Mobility in CrossFit
Mobility is the ability to move through a range of motion. CrossFitters and other fitness athletes can often be heard talking about wanting to have better mobility to improve their lifts. Overhead squatting can feel nearly impossible without adequate mobility of the shoulder, thoracic spine, or ankles. Squatting to full depth may feel uncomfortable if hip or ankle mobility is limited. After trying some of these lifts, it’s easy to understand why one would want to improve their mobility; however, many athletes don’t know how to go about doing this.
A common theme is to see athletes performing static stretches, where they hold a position to stretch a muscle prior to beginning their activity. Besides potentially decreasing power output after a stretch, traditional stretching also doesn’t prepare you to actively use your muscles in this end range portion of the range of motion. For example, after tossing a band up on the rig to stretch out your lats you may feel a little looser, but often times athletes find themselves repeatedly doing a stretch like this with little carryover from the day before. If you aren’t able to actively work into this range of motion either with your lifts or throughout your day, you’ll probably have a hard time maintaining it. Rather than passively stretching, mobility work that loads your tissues and strengthens your muscles in new ranges of motion can better prepare you for movements, and help you keep these improvements.
What does this look like?
Let’s use the hamstrings as an example. Bending forward to touch your toes may not prepare you for those heavy deadlifts as well as good mornings, Jefferson curls, or Romanian deadlifts. In these other movements, the back, hips, and hamstrings are loaded throughout a range of motion. When you are loading your tissues throughout a range, you are better teaching your body how to function in this position. Not only will this help improve your mobility, it will also make you more resilient in that range of motion. Bending to touch your toes likely won’t protect your back when you go to lift a heavy weight. But, gradually loading your back with strengthening movements throughout a range of motion will build your overall capacity for movement.
If you have trouble hitting depth on your squat, maybe you need to spend more of your mobility time holding a squat. If you have trouble lifting overhead, maybe you need to improve your thoracic mobility. If you struggle with your mobility and want to improve your performance in and out of the gym, contact us at Shore Strength for a PT evaluation or movement screen to see how we can help.