Mobility: The Missing Component In Your Fitness Routine

Lets first define what mobility is. Mobility is defined as the ability to move or be moved freely and easily.

This is interesting right! Dont most of us want to be able to move freely and easily? But lets expand on this a bit. Lets also define flexibility. Flexibility is a much more common term for most people. I cant tell you how many people I see that tell me they need to get more flexible. But typically this is not what people need. Flexibility can be defined as the amount of passive movement available at any given joint.

They key here is the word passive! Does a Bruce Lee’s kick look passive? What about DJ’s golf swing?

Bruce Lee Mobilty Kick

Heck NO! These ranges are very active and powerful! This is why mobility is so important. Mobility is active and can produce ranges that produce power!

Mobility for golf

Someone that is flexible has to be helped into a end range or gets there with momentum and doesn’t have control. This makes a person very susceptible to injury. Having mobility means you can actively achieve a range of motion and control it. Controlling your ranges in key and a huge part of staying injuring free. Lets use Dr. Spina’s definition of mobility. Mobility can be defined as flexibility + control (strength), represents the amount of usable motion across an articulation under the direct control of the central and peripheral nervous system. The key here again is control. When we have control over a joints range of motion we can produce strength and power. Think about the above pictures. In DJ swing, the range he produces is very powerful and controlled. The same is true for Bruce Lee’s mobility in his kick. Very powerful and controlled. You will never achieve powerful, controlled, mobility by stretching alone. You have to train mobility.

Make sure to check out Dr. Spina’s website Functional Range Conditioning. The premier fitness systems team is FRC certified and we consider this a vital part of our methodology.

So you can see that having mobility is very different than having flexibility. Mobility equates to control and having control means less chance of injury and who wants to be injured! Right? Injury means no play! No Golf! No working out! This sounds horrible! So lets start training mobility.

Now I will give you some great mobility exercises to start with.

Mobility, Movement Capacity Exercises:

1.Shoulder Flexion w/ Wall Feedback. Perform 10 reps while keeping your ribcage down. You can start with bent legs if this position is to difficult. Focus on breathing and don’t force the position.

2.Deep Squat Hip Openers. Perform 10 reps per side again focusing on breathing. This movement might be to much for many people to start with. Again we never want to force ranges. Next I will show a regression of this drill.

3.Deep Squat Internal/External Hip Rotations. Perform 10 reps on each side making sure to not force the movement. The regression is from your butt.

4.Deep Squat with Thoracic Spine Activation. Perform 10 reps with a 2-5 sec hold in the activation phase.

5.90/90 Hip Flow. The 90/90 position is one of our favorites at premier. In this video I demonstrate 3 variations of the 90/90 drill. It is important when performing this drill to find the right place to start. You don’t want to feel any pinching and always want to be under control.

Master these drills and you will start to see your mobility get better! Like anything don’t expect to be great at something you don’t practice a lot. Mobility requires practice just like a sport or strength.

Check out our YouTube channel for more videos.

Also our online training page. ONLINE TRAINING.

We offer custom plans, online evaluations and sport specific plans for all skill and strength levels.

Much Love & Much Movement

Brandon

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