Sunday with Herb

Mobility Morning Routine?

Hey runners, how’s it going? As I progress recovering from my heart attack 2 weeks ago, I’m re-evaluating some of my routines. Today let’s talk about our morning routines.

A morning routine is an important way to start our days, getting our mind and body awake and prepared for what’s ahead. Here’s 5 reason why you should adopt a morning mobility routine.

1. Wake Up Stiffness Is Real

As we age, joint lubrication slows down overnight. When I get out of bed, my first few steps are stiff and my back is tense. I’m sure you’ve felt the same way. A mobility routine jumpstarts circulation and reduces stiffness before your coffee or morning run.

2. Injury Prevention Starts Before the Warm-Up

Tight hips, hamstrings, and ankles increase our risk of pulls and strains. Especially if you are over 50 years old. Consistent mobility work restores range of motion and helps your body move the way it’s meant to.

3. Better Posture, Better Running Form

Poor mobility leads to slouched posture and inefficient mechanics. A quick morning routine opens up the spine, shoulders, and hips so you run tall and smooth.

4. Reinforces the Habit of Daily Movement

Mobility is a low-friction, low-stress way to win the day early. When movement becomes automatic in the morning, you set yourself up to move more during the day.

5. Fires Up the Nervous System

A consistent morning mobility routine preps your body and brain to train with more coordination and confidence—especially when you’re doing low heart rate training.

So if you agree that morning mobility is beneficial, Here are 3 general types of mobility routines that I’m familiar with:

1. Primal Pattern Flow

Using natural human movements like squats, lunges, reaches, and crawls. This is good, and can loosen you up. I even have a video on the 5 Primal movements, but to me, this is mostly body weight strength training. I like to do a more intense strength training later in the day.

2. Foam Roller + Stretch Combo

Foam rolling and stretching is a great daily routine to work out the damage from the day. I do a short foam rolling routing with my favorite hip flexor stretch, the Couch Stretch in the evening before I go to bed. Foam rolling can be painful, not good first thing in the morning!

3. Dynamic Mobility

Dynamic mobility includes controlled leg swings, thoracic rotations, cat-cow, ankle circles, and hip openers. This targets every major area we need mobile: hips, spine, shoulders, and ankles. This is what I want to focus on first thing in the morning.

I’ve tried a variety of routines in the morning, my latest being a yoga sun salutation. It’s a great way to wake up my body and work out some of the kinks, but I’m looking for something more dynamic or intense.

My goal in the morning is to focus on mobility, not strength. As we get older, remaining balanced with full range of motion is just as important as building an aerobic base and building muscle mass. Plus, I don’t want to hop out of bed and do pushups and squats!

I’ve seen some Chinese techniques on Instagram using full body movements to stir up our lymphatic system and to mobilize our muscles. Looks interesting!

Do you have a morning mobility routine you would like to share?

I would really like to learn about this more.

Drop a comment below if you are reading this on Substack, or reply to this email with your favorite morning mobility routine.

I’ll take a look and let you know what I decided to try.

Thanks!

-Herb