A thorough review of the Pliability app couldn’t wait any longer. The Pliability app is a popular resource for people looking to combine their stretching with mobility exercises. Many use it daily either as a standalone exercise or in conjunction with their Calisthenics exercise or other sports. The Pliability app comes with an exhaustive library of exercises and structural workout routines for both beginner and top athletes alike. Indeed, the app has the endorsement of many high-level athletes of national and international renown. But it is pricy. Time for us to take a closer look at this app and its features, in other words an in-depth review of the Pliability app.
10% off with our code: CWW10
Get it here:
What is Pliability?
The Pliability app is a Mobility App that combines elements from fitness (CrossFit to be exact) with elements of Yoga. Combined these two influences form a comprehensive stretching and mobility workout in a handy, sleekly designed app for your Android or iPhone.
Pliability is formerly known as ROMWOD (Range of Motion Workout of the Day) and has since undergone a rebrand in September of 2022. Where ROMWOD was very focused on CrossFit, the new app incorporates a much broader appeal and has emerged as a premier Mobility App and a Stretching App. Although it was very popular with CrossFit athletes before the rebranding, the stretching focus didn’t appeal much with, for instance, the Calisthenics crowd. This is because a stretching program is not the same as a Mobility Program, the latter going much more into building joint-strength and strength throughout the range of motion.
Many more people can now enjoy and reap the benefits of the Pliability App than before. This includes having your Pliability app potentially accompany a regular Calisthenics routine as a viable stretching and mobility routine either before or after exercise or on off-days.
The Yin Yoga elements are still very much there. Combined with its dark and industrial esthetics, the Pliability app is unique to say the least. But this may be a good thing. The focus is on a range-of-motion exercises and static poses held for an extended duration. In the Yoga tradition this is seen as the optimal method of attaining greater flexibility. As a preliminary hypothesis, one which we will test in this review, this may make it a very good pairing with Calisthenics as a pre-exercise warm-up and have good utility on rest days. It may be less useful after exercise where you seek to cool down your muscles, not engage in (even more) static holds.
Why use the Pliability app?
All strength exercise tends to lock muscle growth into their place if you don’t combine your exercise with a stretching or mobility routine. Every human being has an optimal range of motion where they are the strongest and they will be weaker at the end of their range of motion. This is pure mechanics and can never be entirely overcome. The consequence of this is that most of the time, muscle growth will occur within this optimal range of motion. This in turn will result in growth bunching up in this range and leads to stiff, inflexible muscles. The solution is to pair your strength workout with a mobility workout. For a strength workout, Calisthenics has a very high range of motion, but it is still wise to follow a stretching and mobility routine.
In come apps like these. What sets the Pliability app apart from different stretching programs is a healthy dose of Yoga techniques. Yoga tends to maximize range-of-motion while trying to hold an even level of resistance through the motion. This means this app has excellent potential of literally stretching out your muscles, elongating them and preventing stiff, inflexible muscle development.
Pliability App Review
We’ll preface this review by saying that this is very much a Pliability app review and not a ROMWOD review. The rebranding has come with a restyling and ROMWOD is a thing of the past. As in all our individual app and program reviews, we’ve opted for a systematic method of dissecting the Pliability app into pieces. We’ll shine a light on each of the following parts: the requirements to start, the form & function of the software, the effectiveness of the exercises and finally its progression over time.
This makes the reviewing process much more structured to us, while also giving you an in-depth insight into what you can expect from this app. We’ll do so with a professional eye and give you our best professional opinion so that you can make the best decision for no one else but you.
Requirements to start
None and none, for both physical requirements and equipment. You can start right away, either using it as a standalone exercise app or as a supplement to your Calisthenics exercise. The only thing you need is space to do your exercises, some light clothing and the will to start and persevere. This makes the Pliability app a good entry point for complete beginners and potentially also for Calisthenics practitioners and even weightlifters looking to get into mobility and stretching.
The people behind the Pliability app say that they have included elements from rehab and recovery. This may be so, but we’ll always recommend you seek the advice of your physician or physiotherapist before using any app or program to aid in your rehabilitation or recovery. Just to be on the safe side.
Form & Function
One of the reasons (not the main reason but certainly the most obviously apparent one) we said this is a Pliability app review and not a ROMWOD review is the form & function of the app. Gone are the girls in yoga pants and instead there is a dark themed, industrial look to replace it. Burly men and muscled women have replaced the lithe rubber band girls most associated with Yoga.
The design is sleek, and function is melded seamlessly with form. Large square blocks with readable titles and minimal styling are used to convey the information you need. Black and white are contrasted, along with cyan and magenta to create a very readable but also modern-looking user interface.
Traversing the app is made easy with the large buttons and minimalist layout. Features are limited to just what you need to get the job done. There is no community tab. This makes the Pliability app great for people who aren’t interested in any bells and whistles and only want to focus on getting their exercises done.
The videos shift from a contrasted black-white interface to a vignetted decorum that really draws the attention towards the middle, where the practitioners show you the techniques. The videos are in HD-format and look very sleek as well.
The software runs great, and we’ve experienced no hiccups.
You can select your exercises in one of three ways. Either you select one of the pre-made programs which focus on some type of mobility (some more oriented towards stretching, others more towards mobility), or you jump into a quick session straight away, or you sample one of the newly added workouts. That last feature is great, because new workouts are added very frequently. You can sample them and see if you like them.
Effectiveness of the Exercises
With over 1000 exercises, the Pliability app can be a bit overwhelming at times. What do you choose? Do you keep doing the newly added exercises in the hopes of finding something ‘even better’? The novelty of the constant stream of new exercises and workouts can distract you from just doing a good workout consistently. Both CrossFit and Yoga become apparent as the main inspiration behind these exercises. A lot of stretches target the junctional sites, e.g., where limbs and torso meet. That said, we liked doing all the exercises. They really push you to increase your range of motion and strengthen those joints in the process. But there is a caveat to this that has to do with progression and how well it pairs with a Calisthenics workout.
Workout Progression
We liked the Pliability app best simply following a weekly schedule and chose a mobility program which incorporated both stretching with light bodyweight exercises like squats and lunges (which are held in a static pose). These mimic the movements we make for our Calisthenics exercise as well, while increasing the range of motion of those muscles. This works great parallel to a Calisthenic Program that is very focused on building strength and size.
The weekly schedule has you exercise every day, as with the old ROMWOD app. Exercises are between 15 and 25 minutes and focus on an area of the body, like arms, lower body, hamstrings, and so on. Every Thursday you are subjected to a 45-minute full-body workout.
There is no progression tracking at all, and only the iPhone version offers a way to do a mobility check. The exercises and workout progression can progress quite far, but you are mostly left to yourself on tracking this progression and indeed, progress your progression. This also means you’ll have to adjust the level of intensity you put into your daily schedule on days that you’re also doing Calisthenics (especially those Thursdays). You may also struggle combining arm-days in the app with arm-days for your Calisthenics.
Pliability App Alternatives
Two alternatives come to mind right away. The first is comparing GOWOD versus Pliability. Both apps try to do very similar things. A second alternative, one which many Calisthenics practitioners will find appealing is Cali Move Mobility 2.0. The Cali Move Mobility 2.0 program is designed from its foundations to run parallel to a full-fledged Calisthenics program. That makes it a great competitor to any mobility app for us, if not the reigning champion altogether. With Cali Move after all, we don’t have to worry about toning down different workouts or how to pair them with our existing program.
Pliability vs. GOWOD
GOWOD is a direct competitor as another mobility app that is very stretch and static pose oriented. It is also more of a mobility program, focusing equally on those joints to make them stronger as well as stretching your muscles and keeping them supple. Finally, GOWOD has superior progression tracking with monthly mobility checks, which its algorithms will use to custom tailor the next month’s workout schedule.
Pliability vs. Cali Move Mobility 2.0
Cali Move Mobility 2.0 is the best Mobility App on the market and that value gets a markup when you add doing regular Calisthenics alongside it. With excellent exercises that are combined with excellent progressions, Cali Move can do anything Pliability can do without having to either opt out of Calisthenics exercises or Mobility exercises. Cali Move is also cheaper in the medium to long term. With all these and more points stacked in favor of Cali Move Mobility 2.0, we’re sticking with Cali Move.
10% off with our code: CWW10
Get it here:
7-Day Free Trial Included
Get it here:
Conclusions About Pliability and if it’s Worth it
A new sleek and industrial design with over 1000 exercises that appeal to a broad audience. The Pliability app is a huge improvement over the old ROMWOD, at least when you’re into Calisthenics. The exercises are very effective at increasing your range-of-motion while developing joint-strength and muscle strength throughout the whole motion. Being Yoga inspired, you can get very flexible using this app. What we’d like to see as a feature is a way to track our progress, and maybe automate the progression over time as we become more flexible. That shouldn’t impact the “no frills” esthetics of the app too much.
With all of that said, the Pliability app experiences stiff competition from the likes of Cali Move Mobility 2.0 and that will probably never change. Cali Move is for Calisthenics, while the Pliability app casts a very wide net. Is this rebranding a good thing, ultimately? You could say that ROMWOD used to cater 100% to CrossFit athletes and has since given up a part of that. What we got in return with Pliability has more appeal, but it’s not the 100% appeal to anyone ROMWOD had for CrossFit practitioners. It certainly is a trade off.
After using it for 2 weeks, we had to conclude that we simply can’t get our money’s worth out of our Pliability app experience. When you’re also following a Calisthenics Program, you have to manually tone down your exercises and opt out of too much of what makes the Pliability app worth it. If you’re in that situation as well, where you’re not only looking for a mobility app, then following a program that is meant to run parallel to Calisthenics or even weightlifting is the better decision. The best app for that is Cali Move Mobility 2.0.
10% off with our code: CWW10
Get it here:
Frequently Asked Questions about Pliability
A couple of additional questions raised from this Pliability review
The app is not free, but you can get a 7-day free trial.
It costs $17.95 a month or $14.99 when billed annually. There is a 7-day free trial preceding this.
ROMWOD was rebranded as Pliability in September of 2022. ROMWOD was focused on CrossFit and Yoga, while the new app caters to a wider audience and is more a Mobility App than a pure Yoga app.
Pliability has no starting requirements and with over 1000+ exercises (many of which are Yoga techniques), it is very suitable for beginners looking to get into Yin Yoga.
