Day 5: Mobility & Flexibility
Mobility refers to the strength in the range of motion of the muscle—flexibility, which refers to how big the range is an obvious variable. My excessively bendy friends will probably disagree, but for most people, being flexible enough to have great mobility is enough, and any more is unnecessary.
A challenge for you
Stand with feet together, with toes and heels firmly flat on the floor; now sit down (squat) as low as you can go without falling over. Spend a minute down there and then stand up. If that is too hard, modify it by placing your feet wider apart. You should be able to do this, as it’s what the human body CAN do without years of movement dysfunction and tightness.
I see mobility training as more about regaining normal function as opposed to doing high-level gymnastics drills. But guess what (and I can talk from experience, having just taken up gymnastics six months ago), when you add extra mobility drills to your weekly regime, everything hurts less! And more interesting movements. Body positions and party tricks become available to you.
Aside from the hip and ankle mobility test I just gave you, pay attention to the mobility of the spine and shoulders, particularly as a part of your general warm.
Mobility Educators
I’m a big fan of Gray Cooks joint by joint approach (see below), which basically breaks down the body’s major joints to their main job, which is to either promote mobility or stability.
All of Grey Cook’s work is solid, and his book: Athletic Body In Balance is worth studying. However, my go-to educator in this field would Dr Kelly Starrett. I’ve done some of his courses, and he’s phenomenal. His book ‘Becoming a Supple Leopard’ is by far the best book I’ve read on mobility, and I can’t recommend it enough.
The limits of this course
There are many books, academic papers, qualifications and experts who have dedicated their entire careers to mere elements of each one of the athletic pillars, so obviously, all I offer on this course is a little taste. If you are into fitness and training, please at least please check out some free youtube lectures from Gray Cook or Kelly Starrett… this will probably lead you down a rabbit hole of the mobility and movement training subculture. You’ll end up watching hours of videos with Erwan Le Corre and Ido Portal, and many other impressive humans showing you what the body can do when you are focused a bit more on mobility training.
My Mobility Prescription
Dramatic improvements in mobility take time… so you may as well start now! The least you should do is 5 minutes of mobility work per day as the main component of your warm-up routine. Once that is a habit, then doing separate days of pure mobility work or adding mobility into the strength and/or skills pillar is a good idea. For example, doing a full-range close grip supinated (palms in) Pull Up develops strength in the biceps and shoulder and improves shoulder mobility. Another good example is the Muay Thai Slashing Elbow strike. Doing this will improve your combat skills AND both your shoulder & spinal mobility. Let me show you what I mean…
Flexibility
While, in my professional opinion, mobility is far more important than flexibility – that doesn’t mean you should never stretch! Static stretching, Hatha Yoga and PNF stretching are all very effective cures for tightness. If you love stretching and feel flexibility is vital, you probably won’t like how short this section is! The simple truth is you need to be super flexible for athletic performance or health, but if you stretch correctly (e.g. when doing static stretching, holding the stretch for 45-90 seconds and maintaining an unpleasant intensity throughout – then you’ll feel/see a dramatic improvement with a few days. And if you want to do the splits, then in my experience, and this is purely anecdotal evidence! – pretty much any young woman can get there within six months, and most men within a year – if you do one hour a day of hamstring, lower back, glute, and hip stretches.