Many yoga postures help improve our flexibility, which is valuable, but flexibility alone isn’t enough. True mobility relates to moving through your range of motion with control and strength. In this post, you’ll find four yoga mobility exercises designed to support your yoga practice and improve how your body actually moves.
What is mobility?
Mobility and flexibility are two different things. For example, when you hold your feet in happy baby pose, you aren’t really working on mobility, you’re more working on flexibility. Again this isn’t a bad thing, it’s just that we need to work on mobility in our movement practice as well. (Spoiler, you’ll learn how to make happy baby work for mobility later in this post!)
Mobility is about how your joints move through their range of motion meaning that it takes into account multiple components. To have “good” mobility, you need to have “good” flexibility, strength, and stability. Flexibility allows your muscles to lengthen enough so that your joint can move through its full range. Strength & stability keep the joint in a stable position while you move. When you combine these components, you get mobility.
It sounds complex but really the importance of having good mobility is so that we can actively move our bodies in a healthy way.
What mobility exercises will you learn today?
Today you’ll learn 4 yoga mobility exercises that you can add into your routine. They work through 3 major areas of your body: the hips, the shoulders, and the spine (mostly the thoracic spine region). Mobility work is important for all of our joints, but my hope is that with these exercises, you start to get a better idea of how mobility differs from flexibility.
You can find all of these exercises in a complete practice at the end of this post. If you’re doing them on your own, a 5 minute warm-up is recommended before moving into these postures. Any warm-up you like is great, sun salutations can work if they’re right for you or even just walking.
Now that you have a better understanding of mobility, let’s get into the exercises!
Disclaimer: This post is not intended as medical advice. If you have any conditions, injuries, or history of surgeries that restrict your movement, consult your doctor before performing these exercises.
4 Yoga Mobility Exercises
1. Circular Cat/Cow
This is one of my favorite yoga moves personally as it not only helps with spinal mobility, it’s also just a lovely, fluid exercise.
Instead of performing cat/cow straight through, you basically make circles with the spine. So for example you’d start in cow, shift your ribs to the left as you circle around & back to cat, then shift the ribs to the right as you come back forward through the circle, and then you end up back in cow pose. It sounds more complicated than it is, it really is more of an intuitive movement.
Recommendations: Make sure to keep a slight bend in the elbows throughout the motion and keep the breath flowing! I like to inhale as I move more through the cow part of the movement and exhale on the cat part but do what works for you. Your focus point is on moving mostly through your mid-back region. Also remember to circle in both directions!
2. Standing Knee To Chest (Active)
This exercise is one where you can really see the difference in a mobility exercise.
Oftentimes, we use the hands to hold the shin and pull the leg in deeper, which is a great posture in itself, but if you want to work on hip mobility, then we need to do this without the hands getting involved. Instead, you use your hip strength to pull the knee up and in.
Recommendations: Keep the spine straight as you do this; the torso should stay stacked over the pelvis. Also make sure to keep a slight bend in the standing knee. The breath can flow comfortably at your own pace.
3. Shoulder Circles (Full)
Ok I know this exercise is not necessarily a specific yoga move, but it is great for shoulder mobility. You start with the thumbs pointing up and lift your arms straight up overhead, at the top of the range you turn your palms so they now face behind you, and then you move through the back part of the circle until you end up back in the starting position.
I like to do this in kneeling, but you can also do this in standing if you prefer. If you choose to stand, just remember to keep a slight bend in both knees.
Recommendations: Be mindful not to shrug the shoulders while you move through your circles, make sure to keep them down away from your ears. For the breath, I like to inhale on the first half of the circle and exhale on the second half, but again, the most important thing is to keep the breath flowing, so do what works for you.
4. Active Happy Baby
So here we do have another hip mobility exercise but I wanted to include this one. Particularly since it’s a common yoga pose that we do so I feel like it fits in great with our ‘yoga mobility exercises’.
It’s just one simple change from regular happy baby pose and that is, we don’t use our hands. We actively use the strength in the hips to pull the lower body into happy baby.
Recommendations: Be mindful of your lower back/sacrum, you want to keep this area in contact with the ground. The breath can flow comfortably at your own pace.
There you have your 4 yoga mobility exercises. I hope this post has helped you learn a little bit more about the different ways you can move your body.
Again, don’t forget to check out the full 20 minute yoga class below so that you can practice all of these exercises (and more) in a flow. Hope to see you there!
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