7 mobility signs of true vitality
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Brett NethellWritten on 22nd April
Our bodies are designed to move in a specific way, but they're also incredibly clever. They adapt to tight muscles, prolonged sitting, injuries, poor hydration, and even emotional stress. Over time, these adaptations show up as postural issues, nagging pain, fatigue, and an increased risk of injury.
So what are the key signs to look for in your own body? That's exactly what this article covers. From the way you walk to how you handle basic functional movements, these seven indicators can reveal a lot about your long-term mobility health and more importantly, what to do about it.
Note: if you have had a severe injury, were born with a disability, or something similar, much of this won't directly apply. For everyone else, working on these areas can make a profound difference in how you move today and well into old age.
1. Straight feet while walking and standing
These days most people spend a lot of time in very narrow, stiff and restrictive shoes as well as an incredible amount of time sitting down. Combining these two leads to underdeveloped glute and foot muscles, tight ankles, tight glutes, and ultimately a gait pattern that flares the feet outwards while walking. This can lead to issues with weight distribution and progressively stress the knees, ankles, hips and back to the point of injury.
What we actually want is for our feet to stay facing forward while we walk and run. Everything starts from the ground up. If we constantly wear restrictive heeled shoes and sit down all day, our glute muscles will atrophy, we'll become stiffer, and our feet will start to splay.
By switching to more barefoot walking and barefoot-style shoes, training the glute muscles, and stretching key areas such as the hips, hamstrings, quadriceps and glutes, we can massively improve our movement patterns and reduce stress on areas of the body that aren't designed to handle it, such as excess load on the hip flexors, or sideways impact wearing down the knee joint rather than direct impact.
2. Getting up from the ground without using your hands
This one surprises most people. Try it, lying flat on the floor, get yourself upright without pushing off with your hands. It's genuinely difficult for a large portion of adults, yet it's one of the clearest tests of functional strength and mobility. Research has even linked this ability to long-term survival rates.
If you struggle with it, it's a worthwhile skill to work towards. A simple practice involves getting up from a yoga mat without assistance repeatedly, progressing to keeping your arm above your head and then eventually to a small weight maintained overhead as you perform the get up.
3. Performing a deep squat
Watch any young child, they drop into a deep squat effortlessly and stay there comfortably. It's a natural resting position that maintains hip, knee, and ankle flexibility.
For most adults, years of sitting and never loading the legs properly has made this position feel impossible. But the deep squat matters. Your ability to get into one, ideally with a neutral spine, is a strong indicator of lower body health and injury resilience. Work towards it gradually rather than forcing it. Start by preforming more sit-squats meaning squatting onto a chair and then standing back up, this will help train the movement pattern and you can progress into assisted deep squats (holding onto something) then to unassisted.
4. Being able to touch your toes
Similarly to the above, being able to perform a forward fold and touch your toes is a sign that the hamstrings, glutes and lower back are loose rather than tight. Through modern lifestyle we rarely do this and the moment we try to lift something by hinging at the hip without the flexibility to do so, injury follows quickly.
You don't have to be able to fold in half, but being able to touch your toes with your fingertips is a key mobility marker for longevity. A daily stretching routine followed by a quick test, will help you see how far off you are, while at the same time helping you progress towards the goal of being able to touch your toes.
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5. No collapsing arches or ankles
The common sprained ankle so often comes down to a lack of ankle strength and collapsing arches, combine that with modern shoes that are stiff, narrow and heeled, and it's no wonder that tripping on a stone or a curb sends way too much force through a joint that isn't accustomed to it.
Training your feet by walking more barefoot helps your foot strength immensely, leading to more pronounced arches and stronger ankles. Transitioning to barefoot-style shoes can come with a period of soreness, but this is a key strengthening phase while the toes also spread out for better balance.
Two things worth paying attention to as you improve:
Heel graze and big toe push-off, a healthy stride lightly contacts the ground through the heel and drives off through the big toe.
Walk soft, if your steps are loud or heavy, it typically points to poor shock absorption and unnecessary joint impact.
6. Crawling
This one sounds odd, but bear with it. Low crawling, keeping your body close to the ground and moving forward using full-body coordination, is genuinely hard for most adults. Kids do it without thinking. Adults who try it for the first time are often shocked by how taxing it is.
The ability to crawl well reflects total-body strength, coordination, and joint health in a way that very few exercises replicate. It also tends to get harder with age, which makes it worth keeping in your toolkit.
To start progressing towards this, start by moving back and fore on your yoga mat while on all fours.
7. Being able to perform a lunge
Think about those moments when you have to react fast, catching something as it falls, navigating uneven ground, dodging something unexpectedly. These movements demand single-leg strength and stability. That's the lunge.
Tight, underused muscles struggle most with lunges, so ease into it. Build your range of motion first before adding any load. Strong, pain-free lunges are a reliable sign that your hips, knees, and ankles are working together as they should.
What to Focus On
The good news is that all of these can be improved. Barefoot walking, yoga, stretching, mobility work, floor sitting, glute training, and basic strength work, done consistently can meaningfully transform how you move. Start simple, stay consistent, and your body will reward you for it well into old age.
