Understanding Flexibility and Mobility, and How To Train Them

We have discussed a lot about resistance training and cardiovascular training in the exercise article series, and you may be wondering about flexibility and mobility training. How do we integrate that into our programming? Should we be doing it every session and does everyone need to do it? And I am sure you have a whole host of other questions too.

Well, the goal of this article is to answer your questions and show you how to program flexibility and mobility work. But to do this, we need to challenge a few assumptions you may have about flexibility and mobility work! Flexibility and mobility aren’t hard to understand, and they don’t need to be overly complex topics. Of course, you can really get into the minutia of this stuff, but that is only required if you have very specific flexibility and mobility goals that can’t be accomplished with just some baseline flexibility and mobility practices.

If you haven’t already, it would be incredibly helpful to also read our articles on why exercise is important, the goals of exercise, the types of exercise we have available to us, and to have a rough idea of the general exercise guidelines.

You can also visit our exercise hub for more content on exercise, and you can find the resistance training article there too.

Before we get stuck in, I would just like to remind you that we offer comprehensive online coaching. So if you need help with your own exercise program or nutrition, don’t hesitate to reach out. If you are a coach (or aspiring coach) and want to learn how to coach nutrition, then consider signing up to our Nutrition Coach Certification course. We do also have an exercise program design course in the works, if you are a coach who wants to learn more about effective program design and how to coach it. We do have other courses available too.

With all that out of the way, let’s get stuck into understanding flexibility and mobility!

Understanding Flexibility and Mobility

We have to actually understand and be specific with our definitions when we talk about flexibility and mobility. Most people just treat them as if they are the same thing, but there are some key differences.

What is flexibility?

Flexibility generally refers to the ability of a joint or muscle (and to an extent, the surrounding tissues, such as ligaments and tendons) to go through the full range available to it. Someone who is inflexible will generally not be able to go through ranges of motion that would normally be available to that muscle.

For example, someone with inflexible (often called “tight”) forearm muscles may not be able to put their hands flat on the ground and support their body (as you would in something like a pushup position). They will complain of feeling a “tightness” or “stretching” sensation, or indeed a painful sensation, in the forearms and/or palms of the hands.

We can generally think of flexibility as the ability to fully lengthen a muscle. While there is actually more to this, especially as it relates to joint structures and connective tissue, thinking of flexibility as the ability to lengthen a muscle is actually quite a helpful way to think about this, especially when it comes to implementation. Effectively, flexibility is the ability to get into certain ranges of motion.

What is mobility?

While most people assume that flexibility and mobility are the same things, they are actually quite different. Mobility is the ability to exhibit strength and control in the ranges available to the individual. Mobility often encompasses more musculature and surrounding structures than is covered by flexibility. 

Using the same example of the wrist in the pushup position, someone may be flexible enough to have their wrist at a roughly 90-degree angle at the top of a pushup, but do they have the mobility to actively bring their hand into that position and hold it?

Try it yourself, see if you put your arm out straight in front of you and then try to bring your hand back to a roughly 90-degree angle. Most people simply won’t have the ability to actively do this, and this represents the difference between the range of motion that you are flexible enough to get into, and the range of motion that you have active control over.

These two things don’t need to be the same, and in reality, most people are going to have some “extra” range of motion available to them passively, and they won’t ever be able to actively control this range (or it would take years of very specific training to control it, which may be required for some sports or activities like martial arts, gymnastics or dancing).

You will also notice from doing the little wrist experiment, that it requires some of the muscles to lengthen, while others have to contract, all while you hold other joints stable (i.e. you are not just stealing ranges of motion from elsewhere). This “stealing of range from elsewhere” is very commonly seen when someone tries to show the flexibility and mobility of their hamstrings, but they compensate for unavailable hamstring range by flexing at the spine.

So, we can think of flexibility as a more “passive” quality and mobility as a more “active” quality. Effectively, flexibility is the ability to get into certain ranges of motion, and mobility is the ability to be in control in those ranges of motion. This isn’t perfectly correct, but again, it helps us to navigate the programming of flexibility and mobility.

Range of Motion

Before we really get stuck into what we should be thinking about when programming flexibility and mobility, we need to discuss the concept of range of motion (ROM). You see, the term range of motion gets incredibly bastardised in the health and fitness world. 

We just went through the difference between flexibility and mobility, and if you follow any discussion of ROM online, it will become increasingly obvious that most people have no idea about the difference between the two. People will confuse the fact that you can be brought into a range of motion that you do not have active control over (i.e. a passive range of motion) by the fact that a weight is pushing you into it, with the concept of working a muscle through its full range of motion. Just because you can get into a range of motion doesn’t mean that that muscle can contract in that range of motion. 

This is a good illustration of the difference between active range of motion and passive range of motion:

Further to this, we may actually be in a range of motion that is at the very limit of our ability to contract, and as such, there is a very large difference between our ability to produce force in that position compared to our ability to produce force through the rest of the range of motion for that exercise.

For example, we may be at the very limit of our range of motion at the chest at the bottom of a bench press, but once we are outside of that very weak position, we may have a far greater ability to produce force. So do we use a lower weight that we are able to handle in the bottom position (thus leaving us understimulated through the rest of the range of motion) or do we choose a weight that is more stimulating for the vast majority of the range of motion, but requires us to use a lot of momentum (i.e. a bounce off the chest) to get us through the weaker bottom position or do we only perform the range of motion that we have active control over?

We must also question why the discussion of “full range of motion” only seems to apply to certain movements, but not others. For example, you will see advocates for full range of motion on the bench press and squats (usually they are incredibly well built for these exercises), then perform other exercises with reduced range of motion. They may be rock bottom in their squats, but then you see them performing something like a dip, and they are not holding themselves to the same standard (i.e. if the hamstrings should cover the calves at the bottom of a squat, why should the biceps not cover the forearms at the bottom of a dip?). Or why aren’t they performing sternum chin-ups rather than standard chin-ups, as sternum chin-ups are much closer to “full ROM” of the lats?

Mostly, these discussions are not actual discussions of full ROM, rather they are just statements made by people that want everyone to perform exercises in a manner they have decided is correct. They don’t even hold themselves to a consistent standard across all their exercises, usually just focusing on the exercises they are well built to do.

You will also often see discussions about certain exercises being full ROM, despite not taking any joint or muscle through its full ROM. For example, the deadlift (especially not the sumo deadlift) doesn’t take most people through their full ROM at any muscle or joint (although some tall individuals may reach the end of their hip range of motion in a conventional deadlift), but we consider deadlifts from the floor to be full ROM. Why is it that everyone is at full ROM on the deadlift, only when they lift from a height dictated by the radius of a plate that was arbitrarily standardised?

We might also be at full ROM for one joint or muscle in a movement, but have much more range of motion in other areas (notably in the areas we are trying to target). For example, you may be at full ROM at the hip or ankle in a squat, but nowhere near your full ROM at the knee. Is it considered a full ROM squat then? Or is it only when we are at full ROM at the knee that it is considered full ROM?

We may also actually have much more ROM available to us, but are limited in using it because of the arbitrary “standard” exercises. For example, you may have a big barrel chest and when you touch the bar to your chest, you are only 2/3rds of the way through the full range available to you. You often see people built like this excel in powerlifting, because while everyone else has to get into a stretched pec position in the bottom, these individuals are still in a range of motion where they have a really good capacity to contract the chest. So do we consider these individuals to be cheating the lift and not performing full ROM, despite the fact the bar touched their chest? To get full ROM for these individuals, they would need to use certain machines, dumbbells, cables and/or speciality bars. 

This isn’t just a niche case, as it is also the case for individuals who have built a lot of muscle. Very often you will see enhanced competitive bodybuilders with enormous hamstrings and calves. When they try to perform a squat movement, they are limited in their range of motion by virtue of having a huge hamstring muscle now mashing against their calf, despite this not being a “true” reflection of the range of motion available to them. When they weren’t as big, they were able to go through a greater range of motion, but now they are limited by the size of their muscles. 

This can also be the case for individuals who have more body fat, as the fat basically acts as a cushion that prevents a joint from effectively closing. You will very often see bodybuilders and powerlifters complain about this once they have been dieting for a while. The fat padding they once had at the backs of the kneecaps or at the waist is now reduced, which now requires them to do a greater range of motion (or at least have less support in those ranges of motion). Similarly, stuff like bench pressing to the chest also becomes a larger range of motion, as they no longer have that inch or two of body fat on their chest.

I hope you can see that very often, discussions of “full ROM” are usually not grounded in anything other than an individual’s perception of what full ROM should be, and usually, it is entirely based on what they experience as a full range of motion, and simply doesn’t take into account the mechanics of other humans.

Finally, doing a “full ROM” on certain exercises can actually detract from the effectiveness of an exercise. Doing a “full ROM” on a hip thrust may just reduce the amount of load you can place on the glutes, and increase the amount of work the quads do. So, we have to be very clear with what we mean by ROM and full ROM specifically and to do this, it does really help to understand the difference between flexibility and mobility.

In this video, you can see how a lot of these issues around mobility, flexibility, anatomy and biomechanics come together when actually performing an exercise:

So, a more appropriate way to think about ROM is to think of mobility and the range of motion that you are able to be in control of and remain stable in (let’s call this Active ROM, or AROM) as being the same thing. Beyond that, we may still have the range available to us, but this is us being forced into that range, and it is under passive control (or it exceeds our capacity, in which case injury likely occurs). For certain goals, we may want to develop the passive ranges, and for other goals, we may want to stay within the AROM, and for other goals, we may want to try and work on increasing the amount of AROM we have available to us.

Now, the reason we are discussing this is because resistance training is actually a form of flexibility and mobility work. In fact, it is generally the first port of call when it comes to improving flexibility/mobility. Resistance training has the potential to significantly improve both your flexibility and mobility. It may not get you to being able to do the splits, but it can significantly improve your overall flexibility and mobility. However, some people will need some more targeted flexibility/mobility training.

Do we all need to do flexibility and mobility work?

We need to be clear on why we are engaging in flexibility and mobility work, and we must then be very clear on whether we are working on flexibility (which is more passive) or mobility (which is more active). While a shotgun approach can work, we need to be able to think in specifics too, as that will help in the cases where the shotgun approach doesn’t work. So why would we program flexibility/mobility work?

Why would we do flexibility and mobility work?

The main reason you will see flexibility and mobility work programmed is to deal with perceived tightness or a feeling of a lack of range in a certain movement or movements. This may be the result of years of not using that range, such as may occur in someone who sits at a desk all day. They may feel their hamstrings are incredibly tight, and thus may want to work on improving that tightness. We would have to assess whether there is a lack of strength in these ranges, or if they can be passively brought into those ranges (i.e. is it a flexibility or mobility issue)?

However, this could also be the result of just having weak quads and hip flexors (or even the musculature that should be keeping the hip stable) so it isn’t as simple as just doing some stretches or strengthening for the hamstrings, we have to also look at the muscles around, and antagonistic to the area of tightness.

Further to this, some people may feel a lack of flexibility, but it may not actually be at the muscle. There may be structural reasons they simply can’t get into those ranges. For example, someone may feel tightness or something like pinching at the hip when they squat. They may think they need to do more mobility work and stretching to “open up” those tight areas, however, what they are really feeling is simply the end of the range they have available to them at the hip joint. We may be able to modify the positioning, such as taking a slightly wider stance and angling the legs out rather than straight forward, but for some people, they will simply be at their end range of motion available at the joint in a position and they think it is just tightness that they need to work through. 

Alternatively, and this is rarely discussed, but some people may simply be limited in their range of motion because they have fat obstructing access to that range. This may actually be beneficial for some goals, such as a powerlifter having a bigger belly. In this context, the big belly serves to provide cushioning and support in the bottom position of a squat or dedlift, so the individual doesn’t have to do as much work preventing the weight from closing that angle any more. However, outside of the niche contexts like powerlifting, to increase flexibility, some people may just need to lose some body fat. 

For other people, there may be bony growths or other structural reasons that they feel tight in a position, and stretching or strengthening aren’t going to fix that. Some people may have discrepancies between limbs, and this can often be perceived as one side being tight, when in reality, it is just a structural thing that they may have developed over their lifetime. We often forget that our bones do actually respond to the stresses we put on them, so depending on someone’s activity history and injury history, they may simply have developed adaptations to that thing that now leave them unable to access certain ranges.

For example, Olympic weightlifters who have been training since childhood often have bow-shaped legs, and throwers (such as baseball pitchers) often have incredible ranges of motion at the shoulder due to structural changes from years of throwing, but there is often a discrepancy between both shoulders.

So it isn’t always as simple as fixing some perceived tightness with some stretching or strengthening. Some people just aren’t well built for certain movements, and no amount of flexibility or mobility will help them to get into those ranges.

This is a good illustration of the kinds of things we would be looking at when assessing someone’s available ranges of motion:

While addressing perceived tightness is usually the main reason people program flexibility and mobility work, the next most frequent reason is to address an actual limitation in range of motion. For example, you may have someone who is genuinely limited in their range of motion by virtue of their muscles not being able to get into those positions. This is usually an actual mobility issue, as they are able to passively be brought into those positions.

However, it may sometimes be the case that someone wants to increase their flexibility, even if they aren’t actively able to control that range. This is usually in the sporting context, such as grappling-focused martial artists wanting to increase their flexibility so they can be brought into ranges of motion without necessarily needing to control that range of motion.

Then there are the individuals who want to increase their flexibility and mobility in certain positions. This is usually in a sporting context too, for example, a kicking-focused martial artist may want to kick higher and be in control of those ranges, even though they currently can’t even passively get into those ranges.

Depending on the exact goal, and assuming there are no structural reasons the individual can’t get into these positions, we will usually do a combination of both flexibility and mobility work for these individuals.

Some people program flexibility and mobility work in an effort to prevent injury. This can be effective, especially in cases like the grappling martial artist who is going to be put into these ranges during their sport. However, in general, a more effective way to prevent injury is to get very strong in the ranges available and ensure joint integrity by virtue of increasing strength in the surrounding musculature. So in general, for injury prevention, we are likely to focus more on the mobility and strengthening side of things, with most of our focus on simply doing resistance training. However, it may also make sense to increase the passive ranges of motion, so we have some wiggle room available. 

But this is a tight balancing act, as we don’t want to arbitrarily increase ranges, especially if the individual simply doesn’t have control over them. Some “tightness” may actually be beneficial for preventing them from falling into these ranges. We also must consider our return on investment with the various activities we spend our training time on, as most people, athletes especially, don’t have an unlimited amount of time to spend on training.

Finally, some people use stretching/mobility work as a means to relax and recover. Encouraging some blood flow to the muscles and engaging in some deep breathing as you may do in certain flexibility protocols (such as Western-style Yoga) can be quite relaxing and may help with recovery. Some people like to program some stretching before bed to help them relax and wind down before they go to sleep. In general, flexibility work is considered to be a more PSNS (the rest and digest side of the nervous system) dominant activity (you can read more about the nervous system in our foundational stress management article).

Why would we NOT do flexibility and mobility work?

While they are the reasons we might consider doing some flexibility/mobility work, there are also reasons to not do flexibility/mobility work. These are often not discussed, and this leads to some pretty awful flexibility/mobility protocols being employed, or good protocols being programmed inappropriately.

Doing flexibility work may lead to transiently reduced performance. This is the case for both your average everyday gym goer and athletes. This is especially the case with passive stretching before working out. This makes sense, as you may be increasing your range of motion but you may not actually be strong in those ranges. You are also sending mixed signals to your nervous system. Stretching is somewhat of PSNS dominant activity, which may not be what we want to do before trying to exhibit our strength (but it may be what we want to do at other times, such as when we are trying to relax).

I often think of this like an elastic band. If you want that elastic band to perform at its best, quickly shortening from a stretched position (much like contracting your muscles), then you wouldn’t spend a couple of minutes stretching it to its absolute limit before you want it to perform. 

Now, this doesn’t mean that we would never perform any passive stretching before we intend to perform, but it does mean we should be a little bit more cautious about doing passive stretching before we intend to perform (especially long stretches immediately before high force/power/strength activities). It should also be noted that we do want some blood in the muscles and to have them somewhat warmed up, before we do passive stretching. Trying to perform passive stretching while “cold” may increase the risk of injury.

Further to this, we may not actually want to engage in flexibility or even mobility work for certain populations or with individuals with certain goals. For someone like a powerlifter, they may actually want to be a little bit tighter in some positions, as it gives them a bit more “pop” out of those positions.

For example, someone who has “tight pecs” may feel they have a better “pop” out of the bottom position of the bench press as a result. This is basically the same concept behind bench shirts. So while that powerlifter might feel tightness in the pecs and want to work on it, that may not actually be beneficial for their bench press performance. Now, it may be beneficial for their overall shoulder health and longevity, but it may not lead to direct performance increases, and in some cases, it may lead to reductions in performance.

There are also other cases where we may not want to do excessive flexibility work. For individuals with “hypermobility”, doing more flexibility work may just lead to laxity of the joints and lead to injury. For these individuals, we would want to work on strengthening the ranges we do have available, not trying to increase those ranges. Hypermobility is generally more prevalent in women, due to hormonal differences, however, you will see many men with some degree of hypermobility, at least in some joints. One population you will also see a lot of hypermobility in, is pregnant women, especially as the pregnancy progresses. This increase in flexibility is due to a hormone called relaxin, which serves many roles, one of which is to increase the flexibility of the pelvic ligaments to allow for an easier pregnancy and delivery. So for pregnant women, doing a lot of stretching is generally not advised, however, working on strengthening the ranges they do have available to them is generally a good idea.

Training Flexibility and Mobility

So, we have covered a lot so far, and it is time to cover the actual “how-to” of training flexibility and/or mobility. As you have seen, there are a lot of caveats and the specifics of the plan do actually change depending on who we are programming for and what the goal is. So it will be next to impossible to give you a one-size-fits-all approach to this. Instead of giving you a generic protocol, I am going to try to give you a framework for working through this stuff so you can modify it based on what you need.

The basic premise of flexibility work is to increase the ranges we have available, and the basic premise of mobility work is to increase our strength and control in those ranges. As an overarching principle, the flow chart of progression here generally goes:

Increase ranges >>> Increase strength in those ranges >>> Integrate that into more complex movements.

*When I say integrate into more complex movements, I just mean more multi-joint movements. We don’t want to spend weeks working on improving hamstring or hip flexibility and mobility and then not see that translate into better squat depth/mobility. So we have to not only work on this stuff in isolation, we actually have to assess how that affects the more complex movements.

To do this, the very first thing we do is… resistance training. Moving the body through the various ranges of motion it has available, and building strength in those ranges generally increases both flexibility and mobility. We have (extensively) discussed resistance training previously (you can find the articles on the exercise hub), so I am not going to discuss it further here. But I am also going to assume that some sort of resistance training is forming the foundations of the plan. We can do all kinds of complex flexibility and mobility work, but you can get a huge effect by just doing resistance training and moving through the available ranges. 

In most cases, just doing a well-balanced resistance training program will be enough to reach the flexibility targets of most individuals. Strengthening the muscle of interest (the agonist) will usually increase flexibility and mobility in that muscle. This could be considered “active stretching”. You could also spend a bit more time strengthening the lengthened range of the muscle (i.e. the stretched position), but in most cases, you won’t need to do much beyond just getting into that lengthened range position and generally getting stronger. Strengthening the opposing muscle (the antagonist) is also going to help flexibility and mobility, as will strengthening the other muscles around the joints in question. There are multiple ways to strengthen muscles in various ranges, but generally speaking, resistance training offers you a huge bang for your buck here. However, there are certain populations or individuals who will need more than this.

Dynamic Flexibility

Assuming you fall into the category of being an individual who needs more work on their flexibility, the next step is to introduce some dynamic flexibility work into the program. This is probably best done as part of a warm-up, and effectively involves moving through the ranges of motion available to you in a dynamic manner. Dynamic flexibility exercises often mimic the movements available to those joints or muscles, and typically involves controlled, rhythmic movements that gradually increase the range of motion around a joint.

For example, leg swings, arm circles, lunges with a twist, and walking knee hugs can all be used as dynamic flexibility work. You can actually get into the passive ranges of motion available with this, as you can use a bit of momentum to continue moving the limb past the point the individual could actively control. You don’t need to be excessively forceful with this, but momentum to push the body into passive ranges isn’t a huge issue. 

You could also consider body weight movements where you actively move through the ranges of motion available to be a form of dynamic flexibility work. For example, doing some bodyweight squats where you move your body through the ranges available to it, and maybe spend a bit more time moving around in certain positions that feel tight, could be considered dynamic flexibility work.

If you are doing dynamic flexibility before a resistance training workout, then you could also just go through the first 1-2 movements you are doing for that session in an unloaded manner. For example, if you are doing the bench press, you could just do some reps of just going through the bench press movement with your arms.

Dynamic flexibility can also serve to help drive some blood to the muscles, and as such, it can be a really effective part of a warm up. It also doesn’t tend to have the drawback of reducing performance like static stretching does. 

Passive Stretching

Assuming even more flexibility work is needed, then we can introduce some passive stretching. This is what you most frequently think of when discussing flexibility training. The premise is very straightforward, you basically put the body in a position where you can stretch the target muscle of interest into its lengthened range and then you hold that position for 30-120s (or longer).

The key here is that you don’t want to force the position, you want to relax into the position. Yes, you do want to have some sort of force putting you into the stretched position, but you don’t want to put so much force onto the muscle that it tears. This (along with the reduced performance potential from pre-workout stretching) is why we tend to not put stretching at the start of workouts, instead preferring to at least have increased blood flow going to the muscle first (i.e. have the muscle warmed up). 

Generally, we would put this kind of stretching in during or after the training session. After the training session can be quite nice as a cool down, serving to bring the nervous system out of that SNS dominant state that training generally requires, and shifting it to a PSNS state. You basically just want to find a position that puts the muscle of interest under a stretch, and then hold that close to the end range for 30-120s, and focus on deep slow breaths in an effort to relax into the stretch.

For example, you might want to stretch the quads, so you do a “couch stretch” and hold that for 60 seconds per side, and try to focus on deep slow breaths, allowing the body to relax deeper into the movement (not forcing yourself into it).

Loaded Stretching

There are other forms of passive stretching that can be used, such as loaded stretching. This is very similar to the above, except you are using some external load to push/pull you into the stretched position. This has the benefit of being more easily modifiable and progressed, as you can just add some more weight to try and progress the stretch. You will often hear “loaded progressive stretching” as a term used in flexibility circles, and this is all that it is. You use an external load to help you get a muscle stretched, and then try to progress the range (or indeed the weight used, either by using less weight pulling you into the range, or being able to handle more weight in that range).

This kind of stretching does have some extra benefits, as you generally have to stabilise the load too, so there is some strengthening that occurs too. The issue with this type of stretching is that a lot of people, much like with resistance training, try to progress the weight used far too quickly. This just increases the likelihood of injury, as you are in a stretched position under load with this type of stretching.

Now, that will cover the vast, vast majority of the flexibility concerns people have, but there are some people that will have more extreme flexibility and mobility goals (i.e. martial artists). For these individuals, you will need to develop a much more precise plan of action. You will need to program a lot more time towards flexibility and mobility. There are a variety of advanced practices for these individuals, but they all pretty much involve the same basic premise discussed above.

Expand the range with some passive stretching and then strengthen and learn to better control that range.

The strengthening can look very different, but in general, the basic goal is to just spend more time in those new ranges and effectively “teach” the nervous system that it is safe to be in those ranges and that it can control those ranges. However, realise that it can take an incredibly long time to increase range of motion and even longer to fully control that range of motion. If it was easy, then we would see a lot more people being able to get into the splits with ease.

Having said that, you can actually get very far with what has been described above. I have helped many individuals drastically improve their flexibility and mobility to a pretty high level with the above. Below are some photos of me doing some flexibility and mobility training, just to show you that you can get quite far with very limited work on flexibility and mobility, as I really only did some consistent resistance training along with 5-10 minutes of dedicated flexibility and mobility work after the resistance training to get these results. Of course, depending on your genetics, goals, and previous training history, you may need less/more or you may indeed not even be able to get these kinds of results.

What Would A Flexibility and Mobility Program Look Like?

Here is a very rough outline of what a basic flexibility and mobility plan would look like in practice:

Flexibility/mobility work is a part of the health and fitness world, and for some goals, you are going to need to spend a lot more time working on it. However, the vast majority of people will get all of the flexibility and mobility work they need by just performing resistance training through the ranges of motion they have available, with perhaps a little more emphasis on spending time in those end ranges.

As with everything, there is always more to learn, and we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface with all this stuff. However, if you are interested in staying up to date with all our content, we recommend subscribing to our newsletter and bookmarking our free content page. We do have a lot of content on how to design your own exercise program on our exercise hub.

If you would like more help with your training (or nutrition), we do also have online coaching spaces available.

We also recommend reading our foundational nutrition article, along with our foundational articles on sleep and stress management, if you really want to learn more about how to optimise your lifestyle. If you want even more free information on exercise, you can follow us on Instagram, YouTube or listen to the podcast, where we discuss all the little intricacies of exercise.

Finally, if you want to learn how to coach nutrition, then consider our Nutrition Coach Certification course. We do also have an exercise program design course in the works, if you are a coach who wants to learn more about effective program design and how to coach it. We do have other courses available too. If you don’t understand something, or you just need clarification, you can always reach out to us on Instagram or via email.

The previous article in this series is a Review of Cardiovascular Training Guidelines and the next article in this series is Understanding Plyometrics, if you are interested in continuing to learn about exercise program design. You can also go to our exercise hub to find more exercise content.

Paddy Farrell

www.triagemethod.com

Hey, I'm Paddy!

I am a coach who loves to help people master their health and fitness. I am a personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach, and I have a degree in Biochemistry and Biomolecular Science. I have been coaching people for over 10 years now.

When I grew up, you couldn't find great health and fitness information, and you still can't really. So my content aims to solve that!

I enjoy training in the gym, doing martial arts and hiking in the mountains (around Europe, mainly). I am also an avid reader of history, politics and science. When I am not in the mountains, exercising or reading, you will likely find me in a museum.