Hey, if you’re anything like me, you find that sometimes it’s tough to know which exercises are best to do, even as someone in my industry and in my profession, I’m always trying to find what the best exercise is based on how I feel. Now, most people struggle to understand this because they don’t know where to start. So I want to help you with that today. 

My name is Dr. Antonio Gurule. I’m a chiropractor here in Lafayette, Colorado, with Live Loud Chiropractic and Coaching.

Today, what we’re going to be talking about is called movement mapping. Before you even do an exercise or a stretch, you need to know if it is actually a good fit for you.

Especially when we’re talking about mobilizations, how do you know where you need to mobilize other than just where you feel tight, right. 

We need to be able to move every joint in our body every single day, and movement mapping is a way for you to audit your joint range of motion and abilities. And if you don’t, it starts to get really stiff, just like a rusty hinge on a door. And then it makes it more challenging to move at all.

 All of a sudden you see a series of events happen where if my joints don’t move, well, then my muscles get really tight. And then if my muscles are tight, it’s hard to move my joints. And then we just see how this sticky material just starts building up on top of each other. 

Realistically, anything movement you do is going to be good. But could we be a little bit more direct with what we’re doing?

Movement mapping is a global head-to-toe audit of what things feel like now.

Certain body parts such as the wrist and shoulder are straightforward and easy but your spine and your neck are two of the areas that are really forgotten and overlooked. 

When movement mapping the neck be sure to sit down and do it in case you get a little dizzy or lightheaded.

The neck, if you consider all of the ranges of motion that should go through, we have flexion, we have an extension, we have side to side lateral flexion, and then we have rotation. Now there are baseline ranges of motion that we would ideally like to see, but what we forget is that our head doesn’t move like a robot. We couple those movements together so that we can do dynamic movements like checking a blind spot, or seeing something that’s flying over your head. 

So movement mapping for your neck is taking into consideration all those planes of motion and trying to determine where you feel stuck. So for instance, I might look up and then add rotation. Right, I might look up and then go side to side. Or I might go side to side, and then add rotation. 

I’m putting each one of these joints into a different position so that I can challenge it and make sure it’s moving. Even if one little corner of the joint is not moving, well, that’s going to bleed over and start to make the whole joint tight. 

And this happens to so many of us because we live life right here in front of us, we often don’t look up, we look over to the side of a check-in a blind spot maybe. And while we’re driving. We’re looking down a lot. But we’re very rarely going side to side. 

What I want to encourage you to do is just start mapping what areas are actually tight. And when you feel that tension, I want you to think of it like a rusty door hinge. instead of forcing it to stretch and move. I just want you to move in it back and forth. Just move it, move it, move it. Fortunately for us, we have our own WD-40, which is called synovial fluid it’s built into our joint, and the more we move it the more vascularization or blood flow we’ll have and then we’ll replenish that and then we’ll make that joint softer and more mobile 

Don’t force it. You just brush up against the end of the range of motion and you move and then you come off and you go somewhere else and you move. This just done daily will make profound effects and how you feel, how well your joints move, and how and how loose your muscles can be. And it’s going to be very rejuvenating and revitalizing to the energy that it also brings you. So, if you haven’t done movement mapping, I strongly encourage you to do movement mapping, get a cup of coffee, get a cup of tea, do it in the morning, do it in the afternoon, do it wherever you see fit for your body, and I hope that can continue helping you live the adventurous life you were made for Once again, my name is Dr. Antonio.

Keep up the great work and Live LOUD!

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