{"id":217949,"date":"2026-01-05T14:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T14:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/217949\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T14:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T14:26:10","slug":"why-mobility-training-is-this-years-fitness-tip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/217949\/","title":{"rendered":"Why mobility training is this year\u2019s fitness tip"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a Nora Ephron-ish autumn Sunday, and everybody in New York is either running the marathon or cheering from the sidelines. I am on my knees at Movement Gowanus, a gym in an industrial stretch of Brooklyn, attempting to manoeuvre my body from something called a \u201ccrab\u201d into a \u201cjumping understitch\u201d and on to an \u201cape\u201d. I\u2019d happily describe these low-to-the-ground poses in further detail, if I had a better idea of what I\u2019m meant to be doing. The sequencing appears to elude my classmates too: everyone is\u00a0writhing around and giggling.<\/p>\n

We are united by our pursuit of \u201cmobility\u201d, the latest fitness buzz. While strength training (lifting weights), balance training (holding still in stork-like positions) and flexibility training (dynamic stretching) have their devotees, mobility training is billed as the pathway to peak performance and injury prevention, not to mention longevity. The ability to move with\u00a0ease has long been a fixation of\u00a0physical therapists and those who\u00a0seek them out. But the M-word is now cropping up\u00a0with increasing frequency at next-level gyms and on\u00a0body-optimising podcasts. According to a meta-analysis published in 2024 in The Journal of Sports Sciences, 20\u00a0of\u00a022\u00a0trials showed that mobility training was of some benefit\u00a0to participants, helping maintain or improve performance. Jennifer Aniston credits regular sessions with\u00a0a trainer\u00a0from Pvolve<\/a>, a\u00a0mobility\u2011centred mashup of Pilates\u00a0and physical therapy, for her\u00a0eternally\u00a0lithe\u00a0physique.<\/p>\n

\"Rogue<\/p>\n

Rogue Monster band (40lb resistance), \u00a317. BUY<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Archy<\/p>\n

Archy fitness mat in Bari Choco print, \u00a3145. BUY<\/a><\/p>\n

A lot of people make the mistake of mixing up mobility and flexibility<\/p>\n

Michael McGuire, trainer<\/p>\n

But what exactly is it? \u201cThere\u2019s strong and there\u2019s flexible,\u201d says Tom Morrison<\/a>, the creator of\u00a0The Simplistic Mobility Method. \u201cAnd mobility is where they meet.\u201d According to Morrison, a healthy range of motion occurs not at the muscles but the joints \u2013 the areas where our bones meet. His basic course involves executing motions that engage these areas: for example, windmilling your arms in giant circles, or lifting your leg like a dog\u00a0would over a fire hydrant in order to\u00a0rotate your hip.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people make the mistake\u00a0of mixing mobility up with flexibility,\u201d says New York trainer Michael McGuire<\/a>. \u201cFlexibility requires less muscle control. Mobility\u00a0requires strength, and it\u2019s also necessary to attain strength.\u201d McGuire suggests I start out with an Animal Flow session, a yoga-like programme that taps into our primal instincts. \u201cJust get on the ground and\u00a0listen to your body. When you\u2019re wriggling around like a tarantula or a snake, you\u2019ll see what feels tight and you\u2019ll lean into these points,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cThat might feel funny, but our bodies are designed to squat, lunge, duck under and climb over things.\u201d The class is designed to address the basics: we have to be able to move comfortably in order to move well.<\/p>\n

\"Bala<\/p>\n

Bala The Kettleball (10lb), $59. BUY<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Technogym<\/p>\n

Technogym mobility ball, \u00a315, and mobility stick, \u00a395. BUY<\/a><\/p>\n

Truth is, I don\u2019t need to cosplay a\u00a0member of the animal kingdom to\u00a0know that my mobility is far from\u00a0ideal. In addition to hips and hamstrings that have been tight for as long as I can remember, my body has been finding a host of new ways to remind me that it wasn\u2019t born yesterday. Out to dinner recently, I tried to turn my head to glance at the woman who was gossiping with abandon at the table behind me, but my neck refused to co-operate. That same week, on our walk home from school, my hypermobile daughter pointed at an older gentleman shuffling laps around a playground and exclaimed: \u201cLook, Mom, that\u2019s going to be you soon!\u201d<\/p>\n

She might be part of the problem. The fact that I\u2019ve given birth to two children could have contributed to my body\u2019s creaky state, suggests Melissa Bentivoglio, CEO and co-founder of Frame Fitness, an at-home Pilates machine (think of it as a Peloton for Pilates lovers). \u201cDuring pregnancy, the production of the hormone relaxin can make our pelvic joints relax and then resettle in new positions,\u201d she explains. \u201cA common result is a compressed lumbar spine.\u201d Frame Fitness<\/a> just added 15 mobility-themed workouts to its video collection, and the bundle is set to grow to 50 by next month. \u201cThe demand for it was overwhelming,\u201d says Bentivoglio. \u201cIntensity is out; low-impact recovery is in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TechnogymTechnogym mobility stick, \u00a395 <\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t worry: you don\u2019t need to become a gymnast or do anything fancy,\u201d says Morrison, sensing my panic. He reassures me that if I spend just five minutes a day playing around with his joint-focused video tutorials, which show me how to do everything from undulating lunges to hip hikes (kick one foot in the air behind you and tilt your hip up and down while balancing on the other leg), I\u2019ll be well on my way to joining the well-oiled ranks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I sink into a squat and feel a dash more fluid in my\u00a0joints<\/p>\n

Still, I want somebody to tell me how to make my\u00a0body move with a supple elegance. I book an\u00a0appointment with Derek Lee, a physical therapist at the New York City-based chain Spear<\/a>. Compromised mobility affects the vast majority of\u00a0his clients, and was what led many of them to the injuries that brought them to his table in the first place. \u201cIf you can\u2019t control the way you move, your muscles never fully contract and relax, and your whole world will start to shrink,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Frame<\/p>\n

Frame Fitness sunrise Pilates reformer, $4,999. BUY<\/a><\/p>\n

A shadow crosses his face as he watches me raise my arms, lie on my back and lift each of my legs as high as I can, then stand up and touch my toes. \u201cDon\u2019t get too worried, but the vertebrae aren\u2019t really articulating.\u201d His suggestion is that I devote 10 minutes per day to mobility and flexibility exercises such as scissor-kicking hamstring stretches.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Recommended<\/p>\n

\"Salt<\/a><\/p>\n

I also stop by a Sunday morning kettlebell class with Emilio Joubert-Montanero, co-owner of 720 Strength<\/a>, a\u00a0grungy gym on the Lower East Side that\u2019s a favourite with\u00a0the city\u2019s fashion editors. Joubert-Montanero incorporates mobility training into the majority of his strength-based workouts. We begin with a round of what he calls \u201cballetic\u201d Romanian dead lifts, which involves swinging a kettlebell in\u00a0an arc from my hips to my feet. The\u00a0focus is less on how\u00a0heavy the weight is than getting our bodies to move rhythmically. It\u2019s the same thing with\u00a0the prying goblet squat, a hip mobility drill that involves squatting deep and holding the weight beneath our\u00a0chins while twisting our torsos from left to right. Every\u00a0time I sink down into a squat for a new round, I\u00a0feel\u00a0a\u00a0dash\u00a0more fluid in my joints.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m on a walk a few days after our session when Joubert-Montanero texts me. \u201cChecking in on your calves,\u201d he says. They\u2019re feeling fine, I tell him. Half a block later, I\u00a0see that a shoelace has come undone. For the first time in ages, I don\u2019t groan at the sight of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[565,134,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-217949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-fitness","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}