Review: Steve Maxwell Joint Mobility Movements

One Liner: We covered joint mobility before, but I think this might be the package you want to pick up.

Overview:

Steve Maxwell Joint Mobility Movements is a series of three videos that takes you through a comprehensive series of joint mobility drills. The videos are divided into beginner, intermediate and advanced, with the movements in each series becoming more complex - essentially moving from straight lines to circles to figure eights.

The videos themselves are between 18 and 20 minutes long, starting with neck exercises and working towards the feet. The last five minutes or so work on multi-joint exercises that don't quite get into calisthenics but provide some different ways of working the exercises. The beginner video shows you how to use a chair or desk as a prop (which makes these techniques usable at the office) while the other videos show some floor-based versions. As a note, these exercises are fairly enervating and while they're a lot of fun, I don't recommend doing them right before going to bed.*

As for putting the videos into practice, the first couple days I did the beginner series once per day, then moved to the intermediate and then up to the advanced series. Over a month into it, while I don't do the entire series every day (probably 4-5 days a week), I have found that taking a couple short breaks during the workday to do even a half-dozen of the next/shoulder/spine exercises and then another one to do the hips really cuts down the number of aches and pains from sitting too long.

While the videos can be purchased individually and it is tempting to only get the advanced series, I'd recommend getting all three. They're built up in a progression for a reason and I've found that while the advanced series is the most "efficient" there are times when mobility might be limited and using one of the previous "versions" is more helpful.

* He discusses using some of the Five Rites of Tibetan Yoga. however, only four of the five are shown. More detail on these (including the fifth one) is here.


The Good:

• There are a wide variety of movements and most include several ways to work the same joints, both within a given video and as the videos progress. Sometimes it is helpful to take a step back from the advanced drills to work out kinks that the advanced drills don't.
• There are enough movements that parts can be recombined to make custom series depending on your condition or as time allows - while the advanced series is 20 minutes long, I've found that combining movements and working through them a little more quickly I can finish in 8minutes.
• The instruction in the videos is good and for the most part the movements are easy to follow.

The Bad:

• Rather than a running commentary like Sonnon's videos, Maxwell dubs in his commentary after the fact. The result is that some of the instruction is, "watch what I'm doing here and slow it down if you need to."
• One thing I've haven't seen in any joint mobility series is working the jaw. Fans of Min Zin/Burmese yoga know that the jaw is one of the nine major joints (that is, one where if function is impaired you are considered crippled) and it's a fairly important thing for martial artists.
  
  I suppose it's not that difficult to figure out your own movements for the jaw, but the oversight is somewhat curious.

Recommendation: If you haven't been doing joint mobility drills, now's the time to start.