I highly recommend the book Becoming a Supple Leopard by Dr Kelly Starrett - the founder of MobilityWOD.
Despite the silly name, the book is great. It goes over movement systems in the body then some stuff about proper alignment. After that, it goes through the mechanics of all the main lifts and the muscles/joints that are involved. Finally, it breaks the body down into 12 sections and offers probably a dozen mobility exercises for each of these bodily sections.
Equipment required for the exercises:
Yoga mat
Foam roller
Lacrosse ball
Rubber fitness band
Voodoo band (cheap)
Those are the main pieces of equipment.
The exercises are broken down into a few different categories:
1. Pressure wave - use a foam roller or lacrosse ball to deeply massage into tissue and create pressure waves that break down impingements.
2. PNF - use a rubber band to pull the joint to the end of its range of motion then you contract and relax deeper into the stretch, repeat
3. Floss - I don't know why he calls it flossing a joint but you use the "voodoo band" to apply pressure to the joint then get into that position. Something about the pressure on the joint helps it out a lot. This one seems weird but he stresses its importance over and over and it really does work well.
4. There are a few others but I can't think of them right now.
If you go this route, be prepared to devote a minimum of 15 minutes, 3x a week to flexibility. Any less than that, you won't get any effect. Personally, I'm working my way up to 15 minutes per day when I first wake up. I'm still guilty of sleeping in and skipping it though.
Despite the silly name, the book is great. It goes over movement systems in the body then some stuff about proper alignment. After that, it goes through the mechanics of all the main lifts and the muscles/joints that are involved. Finally, it breaks the body down into 12 sections and offers probably a dozen mobility exercises for each of these bodily sections.
Equipment required for the exercises:
Yoga mat
Foam roller
Lacrosse ball
Rubber fitness band
Voodoo band (cheap)
Those are the main pieces of equipment.
The exercises are broken down into a few different categories:
1. Pressure wave - use a foam roller or lacrosse ball to deeply massage into tissue and create pressure waves that break down impingements.
2. PNF - use a rubber band to pull the joint to the end of its range of motion then you contract and relax deeper into the stretch, repeat
3. Floss - I don't know why he calls it flossing a joint but you use the "voodoo band" to apply pressure to the joint then get into that position. Something about the pressure on the joint helps it out a lot. This one seems weird but he stresses its importance over and over and it really does work well.
4. There are a few others but I can't think of them right now.
If you go this route, be prepared to devote a minimum of 15 minutes, 3x a week to flexibility. Any less than that, you won't get any effect. Personally, I'm working my way up to 15 minutes per day when I first wake up. I'm still guilty of sleeping in and skipping it though.
