Improve your mobility with exercise, not stretching!
“I stretch all the time but I’m still so tight!”
For many people, this is a sentence they are quite familiar with. Similarly, as both clinicians and fitness professionals, this is something that we hear ad-nauseum.
Mobility is arguably the most important foundation in living an active and pain free life. Whether it’s tight shoulders restricting a volleyball serve, or tight hips preventing you from being able to pick up your kids without feeling like it will end with a trip to the emergency room, mobility is the first requirement on the physical function checklist!
We are all familiar with the traditional methods for achieving mobility: namely Long hold static stretching. While these methods often work to get you part of the mobility that you’re searching for, it often falls short.
But why is this? If a muscle is tight and short then why wouldn’t stretching it out fix the problem?
The reason is because static stretching doesn’t address the reason why many people are tight in the first place. To understand this, we first have to look at a little science.
You see, every muscle in your body is controlled by the brain (messages from the brain are sent via neurons in the spinal cord to each and every muscle). One of the brain’s primary jobs is to protect the body from physical harm (which explains why you still get a wave of nausea when you smell coconut Malibu rum!). With regards to movement, this means protecting you from putting your joints into extreme positions that may lead to injury.
So, when your brain doesn’t feel that the muscles can safely control your body's movements, it will keep the muscle activated, thus stopping you from reaching these ranges of motion that it deems “unsafe”. For example, when you try to touch your toes, your brain is recognizing that the hips and low back are being pushed into more flexion than it is comfortable with. So in response, it tightens up the hamstrings and low back muscles to stop you from reaching the ground.
And so, it can actually be that muscle tightness is truly muscle weakness!
So why does all of this matter? It matters because static stretching does nothing to address muscle weakness! Rather, exercises that require your muscles to work under resistance while taking the joint through a full range of motion will give your brain the confidence that these positions are “safe”, because the muscles are now strong in these positions!
Listed below are 3 exercises that adopt the “resistance through range” principle. Try performing 2 sets of these exercises for the prescribed repetitions each day. You can incorporate them into your warmup if you’re looking for some extra range of motion in your workout, or just as a break from your desk at work!
Exercise 1: Lateral Lunge with overhead reach
Target: hip and overhead shoulder mobility
instructions: Start standing up tall, stepping one leg to the side at a distance that is about double your shoulder width apart. squat by Sit back into your heel, aiming keeping the knee, hip and ankle all in line. Next, without coming out of the squat or letting your head shoot forward, raise your the arms above your head. Bring your hands down and return to standing
repetitions: 5/side
Exercise 2: Side plank with rotation
Target: upper back rotation
Instructions: assume a side plank position by lying on your side with your elbows on the ground and feet stacked, keeping your core and glutes engaged so your body is in a straight line (alternative: scissor feet for more stability).Push your elbow away from the ground to create space between your shoulder and your ear. From here, reach your top arm under your body reaching for the wall behind you and allowing your upperbody to twist with it. Reach as far as you can while still keeping your bottom shoulder in good alignment. Return to the starting position
repetitions: 8/side
Exercise 3: Lying pullover with leg raise
Target: overhead mobility + core control
instructions: assume a dead bug position by lying on your back, bringing your arms straight above your shoulders, and knees above hips with knees bent at 90 degrees. You should be holding a weight that you can comfortably lower down (5-20 lbs) Your abs should be contracted so that your low back is only slightly off of the ground (you should be able to slide a hand under your low back). With straight arms, bring the weight back and over your head, ensuring that your low back does NOT raise up towards the ceiling (if it does then lower the weight!). Return back to the starting position.
Repetitions: 10
Good Luck and Have fun!