Mobility Matters
Mobility in itself is, in my opinion, an incredibly misunderstood part of the performance equation, and also an absolutely crucial element to maintaining and improving tissue and joint health. The point of this blog post is to give you an overview of what exactly mobility is, and equally as importantly, what it isn’t.
We’ll outline a framework for assessing your joint health, both in isolation, and as part of an integrated system. Finding out what is comfortably lengthening, and shortening, and where your limits lie, is integral to minimising your injury occurrence, and helping you to move better, more effectively, and pain free.
Being flexible, i.e., being able to achieve long tissue lengths and ranges of motion, without appropriate strength and control in said range, may well be detrimental and potentially dangerous for your health and performance.
Flexibility right? You might be thinking that flexibility and mobility are synonymous with one another and essentially mean the same thing. In fact, there’s a clear distinction, and in the majority of cases, one is far more advantageous than the other. Flexibility, is a term that refers to the passive accessible range of motion of a joint or tissue can access. Mobility, on the other hand, refers to the passive control of range that a joint or tissue can access. The difference may seem insignificant, but I can assure you otherwise. Being flexible, i.e., being able to achieve long tissue lengths and ranges of motion, without appropriate strength and control in said range, may well be detrimental and potentially dangerous for your health and performance.
Example - you have done a lot of static stretching practice, and now have great flexibility in your hamstrings. You’re finally able to touch your toes, and get into the box splits. However, you’ve never learnt to load and control that range - now, when out on the court, or grappling on the mat, you seamlessly slip into that tissue length that you’ve worked so hard to develop, BUT are exposed to high force, rapidly, in that position. I’m sure you can see that this is something of a recipe for disaster.
I’m not slamming flexibility. If you’re a member of the general public, not partaking in sport, and just want to improve your general wellbeing and ability to move around the home, then by all means - improving tissue health and access to range isn’t poisonous - but in the sporting arena, mobility is key, and control is crucial.
Testing Mobility
So, putting your mobility to the test extends beyond just trying to touch your toes, or see how much you can flex your spine. Instead, to get a greater idea of where our limitations lie, we need to explore our movement through relevant motion, in various planes of movements. Generally, my personal approach is to give whole body, compound tasks, that potentially identify where the “leaky spots” may well be. To heed the hunch, we can then look at isolating joints and specific tissue to get a handle on precisely where these restrictions may occur.
Are they coming for a structural or anthropometric limitation? Are we seeing a pelvis that is tilted excessively in a resting position? Or a femur that is externally rotated to a degree that affects gait symmetry, and consequently the loading of all walking/running patterns on the torso and limbs? Maybe it’s an inability to access stable, active pronation at the foot and ankle - which in turn may be contributing to pain and stiffness further up the chain…
The possibilities are genuinely endless, and the effect of a single poorly functioning joint or tissue can have significant knock on effects to the rest of the body. Believe it or not, that nagging shoulder injury you’ve been carrying for years can easily be a result of a dysfunctional walking gait and a poor and neglected relationship between your pelvis and lower spine.
A staple in my personal testing assessment of athletes and clients, is the overhead squat (just one of the tools in the screening toolbox). Although this only really provides exploration of movement in a single plane, it allows us to get a handle on joints and tissues interact through flexion and extension - and with assessment and adjustment, it can be easy to identify where restrictions lie and where a lack of mobility is getting in your way.
MMA Champion and PRPerformance Athlete Rhi Rhi Hudson assessing passive range through various patterns
You may think this has nothing to do with your sport, “I never hit an overhead squat out on the football pitch, or in the boxing ring”. And whilst that is inevitably true, the chaotic nature of sport constantly challenges our joints and tissues in new and novel ways, and if there is a deficiency in your squat pattern (which is essentially a global assessment of your ability to co-ordinate and navigate flexion and extension), it is almost guaranteed to be dripping into your running/walking pattern.
Developing Mobility
So, now we have a better of what mobility is, and that there are ways of assessing where discrepancies are apparent - we can now start to formulate a plan to address such road-blocks, and make some meaningful changes. When we think of how a tissue (be it muscle, tendon etc) works - it’s good to have an understanding of the length tension relationship.
Graphic illustrating the relationship between muscle length (dictated by joint angles) and the relative amount of muscle force. Taken from Complete Sports Care
This is a rather basic illustration, but what it does give us, is an understanding that nearly all tissues operate at their best in when at their resting length. Although force development is important, that’s not what we’re talking about here. What mobility develops is the amount of force that can be produced at either side of the peak, as well as increasing the breadth of the curve.
Staying on the pitch, court, or stage, is more important than staying in the gym
Being able to control and apply high amounts of force through a broader range is not only massively beneficial for performance, potentially giving you an advantage over your opponent in the moments that matter, but it also gives you protection, and staying on the pitch, court, or stage, is more important than staying in the gym. Appropriately developed mobility, improves articular stability, improves control in “abnormal” ranges, and translates into your body’s ability to remain agile - appropriately adjusting to the demands of the task ask they present themselves in sport, with a decreased risk for injury.
So how do we actually develop it? There are multiple methods, but principles are few. Rules of progressive overload still apply, and these things take time. Don’t go chasing quick fixes and miracle stretches that are going to get you to where you want to be, instead, commit to the process and stick to the plan.
Although working in joint specific ranges is important, particularly for rate of force development properties, and general force development (half squats, high box squats, deadlifting from blocks etc, all 100% have their place in the programme) to increase mobility, one of the best things you can do is start resistance training through full accessible range. Manipulate tempo accordingly to spend time in the positions you’re weakest, and expose your tissue to tasks of force production in what may seem like “compromised positions”. Examples:
Paused Back Squats or 1 and a Quarter Repetitions: Spend time loaded in positions where muscles are either at their longest, or shortest accessible range, and focus on controlling and generating tension appropriately. Or add a quarter rep in the position you’re generally weakest - e.g. in a bench press, Lower down through full range, pause, complete a quarter of the pressing distance, before lowering back to the bottom, and then completing full extension.
Increase the range accessible: Completing deadlifts whilst standing on a small platform box, or completing your split squats with each foot raised and space in between, are quick and easy wins in terms of increasing the range by eliminating the stopping point (the floor in this case). Just bare in mind that the load used then needs to follow inversely - lighter loads as you get accustomed to the newly loaded range.
Two simple concepts, and rather easy to implement methods that I’m sure many of you are already utilising. But this is just a start point. In recent years, there has (rightly) been a growth in the use of FRS or Functional Range Systems, as a training method to enhance mobility. Although it may not look like it, it is certainly real strength training that will give you visible, and tangible results, from quite early on in it’s use.
The FRS Umbrella, “FRC”, CARs, Kinstetch, and ENG. I am by no means going to proclaim to being the lead voice when it comes to the use of FRS (Functional Range Systems), and its encompassed training methods (I would however recommend following Sam Bacon and Dr. Ailish McLaughlin on Instagram if you want some useful tips on it’s implementation, as well as Dr Andreo Spina, the “kingpin” of FRS) . There are much more qualified and educated practitioners than myself in this area , but that said there are principles and methods that I apply with nearly every athlete I work with. It governs an evidence based and systematic approach to human movement, joint training, and mobility, that hinges on the very essence of what mobility training is; developing, creating and controlling usable range of motion.
A lot of positions that we are unable to get into from a mobility perspective, aren’t necessarily because of an architectural issue. Instead, they are actually inaccessible due to “neurological safeguards” . Functions of the brain that halt movement as a protective mechanism, keeping you away from positions that are perceived as threatening.
So how can we develop mobility, using these methods. FRS warrants an entire post in itself, perhaps multiple, but I’m going to mention a couple bits now as nuggets to take away and get to work on. There is a convergence within the literature that suggest we have 10-15 degrees more of passive range of motion than what our nervous system will allow us to access. The brain slams the brakes as we approach what it deems risky territory. And so, building capacity, can start at 10-15 degrees of maximum active range, i.e. take a step back, 10-15 degrees short of where a specific joint is giving you grief, and rebuild control from there.
Think of your joints as a compass, the more ground they can cover, the more area your body can explore.
Second and final nugget, would be the implementation of CARs, or circular articular rotations. Utilising CARs enables joint health to be developed and maintained via regular exposure to the limiting range of each individual joint. Increased exposure to these ranges, greases the grooves and increases familiarity with the range your joint capsule has access to. I appreciate these may seem vague, but my advice if this sounds interesting, would be to dig a little deeper, and start taking small steps towards more free and controlled movement.
PRPerformance offers bespoke online, remote, and face-to-face programming support to a variety of athletes to help them maximise their performance and take their game to the next level. Whether it’s nutrition, strength & conditioning, or health and wellbeing, PRPerformance can assure you that there is progress to be made. Be sure to follow on twitter and Instagram to stay updated on the latest news and blog posts, as well as the sharing of resources and valuable insight. There’s loads more to come and I am excited about where we are heading. Start the conversation today.
Thanks for reading,
Paul
