 Supercross, Motocross, & SMX Racer: Jeremy Hand Photo: Zachary C. Bako Joel YounkinsHigh Performance Coach We previously discussed stretching in last week's blog. We covered how stretching helps lengthen muscle fibers to relax and create more flexibility in the body. Mobility and flexibility are not mutually the same, even though many like to pair them together. Flexibility can help serve to improve mobility in certain instances, but mobility is actually a much more complex process than lengthening muscle fibers in stretching.
Mobility is the degree and function of range of motion specific to each joint of the body. The human body is made up of different types of joints that perform and function in specific ways to create efficiency, strength, and endurance in the human body. When one or more joints is not functioning as the body is designed, it will begin to compromise the quality of movement that we wish to have. We're going to cover what mobility is, how to improve it, and how it relates specifically to motocross and off-road racing here in this blog. What is Mobility If you do a quick search on any social media platform, you're going to find endless mobility drills. A lot of them will be great exercises, and some not so great. But nevertheless, you will find a lot of tools in the toolbox to enhance or fix mobility problems throughout the body. I have my own specific mobility exercises too, but it's one of those things, don't fix it if it's not broken. Beyond just plugging in exercises for problem areas, we're going to go much deeper than showing you a couple mobility exercises for your tight shoulders. Each joint of the human body has a degree of range of motion that it likes to be able to reach. Our body operates by a joint-by-joint approach to systematically work together. In theory and application, we call this the kinetic chain. Certain joints like to be more mobile like the ankles, hips, shoulders, wrists, and cervical (can include thoracic too) spine. Other joints perform better based on a stable environment like the knees, lumbar spine, and elbows. You have joints all over your body even your face and skull. There are different types of joints in the body (we won't get into those details), but all joints require a certain degree of range of motion and stability within each joint. When you lose either stability or range of motion, this is when dysfunction kicks in, and your mobility suffers. Your joints work in unison with each other. For example, tight hips can cause low back pain or knee pain, depending on all that's going on. This is where having a good understanding of biomechanics and a good coach/therapist can usually walk you right out of the problem. It can be tricky to solve on your own by simply throwing internet exercises at it. Later on, I will attempt to give you some quick and fast advice to solve any issues on your own. The main goal of mobility, is that each joint is working and performing as it should, based on your bio-mechanical makeup. If there is dysfunction in a joint, there are many ways to improve it, ultimately leading ourselves back to the brain to signal that the joint is performing as it should and to release any pain or tightness involved. How to Improve Mobility There are many ways to improve mobility. Sometimes you can play the short game or you need to play the long game to improve upon it. Again, it's really a case-by-case situation. That's why just knowing a bunch of cool mobility drills from the internet is usually not enough. You have to look at things from far away. Oftentimes, the pain you feel in a joint (if it's not a localized injury), is being caused from a problem elsewhere. Attempt #1: The low hanging fruit to improve mobility in short acute problems can be muscle work like stretching and massaging the right muscles to release pressure on a joint. This can take a couple minutes or a couple days to fix if this is the problem. For example, many people experience knee pain and they think something is wrong with their knee. But because their quad muscles are dense and tight, the tightening forces from the insertion of the muscle are yanking on the joint causing pain there. Spend some time massage and stretching those muscles, and boom, knee pain is all gone. Attempt #2: Another way is to figure out if the joint is lacking mobility or stability. This gets to be more tricky and this is the proper time to introduce specific exercise modalities for specific problems. If you have a range of motion issue that's not related to pain holding you back, and the joint is simply tight, than you want to attack it first with specific mobility drills. If that's not fixing the issue, than there's most likely a lack of strength and stability that the body is not allowing for free range of motion. Improve the strength and stability of a joint, and you will get more range of motion out of it. Realization: Sometimes, depending on your genetic and structural makeup, the way your joint is designed, you may not ever be able to be as mobile as other people. For example, some people have deep hip sockets whereas others have shallow hip sockets. Deeper hip sockets won't allow for the degree of range of motion than a shallower joint would. So from a genetic standpoint, mobility (range of motion) can simply either be increased or decreased person to person based on your structural skeletal system. Proactive Approach: However, beyond your genetics, in my professional opinion the best way to improve mobility is with a proper training program to get the most out of your window of mobility performance. This will both fix and cleanup most minor issues in the body (not including chronic problems). But with a proper warm up that includes full range of motion and including activation of specific muscle groups, this gets and keeps your body moving properly. When you participate in the full range of motion strength training exercises, you train your body in a way to move in the way that it's suppose to. Each joint is trained to do the job it's meant to be doing. Strength training isn't just for building muscle and strength, it's for building neurological coordination and timing (brain/CNS function). When this is achieved with a proper warm up and a strength training plan covering all movement patterns, 90% or more of your mobility issues begin to dissipate and you avoid them altogether in a perfect world. The Hidden Gem: Lastly, everyone misses this, but proper and regular recovery protocols can drastically reduce mobility issues in the body. When your body is in a chronic state of stress, or you're not hydrating, refueling, or resting yourself, it places bio-energetic strain on the body. Meaning the quality of your soft tissues begin to get stressed and tight which leads to poor function. Systemically when the body can properly rest and recover, so do those same tissues that will allow better quality tissues which will lead to better quality of movement. Mobility for Motocross Lets now talk about how all this relates to motocross and off-road racing. I have a wide background in sport performance. I have worked with all team sport athletes in the past, including MMA fighters, and endurance athletes. Out of all my experience, dirt bike and quad racers are nowhere near the top of the list of athletes who require significant range of motion to compete in their sport. Don't fight me, but it's true. I've seen numerous racers who had things like a frozen shoulder and can't lift their arm up to touch their head, but can absolutely shred on a dirt bike because they can get their arm just high enough to reach their handlebars (not that I'm saying this is all good). Think about each limb of your body and what you ask it to do in regards to the range of motion needed on a bike. You don't ever get into a full deep squat at any time. Hard Enduro racers need to have the most mobility in the forms of racing just due to the nature of what they ride on and having their legs out on rocks in these awkward ravines and rock gardens. But the range of motion needed for a dirt bike or quad racer, compares nothing to say what an MMA fighter would need for their ground game as their body would be all contorted. This doesn't mean mobility is not important. But for context, you only need to be so mobile to be good enough to ride your best at the end of the day. Now don't swipe out of this blog just yet, I still have some good stuff for you! Motocross and off-road racing is a sport that requires a specific range of motion, but it's never in excess beyond what most general athletes need. Therefore, mobility shouldn't be the highest fitness ability that you're concerned with. I would be more keen to advise you to keep proper mobility to enhance the quality of your off bike training. I've seen poor mobility from racers hold themselves back in the physical preparation more so than I've ever seen them hold it back on the bike performance. Ask yourself these two questions... Do you have any mobility issues that hold you back on your bike? If yes, work on improving them immediately. Do you have any mobility issues, but they don't hold you back on your bike? Work on them to improve the quality of your life and off the bike performance in a general standpoint. The general improvements will most likely have an added benefit down the road for your on the bike performance. If you answered no to either of these two questions, you're in a good place. Keep training hard, training with full range of motion, keep up with basic stretching exercises, but at this point there's really no need to drastically enhance any mobility. Joints that are strong and stable in the full range of motion, are much better to have than joints that are hyper mobile and unstable.
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