It’s no fun feeling tightness and tension anywhere in your body. However, muscle stiffness can occur for several reasons.
From sleeping for eight hours in an awkward position and sitting in front of a screen all day to doing an intense exercise class and feeling your muscles ache a couple of days afterwards due to delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).
But instead of just wincing through the dull and consistent ache, why not take 10 minutes out of your day to fit a full-body mobility session in, like this quick routine designed by workout instructor Liney Bezuidenhout?
“Whether you’re starting your day, cooling down after training, or taking a quick movement break, this session will leave you feeling looser, more energized, and ready for anything,” Bezuidenhout explains. So what are you waiting for? Roll out a yoga mat, take 10 minutes away from your screen, and get stuck into this speedy full-body mobility workout.
Discover how to do the 10-minute express mobility routine
This quick mobility routine is ideal for all fitness levels. Using just your bodyweight, the routine will help you find some tension relief throughout all the major muscles in your body. Split into 20 to 45-second intervals, Bezuidenhout’s mobility session includes around 11 dynamic stretching exercises.
Dynamic stretching sees you move your muscles and joints through a full range of motion, as opposed to static stretching, where you hold a specific stretch for a period of time.
The mobility moves in this workout include:
- Cat cows
- Thread the needle
- Scap activations
- Cobra to child’s pose
- Diamond elbow flutters
- Walk the dog
- Kneeling lunge + twists
- Lizard to ½ splits
- ½ kneeling circles
- Glute circles
- Side-to-side child’s pose
As you can see, the trainer also supersets many of the moves, performing two different exercises back to back. This helps make the workout more time-efficient and it can help you increase the workout intensity, too.
Is 10 minutes of stretching a day enough?
Questions like this are hard to answer because everybody is different. So whether or not 10 minutes of stretching a day is enough will all be down to the individual and how restricted their movement feels in the first place.
“For many people, 10 minutes of stretching can make a meaningful difference in flexibility and overall function,” clinical director and doctor of physical therapy Kimball Taylor at FYZICAL says. “However, those with more significant tightness or pain may benefit from 20–30 minutes daily.”
This is why Taylor says that the key to staying flexible is being consistent in your practice. “A short, enjoyable routine—whether stretching, a daily yoga practice, or morning Pilates flow—is far more effective in the long run than a longer program you struggle to maintain,” she says. “The best exercise is the one you can stick with regularly, so even 10 focused minutes each day can go a long way toward keeping your body moving and feeling its best.”
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