The Importance of Mobility and Stability: How They Can Prevent Injury
By brandon gallagher
June 19, 2018
When we think of the best athletes of our time, who comes to mind? Personally, I think of Lebron James, Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt. What do they all have in common, besides being freakish athletes that perform exceptionally well at their craft? Longevity! Lebron James just ended his 15th season in the league and is getting better and better every year. We often see his “stability drills” on social media and the care and time he puts into his body. Michael Phelps is the most dominant swimmer and arguably athlete to ever be part of the Olympics, earning 23 gold medals over his career and was selected to a record five male US swim teams. Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world, breaking record after record in four straight Olympics. What makes these guys greats is the length of time they have been great. Now, I’m not saying mobility and stability are going to make us legendary, but they will provide us with longevity. Having great mobility throughout our body can limit our injuries and keep us training. When we look at the consistent greatness of athletes, it’s because they are staying on the field. The best ability to have in life and fitness is availability. If you are not able to put forth the effort needed to succeed you will fall short.
Most of us are not professional athletes, but what we all have in common is training for a specific reason. 99% of the population is training for LIFE. Our goal is to feel good, look good, and move well. How do we accomplish this? By smart purposeful training that is functionally relevant. Training that takes the body through all different ranges of motion, opening the body up and adapting to create the overall strength we need for daily life.
We all need to perform linear and progressive strength training: squats, deadlifts, pressing/pulling movements, and it’s cool to see the big lifts on Instagram and all the likes people get for crazy fitness stunts, but not everyone's goal is to deadlift 500lbs. However, this is where the fun part comes in! Whether your goal is showing off gainz for the likes or maintaining functional independence for the rest of your life, all our training should look the same. Degrees of training will vary, but not the variation of training. This should be very similar across the board. How we look at this in perspective of a normal everyday human is simple. Our goal is to maintain functional independence for the rest of our lives. The best way to fight being in the nursing home is to be functionally coherent in movements such as standing up/sitting down (squatting), picking things up off the ground (dead lifting), or pushing ourselves off the floor to stand up (pressing). All of these movements require not only flexibility, but strength and stability!!!!
I could go on all day about the importance of mobility and stability, but the main focus I want to keep is that mobility and stability are key components to preventing injury and maintaining longevity in your craft, whether that be a professional sport or professional human.
Injuries occur when the body cannot handle the load or the range of motion (ROM) it is being subjected too. This causes the body to unsafely compensate to try to get through that ROM or get that weight up. Compensations create stress in vulnerable parts of the body, and over time allowing bad things to happen. This is why mobility and stability are so important. If our body can move through positions such as the squat with full ROM, stability and strength, we are going to put ourselves on the path to being safe!!
How do we prevent injury? It's almost too easy of an answer. Take our body through all types of ROM and train different stimuli such as strength, stability, and mobility. Once again, freak injuries happen and we cannot stop every injury, however we can create a base where we are taking our body through full, healthy, ROM that require the three big components of functional fitness (mobility, stability, strength). This will create a body that can handle any type of activity that is thrown its way. Also, it will create longevity in our training and physical activity.
The body is very adaptive to change. When looking at movement in general, our internal system is constantly running a “check” on the body. We often see other, stronger, more stable parts of the body take over when something is off. This is a blessing and a curse, and why many training injuries that seem like sudden onsets may be the result of poor movement over an extended period of time. Realizing this early on takes a lot of body awareness and time working on the details and correcting movement patterns. Without this focus, little things add up and create larger injuries that can create a longer rehab process. This is why it is important to constantly run through a systems check and correct the little things that may be bothering us on a day to day basis. This can be done by implementing a proper warm-up, training in functionally relevant patterns, and taking the time to care of your body following your training. Take time now to “prehab” during your training to prevent big injuries and having to “rehab” from leaving you sidelined.
Thank you for taking the time to read!! If you have any thoughts or questions feel free to ask!! If you haven’t, make sure to follow us on Instagram @Thrivefitnesswellness or my personal Instagram @Brandon_Thrivefitnesswellness.
