In my opinion:
Mobility is the ability of a joint and its surfaces to move through an acceptable, pain free range of motion.
Stability is the ability of the surrounding musculature to activate and assist/protect the movement of a joint through a pain free and acceptable range of motion.
Here’s a great video of a compound stretch you can add into your daily routine.
To my knowledge,
this topic has been harped on throughout the strength training community. The words mobility and stability have slowly taken over the feeds of every great strength coach throughout the world, but not often is this related back to a genuine WHY for the everyday human.
Like yeah, that’s great that you develop extensibility in joint capsules, you increase neurological activity throughout sarcomeres and increase range of motion by approximately 5 degrees after training these capacities.
But what the f*ck do YOU care?
Odds are, you could care less about any of that mumbo-jumbo, you have a lot more sh*t going on in your life. You may be battling a weight-loss war. You could be buying a house, getting a new job or even grieving.
My point is, if you are looking to develop longevity, resilience and a sustainable healthy lifestyle, it is important that you develop capacities across the entire spectrum of “strength training” to help make sure your body stays mechanically sound.
Most of us battle the same issues. Decreased ankle dorsiflexion. Decreased hip overall mobility. Lumbar spine instability. Decreased thoracic extension. Decreased shoulder stability. Decreased cervical spine mobility.
And that’s ok.
We sit a lot. We look at our phones or computers all day. We only move in the sagittal plane. Pst, that’s the forward and back one!
It’s the normal, and that is still ok. But when you head into the gym to train, these are the things you should be developing in preparation for your workout. These practices will help to prep your body for the stress you are going to endure during your workout and to help prevent injury throughout your daily life.
Not acute injury, like slipping and breaking your leg. More like chronic injury. Those ones that take decades to develop and manifest. The ones that can be exacerbated by poor strength training and postural habits. The only way to fix things like that are to spend months in physical therapy for or even worse getting a nonsensical surgery.
So, wanna know how to avoid it?
Train your fundamental movements. Challenge your mobility and stability in all functional movement patterns.
Think of your body as a house. The foundation is movement capacity. The walls are built of strength and conditioning.
