When I first started in the industry, the term used was flexibility, which has since started to evolve into the term mobility.
So what does it mean and how are they different?
Where flexibility may have been the ability to access a range of motion passively (assisted), mobility refers more to ‘active’ range of motion. That being the range you can move through without assistance.
For us, mobility is the ability to move freely, and we believe that is the corner stone of performance. If we can move well, everything becomes easier. Getting strong is not complicated. It’s easy to get faster. If…we have movement options.
As soon as we lose the ability to move freely, we start to force the brain to find compensatory or secondary movement options. This is true for shoulder performance too.
Let’s take an overhead position for example. If we can’t get the shoulders into a good shape, the brain will simply help us to position that bar overhead by extending the spine. That is going to have a knock-on effect in terms of quality of movement, loading potential, and potentially an elevated risk of injury.
So, in short, if the brain has more movement options it can therefore select option A, as opposed to having to go to option B, C or D.
Where intensity and ‘grind’ has become the focus, fewer people seem to be investing enough time in moving better. Despite the fact that strength becomes redundant if you can’t move.
METHODS MATTER LESS THAN YOU THINK
After many years of trying multiple mobility and flexibility methods with athletes and clients, we’ve concluded that methods matter less than what we think.
The industry for a time was full of chat about whether it’s static stretching, active stretching, dynamic stretching… is it PAILS, RAILS or CARS.
Whilst there are certain tools that fit better into certain scenarios, ultimately, it’s way simpler than what a lot of people will want you to think.
You need to move.
THE PRINCIPLES OF MOBILITY
“As to methods, there may be a million and then some. But principles are few. The person who grasps principles can successfully select their own methods.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
If we can understand the principles of mobility, particularly around the shoulder, then it matters less which exact methods we use.
Our top 3 principles to think about when it comes to training the shoulder:
Take a chain approach – don’t take a reductionist approach to your shoulder mobility. Think about how the whole kinetic chain, the whole human movement system is interacting to enable the body to move through different ranges, positions and patterns.
Respect the anatomy – unless we understand the anatomy of the shoulder, we are always going to struggle to understand why it’s so important that we train mobility in a certain way.
Move more – we’ve become extremely sedentary and even those who train a lot, train in very consistent, monotonous and sometimes single dimensional or single plane motions. Most of our training will happen in the sagittal plane; horizontal push, pull, press. The shoulder is designed for mobility; move more, in more ways, more often.
For a full break-down and explanation of the principles for shoulder mobility, you can watch our recorded webinar, available on-demand.
WEBINAR: How to improve shoulder mobility
Have you got poor shoulder mobility? Struggling through overhead squats and snatches with pain or keeping the bar in a good position. This one is for you. In this free webinar, Tim talks through ways to improve your range of motion at the shoulder.
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