The Key to Unlocking Your Potential
“Chest up”, “get low”, “keep your feet flat”, “don’t roll to your toes”, “back straight!” These are all cues you hear in the gym when performing a squat. Sometimes the client hears it and gets right into place, other times they make it worse and really risk injury. This is a big reason why at Incontrera Strength and Conditioning you have to “earn the right” to step under the bar. A lot of people do not have the ability to do a perfect squat or many of the movements that require weights right from the start. That doesn’t mean we fake it til you make it. It means we need to figure out the reason you can’t do this movement—and that reason is usually a lack of mobility.
What is Mobility?
There is a difference between mobility and flexibility. Flexibility is defined as “the ability of a muscle or muscle groups to lengthen passively through a range of motion,” while mobility is “the ability of a joint to move actively through a range of motion.” This means someone with good mobility can perform functional movement patterns with no restrictions in the range of motion of those movements. You need to be flexible to have good mobility, but being flexible is not everything. Great mobility will require core strength, balance, and coordination to perform the functional movements that a “flexible person” might not have. Going back to the squatting example, just because you can get low with a bodyweight squat does not mean you have the core strength, coordination, and balance to hold 100 pounds and do that same movement.
Why does this matter?
Obviously, mobility is important to everyone’s daily life - picking things up off the ground or getting up out of your chair, but how does it “unlock your potential” in the gym? The answer may seem simple but it’s something that not everyone takes seriously. If you can’t perform functional movement patterns, like squatting, through a full range of motion, then you can’t get everything out of the muscles you are trying to use. At this point you will likely overcompensate with other muscles, and that’s how injuries occur.
A common example I see in the gym is people with tight hip flexors. The way we sit at desks for school/work or the way we sit in a car, we are constantly tightening these muscles. When you go to squat and you try to keep your chest upright, it’s going to be very hard because your hip flexors won’t lengthen enough to allow that. What happens is you will push your butt back, bend your knees, and when told to get lower, you’ll push your butt back even more and bend at your hips bringing your chest to your knees. Your body literally does not have the ability to get into the bottom of a squat. You are now putting a ton of stress on your back and hamstrings, significantly increasing your risk of injury. When bringing that same lack of mobility onto the field or court and you will not be able to get into full extension when sprinting or jumping, you aren't able to strengthen the muscles you need to excel, and you are going to fall behind your peers who have good mobility and are getting the most out of every workout!
What is the solution?
The obvious solution to a lack of mobility is stretching, but it’s not exactly that simple. Before you stretch you want to do self-myofascial release (SMR) work, or foam rolling/ rolling on a lacrosse ball. Fascia is a film like substance that wraps around all of your muscles to reduce friction and support them— it’s like the sausage casing for a sausage link. Trying to stretch before loosening that up is like trying to stretch out an old, cold, chewed up piece of gum. It’s not going to work well.
After you roll, you can begin your stretch, but you want to do more dynamic stretching rather than static stretching. You want to prepare your body for the movements and type of exercise you are warming up for. This means you have to activate your shoulders, back, hips, and legs. Yoga is also a great solution to incorporate into your routine, as the connective tissues you want to keep mobile are closely related to the muscles you want to keep flexible.
And last but not least, we want to strengthen. We want to strengthen our core and the joints that need to stabilize our body when we get into these positions. There are regressions for every exercise in the gym so technically, we can still strengthen the body while improving our mobility.
For more information on how to roll out, stretch or use regressions to get stronger and improve your mobility, shoot me a message. We are constantly addressing these issues in the gym and we have found 101 ways to identify the issue and fix them when a movement is poorly executed.
Have a wonderful week!
- Coach Tom