Exercise Update

I've integrated GMB Mobility with my Simple and Sinister sessions by replacing the prescribed warmup with a 15-minute GMB Mobility session.  I have also been practicing 30-min. GMB Mobility sessions on days that I haven't felt like doing Simple and Sinister.

GMB Mobility is organized into 42 sessions. Each session focuses on range of motion for a body area (hips, spine, shoulders, etc) or a cardinal direction (extension, rotation/sidebending, flexion, etc.). Each session has Prepare, Practice, and Play portions, all of which have exercises chosen for the topic of the day.  GMB's Ultimate Guide to Bodyweight Exercise describes their 5P Framework in detail.

The Prepare portion is what I guess you could call a warmup.  The Practice portion gets into deeper stretches under a simplified version of the Focused Flexibility protocol.  The Play portion has a selection of locomotion exercises which you may recognize from Elements - this is where you get to play with the range of motion you worked on increasing in the Practice portion.

GMB recommends that you take breaks if you get tired during any of the Play exercises, because Play is more about trying out your newly increased range of motion and observing how your quality of movement has changed. Play is not meant for conditioning - this is a major difference compared to GMB Elements.   I like bringing my iPad to my workout area and running the session on it. It did interrupt on several occasions to ask me permission to let it use some iPad space, but lately it hasn't done so. I like how each exercise has a looping video for explanation/instruction with cues beneath the video. I like how all the exercises are timed for you, yet you have control over when to start the exercise. With Integral Strength I had to manually enter times into a timer app on my phone.

One change I've noticed is when I work on the kettlebell Turkish Getup with the KB on the right side. There's just a wee bit more restriction/tightness, somewhere between my right shoulder and my left glute, on this side vs. practicing the TGU on the left side. This movement restriction seems to be going away. As for the TGU itself, I'm glad to be able to work on the full-range movement now with the 16kg kettlebell.

I've been wanting to work on something different for the upper body.  GMB recently updated their Handstand tutorial, which led to me taking another assessment of how far I can walk my feet up the wall.  My shoulder stability and strength has improved enough from TGU practice that I can walk my feet up a little further than before.   However for now I'm going to give their Crow Pose method another shot, since I feel like I'm already getting plenty of work on my straight-arm supporting strength.