5 Mobility Exercises to Improve Your Lifts

Whether you’re pushing for new personal records in the gym or simply trying to move through your day without aches and stiffness, mobility and recovery play a huge role in how you feel and perform. The right stretches can help keep your hips, spine, and shoulders moving well, while the right recovery support can help your body bounce back between workouts.

In this post, I’m sharing my go-to lower- and upper-body mobility exercises, along with the supplements I use to support my recovery routine.

Lower Body

90-90’s for your hips! One of my favourite mobility exercises to add into my warm-ups! Useful for all levels & athletes. You can make it a static or dynamic stretch and its an exercise you can easily modify to your level. Hip health is super important and for everyone whether your sitting for long hours, lifting heavy, or running long distances 90-90’s will help alleviate low back pain, make daily movements much easier, and increase your ROM to make movements pain free.

Deep squat hold is staple in my daily routine! Not only helpful for improving your squat form for lifting but helps with better digestion, core and pelvic floor activation, and spinal decompression. It’s a stretch I actually do more outside of the gym then inside the gym. Most commonly used for me after long walks, sitting/standing for a long time, or when I feel like body needs a slight “reset". Popping into a deep squat can help me feel more refreshed and less tight. 

Lunge complex has been my GO TO for so many years. I love this complex because it hits everything within 2-3 minutes and its all bodyweight so you can do it anytime anywhere. Its a series of lunge variations that help hit your quads, hamstrings, hip flexors, and adductors. I would recommend holding each stretch for minimum 30 seconds but if you’re someone wanting to achieve your splits increasing time to 60-90 seconds would be the best! 

Upper Body

Spinal rolls one of the best ways to start your day and for a great warm-up whether its upper body or lower body! The key to this stretch is to take your time, the slower the better! You want to slowly articulate through every vertebrae and when you reach the bottom you can hold for 5-10 seconds and allow gravity to make the stretch even deeper. 

Shoulder CARS, an upper body staple as shoulder health is important in all major upper body muscles groups. I do these before all my training sessions not only as a warm-up but also an indictor of how my shoulders are feeling that day and how intense my workouts should be. This movement is also great for anyone who has poor posture, making sure to slowly move through all positions and to give yourself some extra time in positions that feel like they need some extra TLC. 

Top 5 Products!

1. HYDRATE

Absolutely love hydrate and always have one serving a day! I use hydrate before/during an intense workout or long run! One thing I learned during bodybuilding is that consuming water is one thing but making sure your actually hydrated is different. Having the proper water intake + potassium, and sodium is huge if your wanting your body to feel good during the day!

2. PROTEIN

My holy grail! I love my daily protein scoop whether its quick and easy in a shake or protein oatmeal or when its baked into a delicious high protein recipe! Although “high protein” is a major trend right now on social media it still has its validity! I don’t have high protein everything but I do like to make sure i’m hitting around 130-140g of protein a day (i’m 110lbs) and having a scoop of TL WPI makes it so much easier and enjoyable. I also always share my protein with my family as they all struggle to hit even a low protein goal. Having something quick and easy that tastes good makes hitting protein a lot easier.

3. CREATINE

I take 2 scoops a day to help with my muscle building and recovery but one of the reasons I love creatine is I share it with my family! My parents are older so having their daily serving of creatine is important as it also helps with brain function. Creatine is one of the most studied supplements in the fitness industry and all have concluded how important creatine is in your daily routine regardless of being active/inactive or gender. To anyone afraid to take creatine because it’ll make you “bulky” or “bloated” just know that noise isn’t true.

4. VITAMIN D3 + K2

I love love love D3+K2! Living in a Canada where its winter gloom doom for majority of the year its so important for me to make sure I’m getting enough D3. TL formula having it with K2 is top tier because with our this component your body’s ability to absorb D3 isn’t the same. Its a supplement that I take every morning, I joke and say I eat it like a pack of skittles because I enjoy it so much.

5. ZMO

Last but not least ZMO! Sleep is very important not only for fitness goals but overall for your body to function. One of the main reasons I love ZMO is because you can actually feel the difference in recovery when you first start taking it. Unlike other supplements where either can take 3-6 months to feel the effects, ZMO you can feel the impact almost instantly after a nights sleep. If your working hard inside or outside of the gym this is your reminder to take your recovery seriously!