Mobility Principles and Practices Guide
Strength + Flexibility for pain free movement
Mobility has exploded as a topic of interest the past 20 years. As people have become increasingly overweight and sedentary, there has been a corresponding increase in stiffness and bodily aches and pains.
This article is not a magical cure-all solution. I am not claiming to have the answers to fix every possible mobility problem, cure complex pain issues, and make all your body problems go away overnight.
What I can tell you is that MOST common pains and issues of stiffness can be solved with simple solutions of stretching and strengthening the affected joints and muscles. Do the protocols in this article for a few weeks, and there is a probability of reduced pain, increased strength, and overall improvement in function.
How to Use this Guide
This guide is divided into 8 Sections, focusing on the common problem areas of the body.
1-The Neck
2-The Shoulders
3-The Upper back (Thoracic Spine)
4-The Low Back (The Lumbar Spine)
5-The Groin and Hips (Adductors and Hip Flexors)
6-The Glutes and Hamstrings
7-The Knees (Quadriceps)
8-The Calves & Ankles
Part 2-The ATM Philosophy
I believe in ATM
Always Train Muscles
To understand this, you have to dive deep into the philosophy of pain management, neuromuscular rehab, and addressing “mobility” restrictions. There are dozens upon dozens of training methods and philosophies as to why the body will hurt, why joint movement can be restricted, and what needs to be done to address these issues.
Some approaches are simple, others are deeply complex and esoteric. One person might tell your tight left hip needs deep squats, another might tell you your chakras have poor energy flow and your left side embodies feminine energy and you need gentle Yin Yoga and addressing your relationship with women. Another person might tell you its nor your hip at all, but your foot. Or your torso. Or your deep core muscles. Or how you breathe
All of these people can likely make a compelling case for why their perspective is correct and they could help you.
So WHO is right?
Everyone and no one.
Here is the reality that emerges when you dive into all the research
Placebo effect is real. If you tell someone something works, they generally want to believe it works.
Nocebo effect is real. If you dont think something will work, it often WON’T WORK. Some approaches do nothing, for SOME people. But other people will swear by them.
Everything can SEEM to work initially.
Long term, the ONLY reliable treatment modality is “generic exercise”. Meaning having people train muscles and improve strength and lean body mass.
In all of medical science, resistance training is the only “medicine” that consistently produces good outcomes and health improvements in health across populations. Basically, if you have people lift weights, they get stronger, their health improves in measurable ways, and they have better quality of life.
Hence my Philosophy of Always Train Muscles
I could get extremely philosophical in talking pain, movement, mobility, but ultimately the only reliable approach I KNOW works repeatedly and reliably is proper resistance training.
If you train the affected muscles, and get them stronger (strength and length), they will probably solve the issue, most of the time.
I also take an Occam’s razor approach to training
The simple solutions are often the most effective. Do not assume complexity is needed when an uncomplicated answer will work.
When we talk about addressing mobility, we should first define what mobility is.
In the context of physical fitness, mobility refers to the range of motion and flexibility in a person’s joints and muscles. It’s the ability to move your body parts through their full range of motion without stiffness, pain, or restriction.
Good mobility is important for overall fitness. Fundamentally being physically fit is being strong and efficient at MOVING.
If basic movement is challenging, exercise will be that much harder.
When people talk about improving mobility, they generally mean being able to move a particular joint through a more fluid ROM. Maybe they want to be able to squat, but their hips are tight.
Or maybe you slouch and want to stand more upright.
When I ask people to define what they mean by mobility, they rarely have a specific definition. It’s a general idea of “move better”.
Part 3-The most basic axiom of Mobility is MOVEMENT.
One of the first principles of biology is the SAID Principle.
Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands.
Living organisms will always attempt to adapt to stress and stimulus. Nowhere is this more apparent than in exercise.
When we strength train, our muscles grow thicker and stronger in order as an adaptation to the prior stress of the workout.
When we perform cardiovascular exercise, our heart, lunges, and circulatory system adapt to be more efficient at delivering oxygen to our muscles and disposing of waste.
And as we move our joints and muscles through their respective ranges of motions, our muscles ability to lengthen and contract improves, which increases our flexibility.
Mobility is an adaptive response to MOVEMENT. The more you move your body, the more flexible your body will be.
If you do lunges regularly and deep knee bend style squats and lateral movements like shuffling and directional changes, you probably won’t have tight hip flexors, or at the very least you will not have inflexible hips
If you do deadlifts with a full rom, include leg curls in your workouts, and sprint regularly, you probably won’t have tight hamstrings.
If you can do dips and pullups with ease, you probably won’t have bad posture and super tight upper back.
If you read the above and realized you cannot do ANY of the exercises I listed without pain and discomfort and tightness, you can now reframe why you are “tight” in the first place.
Stiffness and tightness is rarely the result of some underlying structural issue, rather its a problem of a lack of movement
You don’t move, have a sedentary lifestyle, and you do nothing that works your joints and muscles through their full functional range of motion.
Consequently, your muscles are “tight”.
I call this a Movement Poverty Lifestyle
If you live a life of movement poverty and the only thing you do is walking for limited distances, then you can very well expect to be tight/stiff/immobile.
If you learn nothing else from this guide, understand the best thing you can do for your health is to exercise more, walk more, and be more active on a daily basis.
Part 4-Stretch and Strength, aka Lengthen and Strengthen.
In this section, we will cover how to use these protocols.
Every protocol in this guide is based around a key principle
Stretching and Strengthening (also sometimes known as Strengthen + Lengthen)
This means you should stretch and relax the affected muscles, and then strengthen them through targeted exercises.
This approach works because it solves for two issues at once.
Muscles that are weak are also typically tight as well. This tightness and stiffness is both an adaptation and protective effect by the body.
To temporarily relieve this tightness/stiffness, we can stretch and relax the affected muscle tissue.
This will temporarily increase flexibility and relaxation, but it does not permanently solve the problem. What we need to do after that is strengthen the tissue. For that we need strength training, aka resistance training.
So we have two effects at play
-Stretching stiff and tight tissue tends to make it feel better by decreasing muscular tonicity and increasing relaxation.
-Strengthening weak muscles is how you improve their function. Strong muscles trained through a full ROM will be less likely to be stiff/tight and will contract and lengthen and produce force better overall.
So for an area like the neck for example, foam rolling the cervical muscles and relaxing the neck will provide temporary relief.
And then if you follow that with strengthening the upper back muscles and cervical extensors, you are now training those muscles directly, getting them stronger, and improving overall function.
All strengthening protocols should be done no more than three times per week.
It may be tempting to do these protocols every day, but its unnecessary. While stretching can be done daily, strengthening exercises need only be done 3x a week maximum. You need to give your muscles and joints time to recover.
