Mobility. I feel it gets blamed for a lot of issues in the gym before we even give it a chance to redeem itself. Someone cannot get in to a certain position, so right away we cry “poor mobility” and place the blame solely there.
While that answer may not be entirely wrong in a lot of cases, it almost always is not the sole perpetrator. Mobility might stop you of reaching a perfect position, but we can often get in to a much better position with a little bit of work while not addressing mobility at all. Let me just throw in a disclaimer that I am not saying mobility is not an important part of a healthy and successful training regime. It is.
Let’s take a look at the front squat as a specific example so we can draw a clearer picture of what I’m trying to say. I shared this with my classes on Monday so if you were there, we’re going to unpack it a little bit more. The front squat is a very difficult thing for a person just starting out in CrossFit without a background of doing them previously. I remember being in a globo gym before i started CrossFit and attempting one. For the record, I was training six days a week with a traditional resistance training program and some circuit training to stay in shape for the “Scott FireFit Championships” I enjoyed competing in. I had seen CrossFit videos on YouTube and thought it looked cool as well. I remember grabbing one of those weighted exercise “sticks” and trying to front squat with that. It didn’t work very well but I was strong enough to keep it on my shoulders while tipping way forward. I proceeded to try it with an empty Olympic barbell. Want to know how that ended up haha? I did the squat but my back was so rounded forward and my elbows had dropped so low they were below my knees. This is not an uncommon thing with new people entering the gym either. And then we are quick to blame “mobility”.
Staying with that front squat as our example, let’s take a look a little deeper into the issue. Without going too far down the rabbit hole of a “perfect squat”, there’s a few simple things we can look at without blaming mobility. Elbows to start with. Ideally in a front rack position we want our triceps (or from shoulder to elbows) parallel with the floor. However, if we can’t get them there, we can still front squat. Lets say someone can achieve 45 degrees of flexion in relation to the floor. With some simple cuing and a whole lot of tension and effort, they can front squat. What we want to see happen is maintaining that same 45 degrees as they squat. We don’t want their elbows to drop lower or change position as they descend into the squat. At that point, it is not then mobility (like I said, we can still make that better) it is simply a lack of tension in the core.
That is just one quick example of when “not” to blame mobility. Or at least not just mobility. Awareness of position, how to create tension and brace and motor pattern recruitment are all very much an issue. Just the same as we can improve mobility, we can improve and change those things; often in a much shorter time frame even.
So keep stretching. Keep working on your mobility. Your body will thank you for that. However before you go pointing the finger at the easy excuse of “mobility”, let’s take a look at a few other simple things that we can change right now to make an improvement.