A healthy and wide range of physical mobility is important for many reasons. That is why many people are interested specifically in exercises for improved mobility. Exercise and physical activity has its benefits that make it worthwhile on its own merit. These include improved metabolism, less stress, better sleep, and weight loss just to name a few examples. That’s why so many physicians and doctors repeatedly tout their benefits and encourage patients to adopt them into their lifestyles whenever they can. Still, specific exercises for improved mobility are now being encouraged even more in specific circumstances.
There are quite a few reasons why exercises for better mobility are becoming more important. A population that is increasingly sedentary certainly matters. Making matters worse is the growing rate of obesity among adults. Also, the booming size of senior citizens as a population segment matters.
Over the last century or so, the population of the country has gotten increasingly sedentary. Populations have shifted from rural work on farms to urban centers with inside work, often at desks or at least sitting down part of the time. Car culture has also taken over, so walking happens a lot less. This makes people far less mobile than they used to be.
The same factors have also fueled a boom in how many adults are overweight or obese. Now, more than half of all adults are past what is considered a healthy weight. This makes it harder to actually get up and move around, and that puts more strain on the human body.
Further complicating the cycle into stillness instead of movement is how many older people there are. The Baby Boomer generation was one of the largest in history, and as they are now retiring by the millions, there are that many citizens starting to sit around and do nothing at a time when their bodies could use movement and mobility more than ever. At a minimum, mobility exercises can help seniors avoid falls or at least recover from them better.
The global pandemic only fueled all of this even more. Lockdowns and social distancing either force people to stay home or just make them want to keep to themselves. Far less activity and movement in life is detrimental to physical health, even when the motivation is just avoiding a contagious disease.