It's All About Balance
Hopefully by now you have read my first post regarding my issues with the term "mobility." Each post will build upon the previous one. This week my intention is to further explain what I actually mean when I say that, ' I hate mobility.'
Let's begin with a confession. I don't hate mobility. In fact it warms my heart that most active people now recognize that term. My qualms merely lie with the disproportionate amount of time that is spent mobilizing. Your foam roller and your lacrosse ball aren't supposed to make up 100% of your recovery time.
I suppose Recovery-Doc would've been a more appropriate name for our company. But nobody would know what to do with that. However, recovery is truly what you should be seeking, and mobility is just one part of recovery. No one modality is capable of completely handling all of your recovery needs. We say the same thing to our patients. You can't solely rely on us to be healthy. Recovery can't be complete if it remains a passive process. You will need to take some action, and mobility work is only one part of the actionable plan.
It's all about balance. Mobilizing of any type is step 1 on your journey to recovery. Once you have full mobility of a joint or region, then you will have to spend time working on stability. You can think of this as your ability to control that full mobility. The final step after you have adequate mobility and stability is to integrate these two factors with full body movements. The National Academy of Sports Medicine refers to this as: inhibit, lengthen, activate, and integrate. The FMS people would say you have joint mobility disorders, tissue extensibility disorders, and stability/motor control disorders.
We are going to go down that rabbit hole, but that's ok. I'll guide you down that rabbit hole over the next few weeks. Next week we'll specifically discuss what it means to improve your mobility and how to go about doing that. The subsequent weeks will entail discussions regarding stability and functional integrations. With each week we'll cover more of the specifics of each. By the end of this series, you will have an idea how to form a truly balanced recovery routine for yourself or at least be more educated to ask the right questions to the right professionals to ensure that you're able to keep performing at the level of activity that you desire.
Post from John Giacalone, the Mobility Doc!
John holds his doctorate in chiropractic. He is certified as a level 2 USAW coach and has competed as a weightlifter. John has competed at 85kg, and more recently 77kg, where he qualified for the American Open in 2015. John's best snatch is currently 121kg, and clean and jerk at 1451g. John's additional certifications include CSCS, USATF1, FMS, SFMA, CFL1, CF Mobility, CF Weightlifting, and NASM CES.