Could daily mobility and recovery routines with the pliability app transform writer Sam Rider ’s rigid frame into a well-oiled machine?
pliability
£16.95/month or £169.95/annually, pliability.com
Stubborn inflexibility is holding me back. I know that to be true, thanks to a Team GB Olympic lifting coach I trained with back in my mid-20s. Twice a week he subjected me to a barrage of mobility drills before I was allowed anywhere near the bar and, as a result, my clean and jerk, and snatch, went through the roof.
A decade later, however, stretching barely registers on my weekly schedule, bar straining to pick my newborn son’s toys off the floor. That’s partly because it can be agony, a bit like flossing for the first time in weeks. You know that if it became routine, your gums wouldn't sting so much. But, to be frank, it’s tedious.
Stretching is also time-consuming and, despite the army of advocates online telling you otherwise, nowhere near as sexy as a sweaty metcon class. Mobility training, in other words, needs a rebrand. Enter: pliability. Born out of CrossFit, the ‘human movement specialists’, formerly known as RomWod, are on a mission to extend the benefits the functional fitness community now enjoys to sports and fitness disciplines beyond the box.
“Our ethos is finding freedom through movement,” says director of performance Cody Mooney. They’re not just about helping you cross the proverbial finish line, they want you to enjoy every step along the way.
A recent systematic review on the effects of static stretching suggests that if you follow their lead you could realise plateau-busting gains in strength and power too – results that are especially pronounced in older and more sedentary individuals.
So, with that in mind, I decided to put this theory to the test and see what a month of daily stretching and mobility training could do for my ageing physique.
How it works
pliability functions, first and foremost, as a vast library of mobility routines, dynamic warm-ups and cooldowns categorised by body parts (eg. lower back and hips), exercises (eg. deadlifts and pull-ups) a
