  IT'S OUR 7TH BIRTHDAY AND WOW! DO WE HAVE A FUN MONTH PLANNED JUST FOR YOU! Birthday Bingo starts today! Pick up your Bingo card at the front desk and get after it! Sign up on your app by clicking on the trophy icon and get your classes booked! You'll need to take 16 classes in 31 days, along with a blackout on your Bingo card to put yourself in the drawing. Hang onto your Bingo card until you fill in all the squares and then turn it back in at the front desk to be added into the drawing. Fill in as many squares per day as you can! Our first-place winner will take home a fabulous gift basket filled with all of our favorite things! Your CoreStrong instructors, front desk crew, and I have collaborated to make this prize one of our best yet! Our 2nd-place winner gets 10 classes added to their account, and our 3rd-place winner gets 5 classes added to their account. We hope you have a fun time participating in Birthday Bingo!
   A monthly feature in our newsletter, thanks to Briana Crotinger LMT! Briana has joined our team at CoreStrong and we are so lucky! Briana has a wealth of knowledge and loves to research and share her findings! With over a decade of bodywork, kinesiology, and pain management experience, she weaves her knowledge into her barefoot myofascial massage practice at Mend Bodywork. FLEXIBILITY vs MOBILITY (what's the dif?) In the near-decade I’ve been working with people’s bodies, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a client proudly display how flexible their hips are, and then fail to perform a proper squat. It’s usually a source of frustration for them, because they’ve been led to believe they are super mobile and therefore should be able to properly execute a movement. If you’ve ever done a brief search on strength and stretching, you’ve no doubt come across the terms “flexibility” and “mobility.” More than likely, these two terms were used interchangeably, as they often are in most fitness articles. However, they couldn’t be more different, and understanding the difference is of great importance for your training. Flexibility has two common definitions. It is either “the ability of the muscle to lengthen” or “the ability of a joint to move through full range of motion without pain.” While both of these definitions are correct, they leave out a critical component. Flexibility is a passive movement. Having your foot in the mega cable strap to pull your hamstring towards your nose is an example of flexibility in action. You aren’t actively lengthening your hamstring to move your hip joint, the cable strap is doing that for you. Mobility on the other hand is active movement through a joint’s range of motion. Mobility requires stamina, balance, strength, coordination and, yes, flexibility. In simpler terms, mobility asks, how efficiently can you move and control that movement? In many cases, mobility is also referring to how multiple joints move together. In a squat, any mobility dysfunction in the ankle, knee or hip will ultimately impact the entire movement. Let's revisit that leg in a cable strap. Time to do some slow leg circles! Now you are controlling the movement of the hip joint. You need stamina, balance, strength, coordination and flexibility to move your leg in slow, fluid, circular movements at the hip joint. For most, mobility is a process, so perhaps your mobility in a hip circle is limited. Maybe the coordination isn’t there, or you struggle to balance inner thigh strength with outer thigh strength. Worry not, mobility can take time, but consistent practice in achieving full, controlled range of motion in all of our joints helps protect from injury. Think of Mobility as the main course and flexibility as an ingredient. You can be as flexible as a cooked noodle but have terrible mobility if you cannot control active movement. You can be as strong as an ox but have terrible mobility if you lack flexibility. Remember, mobility requires stamina, balance, strength, coordination and flexibility equally. Mobility is also a key longevity predictor. The Timed Up and Go Test (TUG) requires a patient to stand from a chair, walk ten feet, turn around, walk back to the chair and sit. While we may not think of this as an exercise in mobility, the act of sitting, standing, and walking requires a great deal of stamina, balance, coordination, flexibility, strength and cooperation of many joints. When tested among the elderly, a failed TUG test is a strong all cause mortality predictor. This stands to reason as all of the factors that are required for good mobility rely on a strong, healthy body. For those of us who scoff at the simplicity of such a test, going from a seated cross-legged position to standing without the use of hand support is another good indicator of mobility. So where does the confusion between mobility and flexibility come from? I find the confusion stems from stretching. The National Academy of Sports Medicine defines stretching as a passive process to elongate muscles and connective tissue in order to increase a present state of flexibility. If we take that definition, the movement hierarchy is as follows- Stretching increases flexibility (the ability of a muscle to lengthen) which contributes to a joint’s mobility (the ability to actively move through a joint’s range of motion pain free). If you are looking to increase flexibility find a passive stretch and hold it for 15-30 seconds, or over 60 seconds if you are older than 65. However, a quick search on stretching also brings up other forms- active and dynamic stretching. These are also commonly labelled as “mobility exercises” which, technically they are as they are not passive movements. These two methods of stretching require active participation in joint movements. In an active hip flexor stretch, you would be actively squeezing your glute to force the hip flexor to release. In a dynamic stretch, you mimic movements you are about to perform in a sport, like a leg swing. In the end, why does the difference matter? Because understanding what mobility is and isn’t can help you figure out where your weak spots are. For example, I have limited range of motion in my big toe joint due to an injury. No amount of passive flexibility stretching has helped. This tells me that I’m lacking a strength component, and more than likely a stamina component of the muscles that control the extension of the big toe. Knowing this, I can better target my weak spots. In Lagree, time under tension, full range of motion strength training is the perfect mobility workout. Remember, if you can’t reach full range of motion, start small and work up to it. Your body will thank you! See you in class! VERSA APP CONNECTION INSTRUCTIONS
  TRAINING STARTS IN JANUARY! Are you ready? Please email Cathy at [email protected] to learn more.
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