Joint mobility training includes

Passive joint movement training, active-assisted joint movement training, active joint movement training, and function-oriented joint movement training. However, the definition of classification in different fields is not so unified - the clinical rehabilitation circle is more accustomed to dividing according to the "proportion of patients' spontaneous force exertion", and the sports fitness circle will also classify operations such as joint loosening and dynamic stretching into relevant branches. There is no absolute right or wrong. The core goals are to maintain or improve the range of joint motion and avoid adhesions and stiffness.

The first time many people come into contact with joint mobility training is basically after removing the cast. Your legs are as hard as a welded iron rod, and you can't exert any effort on your own. The rehabilitation therapist holds your calf with one hand, and holds the heel with the other hand to slowly help you hook your feet and bend your knees. You don't have to exert any force during the whole process, and rely entirely on external force to drive joint movement. This is a typical passive training. There are actually quite a lot of controversies in this industry. Old-school rehabilitation practitioners have always insisted that there should be no pain during passive training and only slight soreness at most. However, in recent years, more and more clinical data show that as long as there is no sharp stinging and no continuous redness and swelling for 24 hours after training, pain within the tolerance range can break adhesions faster. Of course, this degree must be controlled by professionals. Ordinary people should not do it at home. Ordinary people should not do it at home. If they strain the ligaments, the gains will outweigh the losses.

When you recover enough to be able to mobilize your peripheral muscles a little, you won’t have to rely entirely on others to help. For example, patients who are three or four weeks after fork surgery can only bend to 30 degrees by themselves. At this time, the rehabilitation therapist gently gives upward support, or you put your legs on the yoga ball to borrow some buoyancy, and you can bend smoothly to 60 degrees. This kind of self-exerting part of the force and external force filling part of the gap is active-assisted joint mobility training. I used to take care of a 20-year-old boy who was terribly afraid of pain. He cried for his father when he practiced on land. Later, I let him practice in a constant-temperature swimming pool. The buoyancy of the water directly took off most of the weight of his legs. After three exercises, it broke through the 90-degree mark. It is more effective than any physical therapy.

As long as you are not injured or sick, the wrist-circling, neck-turning, and leg-pressing exercises that you usually do during fitness warm-ups are basically active joint movement training—it relies entirely on your own muscles to drive the joints to move, without any external help. In fact, the differences in this area are even greater. Ordinary fitness enthusiasts think that as long as they can move freely and move without pain, coaches who specialize in sports performance will be particularly strict: for example, if you can't help shrugging your shoulders when doing shoulder circles, that is the trapezius muscle compensation. Not only will the range of motion of the shoulder joint be lost, but it will squeeze into the space under the acromion. After practicing for a long time, you will get acromion impingement, which is not worth the gain. To be honest, I have seen too many people practice blindly following online warm-up tutorials. Originally, their shoulders were fine, but after two months of practice, they started to feel pain when raising their arms. It was all caused by compensation.

There is another category that many people have not heard of, but it is very practical, which is function-oriented joint mobility training. It does not pursue the extreme angle that your joints can be bent at all, but focuses on the actual movements you want to complete. For example, badminton players specifically practice the range of motion of the shoulder joints in extension and external rotation, so that they can spread their arms when hitting the ball; an old man with bad knees practices knee joint motions in a semi-squatting state, just to be able to go up and down stairs and squat on the toilet. I met a 62-year-old aunt before. Two months after her knee replacement, she could passively bend her legs to 120 degrees, but she couldn't squat down to pick vegetables. Later, I didn't let her continue to force the angle, so I asked her to sit and step on beer bottles for 10 minutes every day, and then practiced for another 5 minutes while gently turning her knees left and right in a semi-squatting state. The need for picking vegetables was solved in two weeks, which is much more effective than simply bending the angle.

Many tutorials on the Internet now boast about joint mobility training, saying that practicing for 10 minutes a day can cure lumbar protrusion and frozen shoulder. In fact, this is not true. For example, if you sprained your foot within 72 hours and it is as red and swollen as a bun, moving around at this time will only aggravate tissue leakage, so ice application and immobilization is the right way to go. However, if it is only a slight soft tissue contusion and no fractures, many physical fitness coaches will recommend that you do a small range of pain-free activities on the same day to avoid later adhesions. There is no absolutely correct way to do it. It all depends on your own situation. If you are really unsure, find a professional rehabilitation therapist for evaluation. Don’t practice blindly on your own. It’s not worth it if a small problem turns into a big problem.