You need to move through your joints’ full range of motion every day. Focus on gentle, pain-free movements—there’s no need to strain or push to the end range. Gentleness and consistency will gradually increase your mobility over time.

I use a variety of movements from different modalities, including Tai Chi, Yoga, dynamic warmups, Rope Flow, and more. Many of these movements involve circular or figure-eight patterns. Here’s a list of the exercises I practice:

• Tai Chi arm swings with knee bends
• Arm crosses and circles
• Single and double arm swings (forward and backward)
• Swinging arm rotations
• Hip circles
• Hip figure 8s
• Hip side bends
• Knee circles
• Ankle circles
• Forward bends
• Squats with one foot pointed left/right
• Wide stance squats
• Narrow stance squats
• Standard squats
• Cossack squats

This might seem like a lot, but it only takes a few minutes once you get into a rhythm. Focus on the gentleness of each movement, and use the practice to “grease” the joints and keep them healthy.

Each morning we begin the journey to get stronger again. This is true if you have been training for 20 years or just started yesterday. Each day we need to commit to doing the work to get stronger. Work, family, busyness, stress all call us away. Your internal voice whispers skip today. Then one skipped day becomes two. A week becomes a month. A month become two months and on it continues.

A good training plan, training partner(s) and shared accountability can keep you on track.

• Having a training plan insures you know what you need to do at the gym and allows you to get in out and efficiently.
• Training partners keep you accountable. Knowing someone is expecting you to show up makes it harder to blow off a session. It is also more enjoyable to train with someone. Find one or more partners and keep it fun.
• Good partners lift each other up. There will be good and bad training days and partners help when things get difficult. Help each other.