Improving our movement starts with ungluing bad patterns and habits that occur in the workplace, through repetitive activities or from our own personal history of injury, sport or sadly, neglect. At SoleFit.ca, we are on a constant pursuit to find easy, actionable ways for our clients to work on undoing these bad patterns on their own time. We know that these ways need to be time efficient to allow for higher compliance along with a results driven format that allows us to see positive changes in our bodies relatively quickly. Ears on the ground kept bringing up a site called ROMWOD (Range Of Motion Workout Of The Day). This well built, fluid site offers daily and specific programs to target key areas and lead you through a long hold pose (a la Yin Yoga style, up to 5 min poses) combined with breathing practice. At around 20 minutes per day to complete a routine it’s a great way to improve your flexibility ranges and to see steady improvements in your range of motion in all areas of your body.
ROMWOD allows you to filter workouts around key areas of your body. Alternatively, just follow along day-by-day and almost all areas are covered in the course of a week.
We decided to give ROMWOD a try for a month and see how we felt. Read below for individual experiences and reviews!
*Note: We have no professional or financial affiliation with ROMWod.com.
As someone who has spent quite a bit of time running, biking, and swimming over my lifetime, flexibility has never really been my strong suit (think Tinman from Wizard of Oz). I’ve been fortunate to have never really been affected too much by this lack of flexibility but have always known that it’s something that I should be putting a bit more of a focus on. I’m a big fan of the concept of Yin Yoga with the longer holds but could never really get myself into a regular yoga practice. This is why ROMWOD.com really appealed to me. It’s a self practice that you can do anywhere and it takes about 15-20 minutes per day. The poses are quite varied and stretch areas that I wouldn’t normally get to on my own. I’ve done 24 days in a row now and can honestly say that I feel a huge difference. The ‘aha’ moment for me came the other day when I tried doing a stretch (couch stretch which really stretches your hip flexors and quads) that I’ve always struggled with. I couldn’t believe how much much easier the stretch was with only three works of flexibility work! You certainly don’t need to pay a membership fee to achieve these results (you can just do the stretches on your own) but I really appreciate the accountability of the having the program and actually look forward to doing it everyday. I would certainly recommend giving it a try, especially for those that struggle with fitting flexiblity/mobilty work into their busy day-to-day lives.
I have been pretty passionate about functional movement over the last 2-3 years so much so to have been doing 10-15 min of simple yoga everyday. I had been priding myself on the cumulative effect of 15 min per day, 7 days per week, 105 min per week, 7 hours per month etc. So the idea of a novel structured flexibility routine perked my ears when I heard about it for the 10th or so time at the CrossFit gym I coach at. I just had to check out ROMWOD and was glad I did! The site immediately grabbed me for its nice look and feel, navigation and depth of access to tons of videos. There is also a very cool feature to filter videos to target areas important to me. The routines are short enough to complete everyday first thing or before bed easily and the one ‘whopper’ routine on Thursday called the Warrior Routine is a superb challenge. The strategy of long hold poses really had a SIGNIFICANT effect on what I thought I had in decent flexibility. A 3-5 minute hold really opens up your depth far more than I imagined. I now find 1-2 minutes not enough time to total immerse yourself into a position! After stringing together a month of consecutive days, the difference I can feel in my movement is incredible. Especially in places I clearly wasn’t effectively working on like my chest, shoulder, mid to upper spine. and neck. The benefit this has transferred into my day to day comfort and training has been exceptional and I look forward to hitting up the daily workout. I am a huge, huge fan and have recommended it to clients and athletes I work with confidently. Check it out for sure!!
Admittedly, I can be a bit more of a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ type practitioner when it comes to flexibility and mobility. When the team decided to take on ROMWOD, I was interested as I do have a few postural issues, and we are always looking for new ways to motivate good mobility practices for our clients. I found ROMWOD to be challenging but not intimidating, and I definitely noticed small differences in my ability in only a short time using it. I would definitely follow the suggestion to have a soft surface, blocks, rolled up towels, etc. readily available when starting so that the positions are more comfortable (which I learned the hard way!) Since then, I’ve recommended it to numerous clients of all ages and abilities because I think the different streams available are approachable and applicable for nearly everyone. It provides an easy to follow routine that has made long hold stretching poses an integral part of my treatment toolbox.
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