“Mobility is the second GMB program I've consistently used (after the gradual Elements track). During Elements, I noticed I was having a significant difficulty with getting into some of the positions (e.g. I can't do Walk Into Squat at all). So I figured Mobility would be a good choice for a follow-up program, then revisit Elements on the main track.
Overall, I've really enjoyed it, and I look forward to checking out some of the other GMB programs after I'm done with Mobility.
Positive Points:
1. Personal mobility improvements! I'm definitely feeling less tight in general. Fewer aches and pains during my day-to-day life, and feeling more confident and capable when getting into awkward positions.
2. I really like the layout of the GMB programs in general, with their 5 P's (Prepare, Practice, Play, Push, Ponder) in each workout. In Mobility, I believe it just has Prepare, Practice and Play. Prepare forces me to warm up properly before getting into any real work. As I'm almost 48 years old now, the warming up is vital. Then I can practice properly with fewer restrictions and loosening everything up, so we can then Play and work on strengthening and owning the new positions we can get into.
2. This may be a comment on mobility work in general, but I find myself almost meditating during Mobility workouts. I've never done an actual mobility program before. The Mobility movements paired with a relatively relaxed tempo and exertion gave me time to calm down my brain. Maybe those yoga enthusiasts were onto something this whole time!
3. The movement explanations and tutorials are mostly very solid. There are a few exercises here and there that could probably use clearer wording (e.g. Half Frog, with the preview picture looking very different from the tutorial exercise) or have an easier variant shown. Chris in particular often shows substantially more mobility than I can muster, which sometimes makes it hard to figure out how to follow his example.
Negative Points:
1. Parts of the new Ponder. I really liked how we had a list of the exercises at the end of workouts before, where we could make notes on each one. The new setup makes it so that I have to try to remember what exercises are called when taking notes. I'd actually greatly prefer if the Ponder notes could be broken up by exercise, maybe with the preview picture of the exercise next to it. Then have a system where we could look up specific exercises on the GMB site and see our notes on just that exercise over time to track progress. Hopefully even including notes across different programs that use the same exercise. Right now I have no easy way to follow how exercises are improving over time.
2. Can't tell how far into the program I am. I can't seem to find a list of all of the workouts in the program either. When I went through Elements, the main picture progressively changed from black-and-white to color as I went through the program, so I could at least have a rough idea of how much of the program was left. But I'm not seeing that with Mobility. I'd like to see the progress so that I can plan out when I'll be able to switch to another program. Even simple text on the workout page saying "This is workout 23 out of 45" would be solid. I don't have enough time to do multiple programs at once.
3. Scaling of exercise times across the different workout lengths. Since I only do one workout per day, I usually do the 45 minute sessions. Unfortunately, this makes some of the exercises scale up much more harshly than others (e.g. Kneeling Lunges tend to increase a lot). This might be too technically difficult, but I'd much prefer to have more exercises included in the workout at a shorter duration (or switching between the same exercises already in the workout), rather than doing the same thing for 6 minutes. As an alternative, just spreading the increases out more evenly would be nice.
4. Repetition/Workout variation in the schedule. Perhaps this is a programming strategy/philosophy that I don't understand, but I think I'd like it better if we progressed through a specific string of workouts before looping back to the first one. I think that would help me both keep my body looser and keep my frustration down at repeating workouts. For example, Fundamentals -> Shoulders -> Hips -> Spine -> Flexion/Extension -> Twisting/Bending. Then go back to Fundamentals and follow the same order of workouts. As it is right now, the same workout is often repeated within a couple workouts as the previous one.
5. Lower focus on common problem areas. The impression I get reading online is that most people (including me) have problems with tight hips and tight shoulders. There doesn't seem to be that many Shoulder workouts in Mobility that I've seen so far, which seems very odd to me. I would have expected them to be more prominent.”
“I have been integrating this program on and off with my activities. Keeps the body feeling well after a gym workout and mountain biking. I 100% recommend GMB!”
“I have done Elements and I thought it was good, but for me, GMB Mobility at the 15 minute time interval hits a sweet spot for what I want to do right away in the morning to get moving. I highly recommend it!”
“Mobility has been a great addition to my work with GMB courses. When a recent strain in my chest set me back a bit, I replaced my time with Integral Strength with Mobility. This helped me keep things moving without taxing my body too much.
Glad to have this set of exercises in the toolbox!”
“I use Mobility now on off days between sessions with some of the more intense program. My best mobility gains were with Essentials, but Mobility leveled that up a bit more, and now has a permanent place in my weekly routine.”
“After years of strength training I had many aches and pains, and I was much tighter than I wanted to be. I started Mobility about a month ago and I have noticed that my spine is more mobile and I love that a bunch of little niggling aches and pains have melted away with consistent sessions. I’m getting deeper into a squat and generally feel less tight. Love this program ☺️”
