I Feel Tight. What Should I Do?

If you feel tight all the time, the answer probably isn’t another massage.

You probably need to move your body more.

That sounds ridiculously simple, but think about what happens to most of us after we enter the workforce.

At 16, 18, 21, you’re generally pretty fresh. You can sit on the floor, get up, run around, play sport, go out all night and somehow wake up functioning.

Then work happens.

For a lot of people, particularly those working at a desk, movement slowly disappears from everyday life.

• —You sit on the train.
• —You sit at work.
• —You sit at lunch.
• —You sit on the way home.
• —Then you sit on the sofa because you’re tired from sitting at work all day.

Do that for five, ten or fifteen years and it shouldn’t be particularly surprising that your body starts feeling different.

Your hips feel tight. Your back aches. Your neck gets stiff. Your knees don’t feel as good as they used to. Movements that were once completely normal suddenly feel like something you need to warm up for.

And eventually you start saying: “I’m just getting old.” Except you’re 31.

Your body probably isn’t asking for another massage

There’s nothing wrong with massage.

I love recovery treatments. Ogo literally works in recovery.

But there’s a difference between relief and changing the reason you keep needing relief.

A massage can make you feel amazing for an hour. A physio can help you understand an injury. Recovery technology can help you recover.

But if you spend the other 160-odd hours of your week barely moving, none of those things can completely replace movement.

We try to recover from a lifestyle we’re going straight back into.

What does “tight” actually mean?

People use “tight” to describe loads of different things.

• —Maybe you can’t comfortably touch your toes.
• —Maybe your hips feel locked after sitting.
• —Maybe turning your head feels restricted.
• —Maybe your shoulders permanently feel like they’re somewhere near your ears.
• —Or maybe nothing actually hurts — you just don’t feel as free in your body as you used to.

That doesn’t necessarily mean one particular muscle needs stretching.

It could be a mixture of mobility, strength, movement habits, training history and simply spending too much time in the same positions. Which is why endlessly attacking the place that feels tight isn’t always the answer. Sometimes your body just needs more opportunities to move.

Mobility isn’t about becoming a gymnast

My own relationship with movement has changed massively through training.

Boxing. Gymnastics. Stunt training. Martial arts. Strength work.

You spend enough time around dancers, fighters, gymnasts and other movement-based athletes and you realise just how much humans are capable of doing with their bodies.

But that’s not the standard I’m suggesting everyone needs to reach.

• —You don’t need to be able to do a backflip.
• —You don’t need to spend an hour stretching every evening.
• —You don’t even necessarily need another workout.

For most desk workers, the starting point is much less dramatic: move more often, move through more positions, and regularly use ranges of motion that your normal working day doesn’t give you.

Active and passive mobility both matter

Stretching is useful.

But mobility isn’t just about pulling yourself into a stretch and staying there.

There’s also value in being able to actively control movement.

For example, there’s a difference between somebody pushing your leg into a position and you being able to lift and control your leg there yourself.

That’s why a good mobility routine can include both:

• slower stretches where you spend time in a position;
• active movements where you’re controlling your joints through their available range.

You don’t need to know all the terminology to benefit from it. You just need to start moving.

If you sit all day, start here

Rather than promising yourself you’re suddenly going to become a mobility person and spend 45 minutes stretching every night, make the barrier ridiculously low.

Five or ten minutes.

Hips. Spine. Shoulders. Ankles.

Move through the parts of your body that have spent most of the day doing basically nothing.

Do it consistently enough that movement becomes part of your normal day rather than something you only think about once you’re in pain.

Because workplace recovery shouldn’t start once your body is already broken.

It should start while you’re still sitting at your desk.