Flexibility vs Mobility. What Is The Difference?
Coaches, therapists and athletes keep slinging around these buzzwords, Range Of Motion, Flexibility and Mobility.
But how is ROM different from flexibility, and why does coach Eik keep talking about the importance of MOBILITY and not FLEXIBILITY.
After this 10 min read I want you to have a clearer idea of what the difference is, and understand why to get better MOBILITY you need to do more than stretch.
What Is What?
All these words are so technical but I am going make sure we are talking about the same thing by simplify it and use some examples to help you understand.
Range Of Motion (ROM) stands for the whole movement a joint can go through. For each individual joint there are different ranges for shoulders, knees, elbows etc but this is relatively standardised for all humans.
A person/athlete needs a certain amount of ROM to function and to be able to perform some basic movements. Just to name some examples.
We need full shoulder flexion (read: arms above your head) to hang on the pull-up bar and to overhead squat comfortably. And full extension (read straight leg) in your knee to run pain free. You also need 90 degrees of flexion in your knee to use a bicycle and 135 degrees of flexion to walk down stairs.
If this is missing, you either CAN’T perform the movement, or have to compensate with other joints to be able to. This can lead to imbalances and injuries in other body parts and joints in the long run if not managed.
ROM is further Divided into:
Flexibility of the joint, that is defined as the passive ROM, meaning the movement available if someone else or external forces move/pressure your joint for you.
Mobility of the joint is defined as the active ROM or referring to range you can access through your own muscle activation and use in your unassisted movements.
The difference between these two becomes very clear when you see people who can’t reach full depth in their squats until there is a heavy weight on the barbell that presses them all the way down. So they only go below parallel on heavy back squats but struggle on Air Squats and Wall Balls.
Or when you see a athlete that struggles with locking out their elbows overhead unless the coach presses on them from the outside, then they magically lock out.
In both these cases, these people have the FLEXIBILITY in their tissue, but not the MOBILITY to access and use this RANGE during these two mentioned movements.
This is why endless stretching of your hips or shoulders is not going to help you necessary to unlock a better SNATCH because it only helps you get more FLEXIBILITY not MOBILITY under load and intensity.
To access more MOBILITY you need to strength train and use the involved muscles in full ROM with the appropriate weight and exercise that allows you to do so pain free.
Since these new ranges are often very weak , this type of training is often considered very UNSEXY!
Commonly these type of drills that are needed, depending on the joint involved are often banded or light exercise, isometric hold, unilateral work and most often performed at a SLOW pace to avoid the muscle tensing up at the End Range allowing you to even STRETCH them under load.
So after reading this - Lets Normalise Accessory Work, and more variety of MOBILITY work.
Now you and I know better, so lets make sure to do the stuff that allows us to move better and faster in workouts later on 🙂
Want start your MOBILITY JOURNEY with me, find out how BULLETPROOFING ONLINE or IN - PERSON uses these principles READ MORE
