YOU LOSE WHAT YOU DON'T USE

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Under the Hood is a weekly look at what's really driving your health, fixed 1% at a time.

Today: why the stretching you're doing isn't working, and the three things I'd have every man do instead.

Had a conversation with a client this week. He's been running a lot lately and started feeling something in his left hip.

So we ran a quick assessment. Hips, shoulders, watched him move.

His lungs were fine. He could go all day. What he couldn't do was rotate through his mid back, get much out of his left ankle, or find internal rotation in that hip.

He hadn't run seriously in a while, got back into it, and went hard fast. I see this all the time. Your lungs can handle the load before your tissue and your joints can.

That gap right there is where guys get hurt.

THE DEEP DIVE

First, flexibility and mobility are not the same thing.

One of the questions I get asked the most is how do I improve my mobility.

And usually the guy asking me has been stretching. Sometimes for years. Still tight.

Here's why.

Flexibility is passive range of motion. Something else is moving your joint. Gravity, a strap, a partner pushing on your leg.

Mobility is active range of motion. It's the range you can get to and control on your own.

I'll say it plainly. Flexibility is useless without mobility.

Most of us have more passive range than active range. That gap is your brain not giving you access to something your body already has. It doesn't trust you there yet.

Then, you lose what you don't use.

When I watch my son or daughter play, they'll hold a squat for a long time. Heels down, chest up, totally relaxed. I'm always impressed by how effortless it looks.

And nobody taught them that. We were all born moving that way.

Somewhere along the line it goes. Injuries. Years of not moving well. Moving less in general. The joints get tighter and more restricted until we can't get into those positions anymore.

Now watch a 50 year old try to get up off the floor.

We all had it. We lost it.

I tell my clients this is hygiene for your joints. You wouldn't skip brushing your teeth for a week and expect your breath to be fine. Same thing here. Stop moving a joint through its full range and it gets stiff, then it gets nagging, and eventually you pay for it.

Said it last week and I'll say it again. You always regret the position you got hurt in. If your body's never been there, it's not ready when life puts you there.

The goal is to move like a child.

Then, where your problem actually is.

One of the simplest ways I look at the body is from the ground up, joint by joint. This isn't mine. It comes from Gray Cook and Mike Boyle, two of the best in this field, and I use it with every client.

Your joints alternate. Some are built to be stable, some are built to be mobile.

Foot, stable. Ankle, mobile. Knee, mostly stable, little bit of rotation. Hip, mobile, and it should move 360 degrees. Low back, stable. Mid back, mobile, especially in rotation. Shoulder blade, stable. Neck, mobile.

When a mobile joint quits moving, the stable joint next to it starts moving to cover for it. That's usually where you feel it. The tight hip doesn't complain. The low back above it does.

For the men I train, it's the same three spots over and over. Hips. Mid back. Ankles.

Then, what actually works.

Two words I use with clients all the time.

Input. Five to ten minutes a day. Not an hour on Sunday. You're not lengthening tissue here, you're teaching your nervous system that a new range is safe. That takes reps and it takes frequency.

Workspace. You're trying to create room in a joint that doesn't have any. More workspace means more movement options, and more movement options means a body that's ready for whatever life throws at it.

And here's the part most guys miss. Strength training is mobility training. Every one of the six patterns I gave you last week takes your joints through range under load. If you're training those well, you're already doing a lot of this work.

But when a pattern shows a limitation, that's when you need dedicated work. If you can't get into a lunge position at all, that's not a strength problem. That's a workspace problem, and adding weight isn't going to fix it.

Here's the real objection.

Men don't like mobility work. I get it. It's boring and it feels like it takes forever.

I specialize in training high performing men. Husbands, dads, business owners, executives. Guys with no margin in their schedule who still want to be healthy and strong. Nobody in that group is adding another hour to their week for stretching.

So we don't ask them to.

We build it into the warm up on training days. On conditioning days it goes in before the work starts. Some guys do five minutes at night while the TV's on.

That's it. No separate mobility session, no extra hour, no new appointment on the calendar. Small amounts, often, on days you're already training.

1% better, every day, with consistency. That's the whole thing.

Three I'd give every man.

These are the common spots I see. Each one links to a video of me showing it.

90/90 hip stretch. Hips, glutes, rotation. If you sit for work, start here.

Couch stretch. Front of the hip. This one's tight on almost every man I train.

Quadruped T-spine rotation. Mid back. If your shoulders bother you when you press, look here before you blame your shoulders.

Dosage. 1 to 2 sets of 8 to 12 reps on the 90/90 and the T-spine. 60 seconds per side on the couch stretch, 1 to 2 sets.

That's five to ten minutes. That's the whole ask.

One thing before you go. A few guys out there are already hypermobile. Loose joints, plenty of range, not enough control. If that's you, more stretching is the wrong answer. You need stability and strength at end range instead.

Next week I'm covering the thing underneath all of this. Breathing. It's the foundation of everything we do, and it's a form of mobility training most men have never thought about that way.

QUICK HITS

FUEL — Nothing you eat makes a stiff joint move. But underfueling and bad sleep raise the baseline tension your nervous system is sitting in. If you're tight everywhere, look at your recovery before you buy another mobility program.

TRAINING — Your warm up isn't just about getting your heart rate up. Move locally through the joints you're about to load, then globally through the pattern you're about to train.

FAMILY — Get on the floor with your kids. Crawling, sitting cross legged, squatting down to play. That's mobility work that doesn't feel like mobility work.

MIND — Tight isn't always short. Sometimes it's your nervous system holding a brake because it doesn't feel safe in that position. Stretching harder doesn't convince it. Showing up daily does.

ON THE WALL

Back to my runner.

We gave him a few things to work on. Mid back rotation, that left ankle, hip internal rotation. Nothing complicated, nothing that took long.

Next time I saw him his internal rotation had improved and what he was feeling in that hip had come down.

Then he asked me what everybody asks. How often should I be doing this?

There's no magic number. But here's how I explained it to him.

If you're learning guitar and you play once a week, you'll get better eventually. Maybe. If you play ten minutes a day, you're going to get better fast.

Joints work the same way. More input, faster progress.

So I told him once in the morning, once at night. Five days a week is good. Seven is better.

And if you're a runner, hear this part. Don't jump back into volume your joints haven't seen in a year. Prepare them first.

If you know a guy who's been stretching for years and is still tight, forward this to him.

Your body is worth stewarding.

1% BETTER

— Coach Joshua

Educational content, not medical advice. Partner with your physician, ideally one who believes in proactive care.

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