This thread is intended as a place to collect discussion on mobility training.
The idea behind mobilisation is to get the most out of your activities in and out of the gym and to help keep all of your various structural/movement tissues pain free and functioning properly. This is achieved in a number of ways:
1) Stretching. You know what this is
. An important principal to remember though is that we don't care what muscle we are stretching, we mobilise movements not muscles.
2) Soft tissue work. Using a foam roller, rumble roller or various types of balls to restore the sliding surfaces of your muscles. Kind of like a deep tissue massage. However, we don't just want to jab things into our muscles. If you imagine your muscle as being layers you want to encourage sliding by "smearing" laterally with your torture device of choice, by "tacking" the muscle in one place and then drawing the muscle over it by extending and contracting it. E.g. put a lacrosse ball between your thigh and the floor, find a painful spot and bend/extend your knee until the pain goes or you make change.
3) Postural/alignment improvement. Things like encouraging a neutral spine, good shoulder position and proper form in all exercises. Most problems arise because we exert force on a joint or system when we aren't positioned optimally.
Mobility training isn't just for people with injuries, once your injured the damage is already done. If you are at all interested in your athletic performance you need to be looking into this. You can save a lot of time and money on physios and other sports therapists by doing this yourself. The biggest lifters and best sports people all have good mobility, and if they don't, they aren't as good as they could be at what they do.
Tools to consider buying:
- Resistance bands
- Foam/rumble rollers
- Various types of balls for soft tissue work. I prefer a lacrosse ball for it's texture.
A great resource for mobility: www.mobilitywod.com
(despite the fact that he's a crossfitter
)
Discuss away
The below post is not just for benching, it's good for general shoulder health.
I wish I had a program I could give you here but I don't think one actually exists, well not without seeing specialists in things I can't remember the names of
I'll try to suggest some things from my experience.
Do you have any bands? If not: http://www.pullum-sports.co.uk/acce...pullum-resistance-bands-41-inch/prod_514.html
or
http://www.v-tapershaper.com/jumpstretch.html
You can do most things with a medium. To cover all bases you'd need to get a small and super mini as well, but medium in fine as a minimalist purchase.
Without a band the best thing you can do is work on some internal rotation. My favourite (perhaps not the right word...) for this is the bully stretch, and there are a few variations of this.
The most important thing here is shoulder positioning. The bottom line is that if your shoulder is sore it's very likely you've been pulling or pushing with your should in a weakened position. Throughout all of these mobilisations (apart from some of the banded "five way shoulder" and some soft tissue a.k.a lacrosse ball work) you need to over emphasise having your shoulder back and down. From experience with the bully stretch you can also play around with encouraging your scapula to be flat against your rib cage when you do this (will make sense when you try it).
Bully stretch:
http://www.mobilitywod.com/2010/08/sign-papers-old-man.html
I'm fairly sure this has had the biggest pay off for me. If your getting the kind of range the guy in the video is getting you probably don't have your shoulder in the right position (it will move to compensate for poor internal rotation). Try doing it against the corner of a wall so you can keep your back against it (can push scap against your rib cage as mentioned earlier). A mirror also helps. An excellent variation is to use a band to force your shoulder into the right position (http://www.mobilitywod.com/2011/04/episode-229365-shoulder-internal-rotation-i-has-it.html - the ball work in this is also good), and I've also found it useful to grab my un-used arm behind my back to pull both shoulders back. Play around and find where you are tight.
This is important in general as well, I often do this after the bully: http://www.mobilitywod.com/2011/04/episode-211365-the-simple-five-way-shoulder.html
If you get your arm across your body you can find some angles where you can literally feel your scapula pealing off your rib cage, think about the angles and try and get both the inside edge and the bottom (for the latter you have to get over your arm, kind of hard to explain!).
In case you're missing some external rotation, try these: http://www.mobilitywod.com/2010/09/ring-ready-shoulders-yo.html
http://www.mobilitywod.com/2010/09/free-your-scap-free-your-mind.html
http://www.mobilitywod.com/2010/08/i-will-bend-like-reed-in-wind-episode-9.html
Those are good, but basically if you search for "shoulder" on that site and go through the videos you'll be set.
You'll notice he mentions things like "contract/relax" quite a bit. These things are explained in his earlier vids, but it essentially means you contract the muscles you're mobilising and then when you relax them you'll find you instantly have more range. This is totally safe, the contraction actually makes the stretch stronger and less vulnerable.
Phew! That was a bit long, sorry. It's possible that I'm a bit gay for the MWod guy
The idea behind mobilisation is to get the most out of your activities in and out of the gym and to help keep all of your various structural/movement tissues pain free and functioning properly. This is achieved in a number of ways:
1) Stretching. You know what this is
. An important principal to remember though is that we don't care what muscle we are stretching, we mobilise movements not muscles.2) Soft tissue work. Using a foam roller, rumble roller or various types of balls to restore the sliding surfaces of your muscles. Kind of like a deep tissue massage. However, we don't just want to jab things into our muscles. If you imagine your muscle as being layers you want to encourage sliding by "smearing" laterally with your torture device of choice, by "tacking" the muscle in one place and then drawing the muscle over it by extending and contracting it. E.g. put a lacrosse ball between your thigh and the floor, find a painful spot and bend/extend your knee until the pain goes or you make change.
3) Postural/alignment improvement. Things like encouraging a neutral spine, good shoulder position and proper form in all exercises. Most problems arise because we exert force on a joint or system when we aren't positioned optimally.
Mobility training isn't just for people with injuries, once your injured the damage is already done. If you are at all interested in your athletic performance you need to be looking into this. You can save a lot of time and money on physios and other sports therapists by doing this yourself. The biggest lifters and best sports people all have good mobility, and if they don't, they aren't as good as they could be at what they do.
Tools to consider buying:
- Resistance bands
- Foam/rumble rollers
- Various types of balls for soft tissue work. I prefer a lacrosse ball for it's texture.
A great resource for mobility: www.mobilitywod.com
(despite the fact that he's a crossfitter
)Discuss away
The below post is not just for benching, it's good for general shoulder health.
I wish I had a program I could give you here but I don't think one actually exists, well not without seeing specialists in things I can't remember the names of
I'll try to suggest some things from my experience.
Do you have any bands? If not: http://www.pullum-sports.co.uk/acce...pullum-resistance-bands-41-inch/prod_514.html
or
http://www.v-tapershaper.com/jumpstretch.html
You can do most things with a medium. To cover all bases you'd need to get a small and super mini as well, but medium in fine as a minimalist purchase.
Without a band the best thing you can do is work on some internal rotation. My favourite (perhaps not the right word...) for this is the bully stretch, and there are a few variations of this.
The most important thing here is shoulder positioning. The bottom line is that if your shoulder is sore it's very likely you've been pulling or pushing with your should in a weakened position. Throughout all of these mobilisations (apart from some of the banded "five way shoulder" and some soft tissue a.k.a lacrosse ball work) you need to over emphasise having your shoulder back and down. From experience with the bully stretch you can also play around with encouraging your scapula to be flat against your rib cage when you do this (will make sense when you try it).
Bully stretch:
http://www.mobilitywod.com/2010/08/sign-papers-old-man.html
I'm fairly sure this has had the biggest pay off for me. If your getting the kind of range the guy in the video is getting you probably don't have your shoulder in the right position (it will move to compensate for poor internal rotation). Try doing it against the corner of a wall so you can keep your back against it (can push scap against your rib cage as mentioned earlier). A mirror also helps. An excellent variation is to use a band to force your shoulder into the right position (http://www.mobilitywod.com/2011/04/episode-229365-shoulder-internal-rotation-i-has-it.html - the ball work in this is also good), and I've also found it useful to grab my un-used arm behind my back to pull both shoulders back. Play around and find where you are tight.
This is important in general as well, I often do this after the bully: http://www.mobilitywod.com/2011/04/episode-211365-the-simple-five-way-shoulder.html
If you get your arm across your body you can find some angles where you can literally feel your scapula pealing off your rib cage, think about the angles and try and get both the inside edge and the bottom (for the latter you have to get over your arm, kind of hard to explain!).
In case you're missing some external rotation, try these: http://www.mobilitywod.com/2010/09/ring-ready-shoulders-yo.html
http://www.mobilitywod.com/2010/09/free-your-scap-free-your-mind.html
http://www.mobilitywod.com/2010/08/i-will-bend-like-reed-in-wind-episode-9.html
Those are good, but basically if you search for "shoulder" on that site and go through the videos you'll be set.
You'll notice he mentions things like "contract/relax" quite a bit. These things are explained in his earlier vids, but it essentially means you contract the muscles you're mobilising and then when you relax them you'll find you instantly have more range. This is totally safe, the contraction actually makes the stretch stronger and less vulnerable.
Phew! That was a bit long, sorry. It's possible that I'm a bit gay for the MWod guy
Last edited:
no