and most of the time, It's in remission, but I was training a while back.

I was in CrossFit, uh, at this time, doing a really strong CrossFit program.

And, and I had what's called a flare up.

So I literally couldn't do what I needed to do.

I went one session and let's say I was, I, I don't know, Uh, back squatting 60 kilos.

I can't remember what it was.

Let's say it was 60 kilos.

That very week when I had this flare, I couldn't even lift 40, so

I was down down to 60% of energy.

The week after.

I couldn't even lift half of what I lifted two weeks ago.

And, and this, uh, episode lasted like six months, so I was wipes hell.

And it's very tempting if you have a condition like

that to be really despondent.

So I, you know, I'm, I'm with you if that's, that's what's going on for you.

But one of the things I'd say is it's all about, well, where am I at

today?

So if you have an autoimmune condition, maybe your mom coming back

from pregnancy, maybe you're new to exercise and you haven't been working

out for a while, where are you today?

What is your body okay with?

We're not doing punishment, we're doing play.

We're doing joy, we're doing respect, and it might look like a 10 minute workout, as

you've already suggested with your climb.

It might look like a brisk walk for the next month and then into a gentle jog.

But where am I at today?

I think has so much more power and compassion to work with whatever condition

we we just unique people have, rather than it be a problem and a stopping point.

So I, I hope that's, uh, if, if you, if anyone's got a condition and they're

thinking, oh God, yeah, that all sounds nice, but I've got this problem, then

there's always a way to do something, you know, from the small ranges you've

alluded to already, Jim, to, to, to, to go into bigger, over long term.

My little thought process with that was right, because obviously, yeah,

I've, I've had definitely flareups in the past as well, where suddenly I,

you know, would go from running, uh, a marathon to then suddenly not even being

able to walk a kilometer, in the past.

And some of it is the fact that I really hadn't had that body mind connection.

and I really had.

To process a lot of stuff myself with autoimmune conditions, but also, you

know, my advice to people is rather than focus on the stuff that you can't

do, focus on the stuff that you can do.

So that was for me, a lot of mobility training, a lot of even lying on

the mat and doing deep diaphragmatic breaths and listening to what.

The pain was because pain is also incredibly multifaceted and where it's

coming from and how we are interpreting it, and really just honing in and

tuning in on it, and that takes time.

And rather than me being like, oh, well, you know, I entered this half marathon

and now I can't do it, or now I've wasted all this money on this half iron man that

I've been training for for six months.

I was like, what can I do today?

Okay, well I can go and have a drink with my friend, uh, like a cup of coffee with

my friend, which, you know, I wouldn't have been able to have done last week.

So I'm gonna walk there and that's gonna be my activity.

So it's, for me, it was flexibly inflexible, an

incredibly flexible program.

But there was always some time every day dedicated to whatever movement I could

do, whether it was joint rotations, whether it was stretching, whether it was

walk, whether it was some lightweights, and knowing that, hey, when I've got

this high level of inflammation, high impact activity, it's not happening.

Big strength stuff.

It's not happening.

But I can maybe do some body weight stuff.

Maybe I can.

Maybe I can.

But yeah, come see . It this time will pass.

If I listen to my body sooner, it will pass sooner.

Maybe sometimes it doesn't for those, but for me in that moment, it, it did.

And yeah.

Listen, like we said before, listen to the story your body's telling you,

especially autoimmunes like, like us.

Yeah.

Abso, absolutely.

Yeah.

Really, uh, really, uh, wise words and such a, such a key point to kind

of suggest that if, cuz if it isn't working out for you, if there are

these issues, whether it's health, uh, autoimmune, whether it's an injury,

lifestyle, start with where you are.

But start, I think that's a distinction.

Start with compassion.

But start, do something, whatever that is, but do, and I think the

distinction between not doing something and doing something,

it's often a little bit of effort.

You're like, okay, I'm gonna roll out a mat, do some, do some shoulder work, do

some mobility, maybe do a little bit of body work, but it's commit to something.

Now I'd like to bring this all to a sort of, conclusion.

So for, we've gone a lot into all the, the benefits, the impact, the

ecology of mobility, how it affects both fitness, health, and mindset

and, and, and everything we do.

What final takeaways, suggestions, or processes would you suggest that someone

who's, uh, either want us to learn more about mobility or to really get into

it, what would you suggest they do?

I would suggest what I mentioned for my desk dwellers.

Start low, go slow.

It doesn't have to be a one hour mobility practice every day.

It can literally be a five minute practice in at your desk, getting as a desk

break, maybe a warmup before a workout that you hadn't considered before.

Start just adding these little bits of mindful movements into your body

because this will then start to be the habit that will bring the change.

Like me flossing, I didn't floss at all until like three years ago, and I put in

New Year's resolution, the only New Year's resolution that I'd ever kept, and then

I went back to my dentist and my dentist was like, oh, what's happened here?

She's been flossing, and that was the only feedback I needed.

Not always floss, but it's only two minutes of a day that I floss and

that little, little healthy habit.

Has, you know, had a big impact on my oral hygiene, and it's a very convoluted

example, but it doesn't take a lot to.

To ha to make a big difference.

And that is the beauty of mobility.

You need a bit of patience.

It might not be the most sexy thing in the world.

You might not be able to see that extra seven degree of extra range

of motion in your shoulders, but I promise you that your body will, and

mobility is sometimes that thing that.

It might not be able, you might not see the benefit straight away, but

then whenever you stop it and then you remember what it feels like to be locked

up again and those shoulders, that pain between the shoulder blades, that egg

and the neck, and then you suddenly realize that this stuff is golden.

so I say give yourself the gift of mobility and, uh, give your appreciate

where you're at with your body right now.

Start slow, start low, build it up, and, uh, thank us later.

Yeah.

That's lovely.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's, it's, yeah, , put it in, uh, I have a nice, simple process, which

is start from the ground up, so when I get up in the morning, well, if

you're standing, it's the ankles.

Yeah, so move the ankles, move the toes.

Then I work to the knees, then I worked to the hips, then I worked to

the lower back and then I worked to the mid-thoracic and some twisting

up to the shoulder, up to the neck.

Uh, I've done it for years.

I sort of roll out a bed, just stand up and do it.

It's quite gently in the morning cuz I'm not that warm.

So it's, it's nice and gentle.

And when I go to the gym, so I was at the gym this morning, I'll do

that whole kind of in the warmup.

It's like, what am I doing this morning?

It was pushing work and jump work.

So it's like, well what do we need to mobilize with the stuff

in the shoulders, the back.

Just get in there and as you beautifully articulated, put it in non-negotiable.

Two minutes every session or every time you do a warmup, but

repeat day in, day out and the the benefits will always compound.

It's a little like compound interest in money.

It's exactly the same in the body.

Repeat daily.

You all feel great.

Amazing, Jim.

Well, I know, we've got so much, uh, knowledge on mobility.

You've got a huge experience and I'm so happy to have spoken to you and learn a

little bit more from your perspective at mobility and to, to speak with you today.

So thank you for joining

me.

Uh, we'll

you.

Thank you.

I put uh, gem's details in the show notes, uh, if you wanna get

in touch with Gem and obviously myself.

so dear listener.

If you are seated how you're sitting, could you roll those

shoulders back and down?

Could you loosen your neck?

Maybe you need to get up and go for a little walk and loosen up those

hips, but mobility and movement will affect your mood and your mind, so it's

nourishment for the soul, let's say.

Dear listener, I will speak to you on the next one, Gemma.

Thank you for your

Thank you.

See you guys later.

See ya.

Thank you so much for listening.

If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and if a friend

would benefit from hearing this, do send it on to them as well.

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Hit the get in touch link and there you can send me a direct message.

If you'd like to go one step further and learn whether coaching could help

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