As Coach Bowerman stated above, we are all athletes. One of the biggest differences between us and the professionals however is the amount of time they spend recovering and working on their bodies. Unfortunately, we don’t have a staff to assist in this, so we are stuck doing this on our own. Your daily mobility doesn’t have to take an hour every day, however. In just 15 minutes a day, you should be able to aid in recovery, injury prevention, enhance range of motion, and boost mental well being.

Below are the our Aspire Essentials for Home Mobility. See the bottom of the post to purchase these products!
 
The Essentials (Must Haves!)

Mat
You need a spot to do your mobility on, so the first thing you need to grab is a mat. You want something thick enough that it is comfortable to lay on the bare floor, big enough that your body fits entirely on it, and slightly textured so you don’t slide all around on it.

We love lululemon’s 5mm Reversible Mat for its size, 5mm thickness, and two surface options.

Foam Roller
For rolling large surface areas of sore muscles, creating blood flow, and myofascial release, a foam roller is vital. You’ll want something dense – this roller needs to be able to penetrate the muscle tissue. Although this form of therapy isn’t going to be as intense, pressured, or pinpointed as the lacrosse ball, we still need it to be tough enough to make muscular change.

The Trigger Point 12” roller is great for home and travel. It is dense enough to get deep into the tissue and its hollow core allows for stuffing socks or t-shirts inside while packing into your suitcase for travel.


Lacrosse Ball
Nothing fancy need to be purchased here, except your regular old lacrosse ball. This dense rubber ball will be able to penetrate deep into the muscle and fascia. Using multiple techniques, lacrosse balls will make pinpointed change in the tissue leading to increased ROM, assist in preventing injuries, and enhancing recovery of tired muscles.
 
Nice to Have

Yoga Block
For anyone like myself who is on a lifelong quest of awesome range of motion, but still have a long way to go, it is often nice to have a yoga block when poses get a little too deep for our flexibility.
Lululemon’s Lift and Lengthen Block provides me that extra support when needed.

VooDoo Floss
Utilizing a long rubber band, we will tightly wrap extremity muscles contract/extend these muscles. By occluding blood flow temporarily and forcing movement under pressure, the floss will work to enhance proper muscle function, sliding surface tension, and enhance new blood movement.

Monster Band
A monster band can provide for many enhanced stretches at the gym while attached to the rig. At home however, it is often tough to get the band attached to something sturdy enough to utilize banded distraction like we do at the gym. So at home, we will primarily use this band for assistance in stretching, especially in the hamstrings and shoulders.
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Treat Yourself

Electrical Stem
E-Stem or tens unitis are an excellent way to enhance recovery, stimulate blood flow, and repair damaged muscle with minimal effort on your part. Simply hook yourself up to muscle stem pads on the desired muscle groups and the unit will send gentle electrical impulses to the muscle tissue providing contraction and relaxation of the muscle fibers.

Silicon Cups
Cupping has been used for thousands of years in ancient medicine and its basic understanding is to bring blood flow to the superficial skin surface. When placed properly, it has been shown to have numerous benefits. We recommend consulting a professional for help in cupping, then looking into silicon cups if you are interested in practicing this technique on your own.

Gua Sha Scraping Tool
Just like cupping above, Gue Sha, or scraping, is a staple in ancient medicine. We aren’t experts in scraping just yet, but are active trying this technique out to see its results on ourselves and our members.

Percussive Therapy Device
Percussive therapy devices have been around for a long time, but its handheld variants, popularized by social media, have taken the fitness world by storm. Although expensive, these tools can be awesome for self-massage providing quick impulses to the tissue to create blood flow and break up knots and tightness.

In the coming weeks, look out for a  video every Friday on social media and our YouTube channel that will teach you how to use these accessories to make you feel and perform better both physically and cognitively.

Everyone wants to get more done on a daily basis. If I had a nickel for every time someone told me they needed more hours in the day, I wouldn’t need a to-do list anymore because I would be fucking rich, sitting on an island somewhere, hanging out with Moana. No, I’m not a creepy older dude because I want to hang out with Moana, I just think she’s got a pretty sweet life sailing boats, hanging on tropical islands, and helping save the world. It’s my dream – don’t judge me for it.

Anyways, if you don’t already make a daily To-Do List, you need to start as soon as possible. We do all feel like we need more time in the day and this checklist can keep us on track, prioritize the most important tasks, aid in our time management, and get shit done.

Making a daily To-Do List completely changed my life, my business, and my drive. It keeps me on track, more productive, and accomplished at the end of the day. It also gives you tiny little fist bumps all day as you get to check things off one by one. I am obsessed with my to-do lists and I MAKE myself feel guilty at the end of the day if it isn’t complete. I simply need to get these things done daily if I want to reach my goals – and I am driven to do so.

You can create and manage this list(s) in the best way that works for you. This might be one big list written on paper daily or in your phone. To share my personal experiences, I am going to talk about what works best for me. You need to try out different things and see what works best for you.

Start with your goals – if you don’t already know how to set amazing goals, click here.

Break down those goals into daily tasks. What do you need to do, every day, to get to your goals? For example, I have a goal of having a passive income stream, so I set aside just 15 minutes a day to work on it. At first, I didn’t have a clue what that income stream would even be. Much of my first few weeks was focused on learning more about passive income. This counted toward my 15 minute daily goal. Then I decided on creating an eBook to see if that could generate passive income. During my 15 minutes a day, I work on my eBook. It isn’t near complete yet, but it’s a ton further along with these 15 minutes a day then I ever would be if I didn’t put that 15 minutes of “Passive Income Generation” into this list.

For these daily tasks, I created a folder in the notes in my phone called “Daily Tasks to Reach Goals,” and wrote down the 15 things I believe I need to do daily to reach my goals. They include checking emails, social media posts, completing my business To-Do List, and setting aside time to learn. These things are all important to me and are stepping stones to achieving my goals. I check them off as I complete them.

I then have an additional To-Do List, my “Business To-Do.” This is a separate list from my Daily Tasks, because they will break down everything I need to do within my business that day. For you, this could be “Work,” “Family,” “Home,” or broken down into whatever category (or categories) that you have a list of things you need to accomplish daily. I constantly add things to this list and assign a day they need to be completed. Some things are urgent, but others can be assigned a few days from now based on it's time sensitivity. I’m not putting anything off – I am simply prioritizing when they need to be completed.
I am obsessed with looking at these lists in the note section of my phone. Every time I complete something, it gets checked off. My day is not done when 6 pm hits, it’s done when I am finished with all the tasks on these lists. Once they are all completed, I erase all the tasks for that day on my Business To-Do and un-check all my Daily Tasks. This gives me a fresh start when I wake up the next morning and begin plotting how I am going to crush my day.

Tips to crush your To-Do List:
-Start with the easiest task to get the ball rolling
-Prioritize your day
-Don’t get into a habit of moving something unfinished to tomorrow
-For big tasks that are not time sensitive, set timers on how long to work on the task for, I do things in 15 minute intervals. If I am still being productive after 15 minutes and want to continue, I restart the timer. If I am at a stopping point or not being highly productive, I’ll stop and move on to another task.
-Don’t forget to add important things to your Daily Tasks that further your life and health such as exercise. I also set aside 15 minutes a day consisting of learning and thinking, most of which comes via audio books and podcasts and are completed while training or stretching.

​Someone recently told me “if it’s meant to be, it’s up to me.” I quickly became a big fan of that saying. Life doesn’t just happen, it is what we make of it. By taking the time to figure out what we want in life and where we want to be, then breaking it down into daily tasks, we will be set up to live a life of dreams and not fantasies.