 Joel YounkinsPhysical Preparation Coach Did you know that the fitness abilities of mobility and flexibility are not really the same thing? Mobility is the range of motion of your joints.
Flexibility is the ability for your muscles to relax and lengthen.
A lot of people get these two things confused often. Just think, mobility is range of motion in your joints, while flexibility is the ability for your muscles to lengthen. So, what does this all mean for you? Well, it can mean a lot of things fortunately/unfortunately... There's a lot of ways to interpret whether you need to improve mobility/flexibility. There's many opinions (professional and unprofessional) surrounding this topic as well. In this blog, I'm going to simplify some things for you to determine if this is a big area of concern or not. First off, we need to identify what your life/sport looks like. What sort of human movements do you need to perform on a daily basis. Identify all of the movements that you need to be able to perform. If you come across a certain movement that you cannot fully perform with ease, then you most likely have a mobility/flexibility issue that needs improved. If you can actively perform all of the movement patterns efficiently without disruption in function (or doesn't impact your quality of life/cause pain), then boom, you're in a good spot and I wouldn't be losing any sleep about improving mobility/flexibility fitness. The reality is however, that there is almost always something that you can improve on in most people, whether you yourself believe so or not. But what's also important to know, is that not everyone/every joint/muscle needs to be hyper mobile and flexible nor should be. A lot of people like to just assume, more flexibility the better. And in a lot of cases, that's even worse than being a little too tight! Another reality is that, increasing flexibility does not decrease the chance of injuries happening. You will get much more injury prevention from proper strength training and proper conditioning than you will even get from stretching. A lot of people really believe this in the sports world and it's just not true. Extreme tightness that causes high loads of dysfunction, yeah you'll run into problems eventually, but you can't out stretch injuries from happening... Certain joints are built for stability in your body, like your knees and elbows. Yes they need to have a full range of motion, but anything beyond that range of motion can cause high levels of instability when in fact they need to be stability. The same goes for even mobility joints like you hips and shoulders. In many different cases, hyper mobile joints that lack stability are a recipe for disaster, it's like having a joint built out of soft clay. So, stretching and mobility is really a case by case situation if you want to get super picky about the details. Now, I know I said I was going to keep things simple, but let blow your mind real quick... What I have learned and witnessed more times than I can recall or count, is that mobility and flexibility BOTH heavily improve when weakness is the cause of tightness in either muscles or joints. How about that?! So, thinking back to the nervous system and how it's so integrated into our bodies, if a joint is weak and lacking stability, or a muscle is weaker than the surrounding muscles, your nervous system will tighten that area up. Why does it do that? Remember how I said that the bodies main goal is survival? Well that's the bodies way of keeping itself safe. It tightens you up because it recognizes weakness in the body. Add some strength and stability to that region, and you'll start noticing increased ranges of motion and the muscles being able to stretch! Pretty crazy right?! Some people spend years (sometimes most of their life) stretching something to only find out it was weak in the first place :( So now you're probably like "this is so cool, but now 'm also really confused! Do I stretch or just get strong?" Don't worry, you just need to take in everything that I've said to this point to digest it and think about your own life. Key words, think about it... And next, just start taking action on the action steps I'm going to leave you with today. If you can follow these guidelines below, and actually take action on them, you find that a lot of stiffness and range of motion issues will begin to dissipate for you. Again, like all things in training, it's super critical to understand that everything is a case by case situation. Some of you reading this may need to just get some blood flowing, hit some good range of motion, and activating some muscles, while others may need to go find a good physical therapist re-correct and remodel some soft tissue. It always depends situation, but this list below will either help you fix any issues or if it doesn't you may need some more specific work by either a PT or a Trainer/Coach depending on what's going on! Mobility/Flexibility Action Steps
When you're ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:
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