5 Mobility Tips For Better Movement

Mobility is your ability to move by producing force through ranges of motion at a joint, limited by your ability at the hard-to-reach end ranges (extremely short and extremely long muscle lengths).

So mobility training is a combination of flexibility work and strengthening work to both increase the available range, and then to learn to create force throughout that range.

Mobility training ISN'T your warm-up or cool down. It HAS to receive dedicated training time to improve, and 2 minutes pre-or post session won't cut it.

So I'm going to help you understand how you build mobility training into your sessions for best results with 5 key tips learnt from 4 years of being a Functional Range Conditioning Movement Specialist (FRCms).

I've applied the knowledge and skills from that certificate week in week while coaching clients and building effective movement work into their strength and conditioning training. Now I'm helping you do the same.

1. Train Using Full Range Of Motion

Someone a LOT smarter than me said:

"The best corrective exercises are just exercises done correctly"

Wow. I can only dream of being that coherent and concise. They're 100% right.

I created this infographic for my Instagram to help show the impact of full rage or partial range lifting on your future mobility. It's really a case of use it or lose it when it comes to mobility. You get better at what you repeatedly do, and worse at what you don't do.

If you only focus on the middle ranges where you can generate most force (half squats/above the knee RDLs/presses and rows that don't met the body), you only strengthen those same mid ranges.

The end ranges of really short on the closing side and really long on the lengthening side of a joint go neglected, get weaker, and eventually become inaccessible as you literally haven't trained yourself to produce force there.

So take your joints full your fullest ranges of motion every week. It doesn't need to be every single exercise, but if you can't quite back squat below parallel I'd make sure you do have a full range goblet squat in your training week to make up for it at least.

2. Passive Stretch For 2 Minutes

Passive stretching is your traditional long hold stretch that "lengthens" your muscles.

I say "lengthen" as that's not really what's happening, it's just the same principle of getting better at what you repeatedly do.

By spending more time in a extended range of motion, your body gets more comfortable with the idea of that range, and lets you relax and ease into that shape.

The key part of this is "more time". A 20-30 second stretch won't make much difference.

Aim for 2 minutes. Every second up to the 2 minute mark will deliver greater benefits. By the 2 minute mark, you'll have got 80-90% of the gains, and to get the remaining benefit you're going to need to hang around there for a LOT longer.

So 2 minutes is the sweet spot before diminishing returns kick in to open up a really tight and troublesome range of motion.

3. Use Loaded Stretching

Some weight training movements really lend themselves to finding end ranges of motion, and we can use them as loaded stretches which combine a passive stretch and isometric hold.

Isometrics have been proven to create increased strength up to 15 degrees either side of of the held position. This is HUGE for opening up new ranges that you can control.

So, if you hold and isometric at the end of your current range, you're potentially strengthening the next 15 degrees which you'll be able to start using a little more next session.

Think of a Romanian Deadlift that takes your hamstrings to their end range of motion (you feel the stretch in the back of your thighs at the bottom). Same for a pec fly. Same again for a dumbbell pullover.

Using movements like these we can really stretch AND strengthen muscles at the same time, creating that potential mobility increase.

Use lighter loads alongside a slow tempo like a 5 second lower, 5 second pause, 1 second concentric and 1 second reset and you'll likely see your mobility improve quickly.

4. Use New Ranges QUICKLY

There is no point stretching for 2 minutes and opening up a new range of motion if you don't train it and strengthen it quickly. It'll just "tighten" back up again after a few minutes and you'll make no progress.

(Sound like your mobility training up to this point...?)

When building mobility into your training, you need to keep the stretches relevant to your strength work.

So super-setting something like a hip flexor stretch (front of hip length), with a hip extension lift (rear of hip strength), teaches your body how to push into this newly acquired lengthened range.

This builds a connection between the brain and the muscles, letting your body know that it CAN move itself into this new range safely. When it knows this, you own it.

5. Remember Rotation

All joints rotate. Even the ones you don't think do, do.

Shoulders, wrists, hips, ankles, spine, knees, elbows. They're all designed to rotate to a degree. some more than others.

The big thing with this is that when it comes to mobility, we often only think of joints as hinges. How far can I flex my knee? How far can I extend my hip?.

Then we think our shoulder mobility is bad as we struggle to put our arms overhead for presses, and we think our hip mobility is bad as we round our backs in the bottom of a squat.

But what we often don't realise is that we suck at rotating those joints as well, and if you learn to rotate them a lot of things get a lot easier.

Your shoulders need to rotate to press a barbell overhead. Your hips need to rotate to sit into a squat.

Improve your rotation and you'll extremely likely improve your flexion and extension too. It's the biggest bang for buck mobility improvement you can make.

Ian.