Mobility vs Flexibility: which will help your performance?
Activity time: get out of your chair and reach down to try and touch your toes. 1 point if you touch your toes, 2 points if you touch your toes without bending your knees. Try it, I’ll wait….
Ok. How did that feel? Were the back of your legs extremely tight? Did you feel a twinge in your low back? DId you say to yourself, “Wowza, I am so INFLEXIBLE…?” If any of these came to mind, this week’s email is for you.
Flexibility: Being able to “shapeshift”, touch your toes, have your joints move freely with ease.
Mobility: Being able to move your body through full range of motion, AND do so strongly.
There is a difference between being able to only touch your toes (flexibility), and being able to go into a deep squat, where your butt almost touches the ground, your knees go in front of your toes, your ankles are fully flexed and your back is not rounded forward (mobility). The second example is what most people need to focus on, while the first one is what people try and get better at. Flexibility is good, but in most cases, it is not the ideal it is made out to be. Mobility, on the other hand, can help improve back pain, sports performance, your ability to keep up with your kids or grandkids, and even just helping to keep away joint pain. Interested in working on your mobility? Work on these steps.
Prioritize having a 5-10 minute mobility flow most (or every) day. This can look like a warmup or cooldown at the gym, a power yoga flow, or trying out different functional patterns. Focusing on movement patterns instead of static stretches (like we were all taught in highschool PE) will help our body move better and be stronger doing it. Static stretching only helps us gain a couple inches in flexibility.
-Don’t know what functional patterns are, or, you aren’t a very creative soul? I will link my favorite mobility Instagram page below.
Focus on the mobility of your hips, ankles, and upper back. These are usually the 3 areas where most people will have the least amount of mobility, and this leads to low back pain, ankle sprains, a back that feels like a literal boulder (not good), and less than ideal movement performance. In the coming days, I will be posting a circuit you can do (at home or in your gym) that prioritizes these three areas. Follow us on Instagram to see that.
With mobility, you can turn anything from a warmup to a workout, by simply adding weight to it. By adding weight, it challenges our bodies to be strong through a full range of motion. Even a small amount of weight can make it challenging. But that's the best part: you don’t have to be an elite weightlifter to see elite results.
3a. Adding weight can also help make mobility movements easier. By adding weight, our body will be drawn down by gravity and the added weight. This can help us get more mobile, faster.
Interested in learning more about ways you can be more mobile, recover faster, and have a better way of living and keeping up with your health goals? We would love to have that conversation with you. Reach out with any questions you have!
I hope you now have some tools in your arsenal to start tackling your mobility goals, because mobility truly is one of the core foundations of a healthy lifestyle. Have a great day!
-Dr. Kevin
