Mobility is a topic that comes up a lot for lifters, and I’d like to give some info on why it is important, and how to incorporate mobility training into your lifting. Before we dig in, let’s talk about what mobility is! Often mobility is used interchangeably with flexibility and they are actually different things. Flexibility is the ability of a muscle or muscle group to passively lengthen through a range of motion. Static stretching is often used to improve and assess flexibility. Static stretches are things like touching your toes, or holding a straddle split. Mobility is the ability to move actively through a range of motion with control. This involves some flexibility, but also the strength to control the movement. Things like controlled articular rotations (CARs) can be used to assess and train mobility, as can any of your lifts.
If you find that in certain lifts, you get stuck, you could be hitting the end range of your mobility. An interesting thing is that your body will often try to compensate for a lack of mobility in one part by sacrificing stability elsewhere. For example, if your hamstrings are too tight to achieve a full depth squat, your body may compensate for this tightness by rounding through the low back.
So how much mobility work should you be doing? As much as necessary, as little as possible. If your goal is strength, you don’t want to spend 30 minutes a day doing mobility work. You do what you need to to improve overall functioning, and make your lifts go well. Do what is necessary for you to move through your life well. If you super love mobility work, and want to do it for half an hour every day, knock your socks off, but that isn’t necessary for most folks.
Research suggests that static stretching does not reduce injury risk, but mobility work might. Dynamic movements that help your body express it’s full range of motion have some evidence to support power improvements. Our LIFT programs have mobility work built in, including some progressions that help you maintain your longevity in lifting, build functional strength, and achieve better range of motion.
Mobility work can be done in your warmup, and dynamic stretches are great for a warmup that also helps with mobility. Things like leg swings, shoulder CARs, torso rotations are all good warmup movements that help you improve your mobility.
You can also use movement specific actions to prep for your lifts. For example, on squat day, it may be helpful to hit some extra deep bodyweight squats, maybe even experimenting with some side to side movement in the bottom of the squat to really prepare your body for the full range of motion. This can generally be done with just bodyweight, but there are also some really cool ways to add bands or kettlebells to these kinds of movements to adjust the challenge level, and to give a little variety.
While the stereotype of a person who lifts might be that we’re all walking around stiff as hell all the time, it’s actually important for both living your best life and also doing your best lifts that you have decent mobility! You don’t need to be able to fold yourself into a pretzel, but there are minimum mobility requirements for certain lifts.
