Joint flexibility assessment: 5 easy methods

5 simple ways to evaluate physical flexibility

　　It is undeniable that good joint range of motion and physical flexibility are the basis of exercise. If our body can exercise according to its innate ability and unrestricted, it is believed that it can create efficient performance. For athletes, these are important factors that affect speed, bounce, and sports performance.

　　The same benefits are also applicable to ordinary people. Especially modern people sit for a long time, maintain the same posture for a long time, and have many bad habits, and will inevitably lead to civilized diseases such as back pain. The good news is that when you are willing to regain the flexibility that your body should have, it is not impossible to further improve your posture and reduce damage.

　　However, how do you know if your activity is good? Usually the fastest and most suitable method is recommended to seek professionalism, such as a gym (studio) that emphasizes functional training, and a physical therapy institute with professional training background. Testing can help you find problems and facilitate training corrections.

　　Of course, this part of the payment is quite reasonable, but Sbot has also met many people who may not be sufficient in economics and cannot find relevant majors to assist in testing. In the face of this situation, if you want to do an assessment, you may refer to several "simple assessment methods" self-test provided by Breakingmuscle.com.

　Before starting the evaluation, don't forget to warm up

　　1. Please make sure that both sides of the following evaluation should be done and do not ignore either side.

　　2. If you can ask a friend to help you compare, or record and observe by yourself, it will be more objective than a person's test.

　　3. Each test action is tested at most 3 times, and each action will last for up to 30 seconds.

　　4. If you are already injured, it is not recommended to do an evaluation.

　　Shoulder

　　Shoulder

　　Shoulder

　　Shoulder

　　Hold up or standing, raise your right hand upwards, straighten your left hand down, bend your hands at the same time, close to your back, try Touch your fingers together, or grab your wrists. Stay for 10 seconds before changing sides.

　　Can you touch your fingertips, hook your fingers, or do you have a few fists in your hands? What is the feeling of the triceps, shoulders and chest muscles? The more you describe the feeling correctly, the more you can deal with it.

　　Generally, your hands cannot touch it, it may be because your triceps and lumbar muscles are too tight, or your shoulder rotating muscles are tight, resulting in insufficient mobility. If you have a massage roller or tennis at home, remember to relax more at these places, or use a towel to grab a towel and slowly let your hands get closer to each other for exercises.

　The following is a simple video of improving shoulder joint mobility

　　The Thoracic spine

Lying, open your hands, face up, and stretch your feet straight. Then bend your feet to the chest, and place your knees on the opposite ground. The body remains in the middle, stay for 10 seconds before changing sides.

　　At the same time, if the shoulders are slightly raised, it is acceptable in principle, because this assessment is to examine the movement of the thoracic spine, so whether the knees are close to the ground is the focus of observation.

　　If you are conducting this assessment, it will make it difficult for you to implement and you need to improve the thoracic spine movement! For details, please refer to the previous article: thoracic spine movement improvement teaching Learn

　　　The back muscles of the legs

　　Lying lying, one foot is wrapped with a ring-shaped elastic band, and the other foot's calf should be as close as possible to the ground. Pull the ring-shaped elastic band with both hands in the direction of the body. The bound foot will straighten and rise slowly, stay for a few seconds before putting it down.

　　If the hips and calves of the rising foot are perpendicular to the torso, and the other foot will not bend, I want to help, which means that the movement of the back muscles of the legs is not bad. On the contrary, if the movement is not smooth, you will be recommended to add some dynamic training, such as good morning exercises, bear crawling, etc., to strengthen the back chain.

　　Ankle

　　The mobility of the ankle is the basis of many heavy training movements, such as deep Squat. If your ankle joint is poor, it may affect the direction of the knee joint when squatting; in addition, the squatting movements may be limited, so you have to pay attention.

　　The evaluation method is to first squat into a lunge step, kneel on the knee on the back foot, confirm that the heel of the fore foot is close to the ground, and then slowly press the center of gravity to the toes of the fore foot, and observe the distance between the knees. If the distance is too close, it may cause insufficient ankle joint mobility.

　　　Insufficient ankle joint mobility is usually related to several reasons, such as the tight calf muscles, restraining the ankle joint mobility, too tight soles of the foot affecting the ankle movement, and the knee joint is not stable enough, resulting in the ankle movement in the wrong way for a long time.

　　It is recommended to use a massage ball to relax the soles of the feet, or use a massage roller to improve the tightness of the calf fascia. The most important thing is to establish a good exercise mode to avoid injury. For details, please refer to the previous article: What should I do if the ankle mobility is limited? How to correct it?

　　Finally, I would like to remind you that the above evaluation is simple, and you can only find "suspected" problems; if you have been relaxed thoroughly but still have no results, or are doubtful about the results of the evaluation, it is best to seek professional assistance and find the root cause of the problem to help you go long-term on the road of training.

  (Note: Follow the WeChat public platform of the fitness bar, search for subscription account "Fitness Bar Network" or "Click to scan and follow")

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