When working through an assessment with athletes, one of the most common goals I hear is, “I want to increase mobility.”
Then, through conversation, they will say “I’ve tried everything and nothing works” or “I have to do mobility exercises everyday or else I lose it.”
When we think about increasing mobility at the shoulder, hip, and spine, what are our go-to’s?
CAR’s (Controlled Articular Rotations) are always a big one. However, they aren’t great because we can’t carve out more space by creating pressure in the joints.
We would almost want to do the opposite and create less pressure in the joints by finding more space via breathing patterns.
Also in sport, how our body reacts with gravity at the foot or hand is crucial due to the role it can play up and down the chain at our shoulders and hips.
So when choosing “mobility” exercises we want to make sure that we have contact with the ground whether at the foot or the hand. Standing up aimlessly waving our limbs around in the air to increase mobility doesn’t make sense for what we need to happen in sport.
In sport, our body needs to react through the ground to generate force up through the chain. Increasing movement in certain areas/ joints allows us to be more efficient in transferring that force through our movements.
Now that we have covered the basic requirements of increasing mobility, let’s look at how we can get the job done.