Yoga + Stretching Workouts

8 Mobility Exercises for Muscle Recovery

Increase flexibility and muscle recovery with this 5-minute mobility workout. Eight yoga poses designed to release tight hips and hamstrings while preventing low back pain! Also a great post-workout cool down routine.

Muscle recovery.

It might not sound as exciting as a HIIT workout, but I’m here to tell you mobility exercises need to be part of your fitness routine {especially if you are doing HIIT workouts}.

You guys have been asking for a post-workout, cool down routine on the blog; these eight mobility exercises are exactly that.

Stretching and lengthening muscles that get compressed during HIIT and strength training workouts. Focusing specifically on the lower body, releasing tight hips and hamstrings which tend to lead to lower back pain.

I like to look at muscle development in 3 ways:

1. Breaking down and building muscle — strength training workouts
2. Supporting muscle repair and growth with nutrition — consuming quality macro and micro nutrients — protein, fat, complex carbs, vitamins and minerals. Enter my personal favorite, Primal Kitchen’s collagen protein. Not only is collagen, the most abundant source of protein in our bodies, but post-workout coffee with Primal Kitchen’s Collagen Fuel™ is something I look forward to daily {more on why I made collagen part of my daily routine below}.
3. Daily movement + mobility to support muscle recovery and injury prevention— enter these 8 mobility exercises for muscle recovery.

Mobility Workout: 8 Mobility Exercises for Muscle Recovery

Increase flexibility and mobility while decreasing muscle soreness, and recovery time with this 5-minute mobility workout.

These eight yoga poses are designed to release tight hips and hamstrings making it a a great post-workout cool down routine, or daily stretching routine. 

Flow through each exercise as it feels good for your body, striving to hold what might feel like a slightly uncomfortable position for 30 seconds. I suggest setting a timer for accountability.

1. Child’s Pose
2. 3-Legged Down Dog + Hip Opener
3. Flip Dog
4. Low Lunge + Chest Expansion
5. Lizard
6. Half Splits
7. Pyramid Pose
8. Half Fold Wrap

See the workout video above for a demonstration of each mobility exercise.

Child’s Pose

3-Legged Down Dog + Hip Opener

Flip Dog

Low Lunge + Chest Expansion

Lizard

*Start with hands on the ground and work towards dropping to your forearms as you increase mobility and range of motion. You can always use a yoga block for assistance as well. 

Half Splits

Pyramid Pose

Forward Fold Wrap

Exercises for Muscle Recovery and Mobility

Muscle recovery is an important part of fitness that’s not talked about as often as the workouts you do during ‘on’ days. But there’s a reason you hear serious fitness enthusiasts talk about ‘rest days’ and ‘active rest days’ — your body needs time and resources to recover.

Mobility is your bodies ability to demonstrate a full range of motion through different joints. Often we strive to increase mobility to increase or range of motion; to go deeper in a squat for example. Increasing mobility is also a key component of injury prevention.

When you have limited mobility, you are less likely to use proper form throughout an exercise. Therefore, more likely to wind up with an injury.

In the case of these eight mobility exercises for tight hips and hamstrings; we’re looking to prevent low back injuries and pain.

Additionally, our unique bodies hold on to stress differently — you might feel a tightness in your neck and shoulders after a particularly hard week, or wake up with a sore jaw after a night of unconscious clenching. We also can hold stress and tension in our hips and hamstrings — this is why you may have heard a yoga instructor talk about releasing negative emotions and stress through hip-opening exercises!

I hope you find this 5-minute mobility workout a useful resource as post-workout cool down routine; increasing range of motion and muscle recovery, while preventing injury and low back pain.

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