Mobility requires strength.
It also requires motor control.
Get those two elements right and mobility training becomes child’s play.
And that is a great term for it, Child’s Play.
Not to belittle it or its importance, but because kids are born “floppy” and a large part of the early years is spent developing the strength and motor control.
As adults, we often have the opposite problem, we’re tight and stiff rather than floppy. But we are still dealing with strength and motor control issues, just from a different perspective.
WHen we talk about mobility, we’re talking about controlled, graceful movement.
Think cat like.
Think of your favourite martial artist, gymnast, dancer
What we don’t mean is that floppy flexibility often seen in Tae Kwon Do and some Yoga styles.
Remember, we spent the first year of our lives moving away from floppy……
Mobility is control, it is stability in motion.
And for this to happen, we must have muscular strength available through the complete range. We must have the motor control to fire the muscles appropriately and the relax the muscles appropriately.
One method that has been around in the martial arts and acrobatics circles since day dot has recently become popularised again through the work of Andreo Spina and his bendy buddy, the legendary Hunter Cook.
If you haven’t watched Hunter in action, you’re in for a treat…
A post shared by Hunter Cook (@hunterfitness) on Sep 21, 2018 at 6:29pm PDT
We’re talking about Lift Offs.
Here’s the idea, assume a position close to the one you’re trying to achieve. Lets say, as in the case of my muse for this post, you’re a Kettlebell Lifter who wants a better overhead position, so we get down into a childs pose but with our hands propped up onto an elevation. I use a punch bag laid down, you may use a foam roller or a bench……
The legend that is Kimberly Fox on her way to 66 reps of double 24kg Long Cycle
Push the chest towards the floor and feel that stretch as the thoracic extends and the arms are pushed towards the overhead. Now release that stretch until you’re around 10% away from your max end range (not exactly 10%, no need to get out a goniometer…….)
Now the magic, keeping the arm locked straight, lift it off the elevation. Try to hold for a second and lower it back. Do this a number of times, there is no magic number, just go until the control improves, the range increases, you feel muscles activating / warming up.
(I didn’t get a video yesterday, but I found this one, it’s the same stuff…)
Now retest that stretch, has it improved. Now get up and test your position, again in my example, grab a couple of kettlebells and jerk them overhead.
Has it improved?
If yes, then congratulations, you have increased your mobility by simply adding strength and motor control to your end range.
If it hasn’t, then there could be something else that needs dealt with, could be time for an assessment.
Try this with your foot on a ledge if you’re a kicker looking to kick higher. Try this in a straddle lifting one or both legs off the floor.
There’s an endless number of ways to play with this, but very often less is more. Pick one, maybe two areas you want to improve and focus there. This should be a very small area of the training, part of the warm up. Unless you’re looking for contortionist levels of flexibility that is….
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