Mobility Demystified
The term mobility is one that has fallen victim (like other useful words) to becoming a fitness buzzword that is often used when people don’t understand a certain movement “issue”, as a means of explaining the issue away;
“You need to work on your mobility bro..”
The above statement is rather useless without any direction on how to do so and unfortunately, ridiculously common. So what actually is mobility? Quite simple really;
Mobility is an individual’s ability to move.
Mobility works on a continuum (a continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, but the extremes are quite distinct) On one end of this continuum, is;
Flexibility, the ability of a joint(s) to move through a range of motion without the presence of opposing forces.
On the other end of said continuum is;
Stability, the ability of a joint(s) to access a certain range of motion with the presence of opposing forces.
This ability to move is subjective to the movement tasks the individual finds in front of them. For example, someone who practices yoga will need a larger amount of flexibility than your average person to access certain extended end ranges of motion. Whereas us powerlifters, will require more stability than your average person to be able to support massive loads placed on the body while moving through specific, quite easily accessed ranges of motion.
With all of this in mind, we’ll go back to the initial “bro” statement and further highlight how ridiculous it can be to just throw the term mobility at someone without having any mechanism for fixing this perceived issue.
Here’s an example of a typical mobility issue and potential fix;
Example athlete, has trouble with folding over in the squat to hit depth. Upon analysis of their squat, you notice their knees aren’t travelling forward much throughout the ROM. You have them perform an ankle flexibility test and the ankle joint has very limited ROM. You’ve just spotted an ankle flexibility issue. So now for a number of weeks, this person accesses the end ROM through dorsiflexion of the ankle in an isolated ankle flexibility exercise in combination with their squats. Over this number of weeks, the ankle joint ROM greatly improves and boom, their knees are travelling forward throughout the ROM and they’re no longer folding over.
“Here’s some practical advice on how to address this potential mobility issue bro..”
What mobility exercises should you be doing?
As I touched on above, this is entirely dependent on your individual circumstance. Sure you can throw shit at a wall and hope something sticks, by trying endless mobility exercises that insta-guru’s swear YOU HAVE TO BE DOING!!!! However it is extremely important that you aware, if something works for you, that has absolutely no bearing on the exercise’s efficacy for anyone else.
Well what about Prehab exercises?
Prehab, aims to prevent injuries before the occurrence. In the context of powerlifting, this can only be done if a movement issue is present and has been recognized by a coach, then certain corrective/preventative exercises can be assigned to address said issue (Assuming said coach has not fallen victim to movement pattern bias, the idea that there is one perfect movement pattern that all athletes should be achieving). If no movement issue is present, prehab by definition is impossible. As explained above, if you find yourself in the right spot on that mobility continuum, in that you train through efficient, consistent and repeatable movement patterns with no pain or sign of injury, keep doing what you’re doing!
If you have what you believe to be mobility issues and you’re at a loss with what to do about them, we would love to help! Click through to read more about our coaching options!