I wanted to start with a note about what’s going on in Minneapolis right now, but I barely know what to say. I’ve experienced such surges of hope seeing the love flowing from neighbors who just want to keep each other safe — and such utter devastation at the violence and depraved murders we’ve witnessed, in clear retaliation against citizens exercising their constitutional rights; against those actions of love. Please do what you can: Call your reps and demand that this absolute senseless nightmare of a government agency be abolished. Donate to mutual aid funds and immigrant rights organizations. Boycott corporations supporting ICE. Keep talking about it.
Last year, we talked about the “sitting-rising test,” which measures how many supports you need to use to go from sitting on the floor to standing, and which has some interesting associations with longevity. There are a lot of caveats to this research, and I highly recommend popping back to my post from last January for all those details:
A simple fitness test you can try at home right now
Have you ever noticed what it takes for you to go from standing to sitting on the floor, then back up again? (Feel free to take a moment to try this right now!)
But the fact remains that getting up off the floor is a highly useful skill! And can be really, really tricky. A HTM subscriber decided to start working on this maybe a year or two ago, and reached out recently to say that despite great strength gains, she feels she’s actually getting worse at it. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say it’s because this skill requires not just generally good mobility, but highly specific mobility — accessing certain positions and being able to work through challenging movement patterns.
So! This week’s mobility sequence is for her, and for you: Even if you aren’t all that concerned about getting up off the floor, this one is amazing for your hips, knees, and ankles, and would be a great support and movement prep for things like heavy squats, lunges, and the like.
Before we get into it, a question for you: I recently had a major “this is why I lift!!!” moment when I carried a 50-pound bucket of salt home from the hardware store with no help. I’d love to know: What cool feats (small or big!) have you been able to achieve that you can chalk up to your movement practice? Brag on yourself! If you’re a paid subscriber, you can leave a comment on this post. If not, you can reply to this Substack note, respond to this email if you’re getting it in your inbox, or DM me on Substack.
Here’s a little Reel I made about the giant salt bucket fiasco:
Anyway, back to getting-off-the-floor mobility: I didn’t think of this until the very end, but it could be really cool to test your ability to get off the floor before you try the video, and then give it a shot again after you work through it. Report back if you try it!
Also: I did so much nervous throat clearing (not literal, but like, “Ohhh boy, here we go, this is going to suck”) in this video because I am terrible at getting off the floor with no hands, but most of these exercises were way more doable than I expected! Not easy, but manageable. So, sorry for all the silly warnings about how intense it might feel. Ha!
No equipment required for this one, though if you have a strap or very thick band, that’d be great. If you’d like to have a broomstick or PVC pipe or the like nearby for a little extra support during the lunge-adjacent exercises, that’d be great. Or even just a chair or stool to hold onto.
