Icecold's mobility thread

Posted about this in gymrats, but for completeness and bump purposes I'm putting it here too.

Based on this principle:

If you have a restriction in a particular movement, very tightly loop a band around the affected area during your warmups.

Made a huge difference today when I did this with my high hamstring/adductors when deadlifting...and for once, this doesn't actually hurt (that much).
 
More copypasta from gymrats:

I managed to miss my working foot but you'll get the idea.
This needs to be done barefoot.

First, reach out forwards as if you were going to do a pistol squat and bend at the knee. Reach as far as you can but don't touch and rest. Straighten your leg driving through your heal. Then, holding your leg out in front of you, go onto tip-toes.

Second, reach out laterally (while keeping your hips level) and repeat the same sequence.

Thirdly, bring your foot up behind you, aiming for extension in your hip without compromising an upright torso. This means your knee should be slightly behind you. Repeat the sequence above.

Aim to progress by reaching further and squatting lower. Mine isn't great because that's my bad ankle
 
I had OSG (and chondromalacia patellae) in both knees :o

The absolute best thing you can do is mobilise everything up and downstream of the knee. That means soft tissue work on the tissues around the knee (all quad insertions, hams, calfs, anterior/posterior tibialis). That's a big job on it's own. Then look and your ankle, making sure you have full range. Then your foot; do you have a collapsed arch/dropped navicular bone? Your foot might require some specialist attention, my physio is also an osteopath and he's done some good stuff for my old sprain.

Next up is hips, which is potentially a huge task is you're particularly broken. Hips need to be mobile and stable, so you'll need to work through the relevant stretches/mobilisations in this thread (glutes, hams, quads, anterior hip) AND work on more dynamic unilateral leg exercises and on strengthening your glutes. Strict DB walking lunges (upright torso, almost vertical front shin), overhead walking lunges, cable pull throughs, glute bridges, controlled step ups... Hips need to be level at all times for all of these, and you can't have any movement in your lower back.

That was a bit of an explosion of info, so if you have any questions just ask.
 
Excellent warm ups FF! I'd recommend "no-money"s in that mix too. It turns out the IT band is something that's always going to hurt when you roll it, and eventually it won't get any looser on it's own. Try giving your TFL a hammering, that with general hammy/quad soft tissue work will see the whole system working better.

Found a mostly relevant video:
Do what he's doing to his VMO to the lateral insertions of the quad too.


welshdragon:
Good news about the foot. Do the ankle/knee rehab exercise I posted a couple of posts up anyway, it's important to build some stability. In terms of working out a stretching/mobility routine, decide you're going to dedicate x amount of minutes per day/every other day and start at your knee and work out. By the end of that you'll know yourself where you're tight and be able to work on it.


Delvis:
How to know if you've got a dropped arch? Diagnosis goes like this:

Do you have a dropped arch? Yes? Ok then.

;)

http://www.painfreewalking.co.uk/flat-feet-overpronation.html - ignor any advice given here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_feet
 
I've posted stuff here I'm sure... search for pronation or collapsed foot or something.

If you don't find anything I'll give you something later.
 
Glad you're finding it useful :)

fire_munki, try simply doing some soft tissue work on your TFL. So roll around on a lacrosse ball or on a foam roller. Then try some of the stretches that have already been posted for your anterior hip.
 
LiE, yes, I showed that to someone on here a couple of weeks ago because a friend of mine has one. Don't remember if the person got it though.


DA, it could be a few things. Most likely, you have week shoulders. Reduce the weight and take things more slowly, making sure you use a full ROM with proper form (back against backrest with no arch).

Alternatively, something could be tight or not working properly and pulling you out of the groove.
 
Yep, soft tissue work is great for DOMS.

Stick with DBs, if you're unstable the last thing you want to do is stop your body having to adapt by removing the unstable stimulus.
 
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Kelly, talk to me about corners of ankles... YES!

Been doing that already actually, as well as posterior band distraction on ankle and flossing into the restricted position (i.e. NOT what Pat was saying).
 
Not exactly, but he was saying that resting my foot on something while sitting with the weight on my heal could have caused posterior translation of the shin bones relative to my foot. Kelly also talks about this, so I assumed that's what was going on. Turns out that this isn't my problem.
 
Lacrosse ball soft tissue work, sit on it and put the foot of the leg on the side your treating over the other knee. Also try lying on your back with your feet up on something to get your high glute. AND... do pullthroughs with your knees very wide to wake up your glute-medius.

Can't stress the knees out thing enough, this means ankle health, adductor condition, TFL condition, and hip flexor condition/length.
 
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