The Importance of Mobility in Muscle Development
Mobility is the most fundamental fitness quality and is also one of the most overlooked pieces of the puzzle.
Joints have to move well FIRST before you can effectively build muscle and strength... & that's why the saying goes, “half reps give you half results.”
Limitations in your mobility will inhibit gains in a few key ways:
1. Limited Range of Motion
Tension is the primary factor of strength and muscle growth and development. To maximize the amount of tension that we can create in our muscles, a muscle must have the ability to fully lengthen and fully shorten under a load.
If range of motion is restricted, then so is the potential for that muscle to grow and develop.
The common restrictions that affect our abilities to move optimally include:
Shoulder Flexions - ability to get weight tucked back behind the ears overhead
Upper Back Extensions - ability to keep chest up tall when you squat
Hip Flexion and Abduction - all of the pieces that contribute to an awesome squat: including external rotation & ability to squat below parallel.
2. Less Exercise Options
Restricted joints mean certain exercises are off the table. There is nothing worse than a mobility issue hindering your ability to complete a workout to its fullest capacity.
i.e. if your hips and your thoracic spine hate you, they aren't going to cooperate when you try to do something like squat with weight overhead.
Of course there are plenty of exercise modifications and options, but a bigger exercise library is always nicer to have and allows for more exercise variety. More exercise variety will keep us more engaged, and less likely to get bored or burnt out.
3. Poor Motor Control
In order for a joint to function optimally, it must have adequate motion. This allows for efficient communication with the nervous system. Our nervous system is what sends all of the signals to our muscles to activate and balance through movement.
Example - We are about to do a lunge. Mentally we know that we are going to do a lunge, so in preparation our brain starts sending signals to the hamstrings and quads to get them firing. Then simultaneously tells the ankles and calves to wake up and balance our body.
A fine tuned machine that takes pride in mobility and flexibility will have no problem moving fluidly in and out of the positions with ease as the joints have an excellent relationship with one another.
However, a restricted joint will communicate very poorly with the nervous system, resulting in inefficient movement or ‘restricted’ muscle involvement/activation - AKA wobbly ankles and a less than ideal lunge.
That's why in Hōmebodies we focus a full day on isolated movement exploration to ensure that our body is well-balanced across all movement patterns that we are exposed to in daily life.
Training with us allow our movements to be fully engaged & pain-free.
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