Category: Lifting

For a while, I thought I was a mobility guru. If I walked into the gym for an upper-body session, I would spend 15 minutes foam rolling my pinky. I watched an endless amount of MobilityWod and SmashRx videos. I bought foam rollers, lacrosse balls, softballs, bands, and voodoo floss. I was convinced that if I did a little more mobility work all my aches and pains would vanish.

I played football for most of my life, including high school and college. During those years I suffered major shoulder and knee injuries. I also had to deal with a few sprains and strains. To this day I have to deal with the consequences of playing football. After my time playing was over I continued to train with no problems. Eventually, the weights caught up to me. I started having issues with my shoulders and knee again.

I did some google searches and thought I figured it out. When one solution didn’t work, I did some more searches and continued to think I had the right idea. Eventually, I went to a doctor and he determined I had no structural damage. It was a soft tissue issue. This is when the real problem started.

I began looking on the internet for different ways to fix my injuries. I came across hours of videos describing different ways to foam roll, floss, and do “band distraction”. Titles like “Fix your Squat by Working on Hip, Knee, and Back.”

Before long, my warm-up took 30 minutes. I was spending most of my time at the gym working on mobility. This went on for months and didn’t really help.

I got fed up and decided “screw this, no more mobility work.” I took all of my “mobility tools” out of my gym bag. I decided that if I was going to work on mobility, it would be at home. Not during my time that was meant to be spent lifting.

I gave myself a few weeks off from training before getting back into it. This time around my warm-up was walking on the treadmill for 5-10 minutes. I eased back into weight training. Lower volume and using lighter weights. At first, I felt uncomfortable and weak. But after getting through the first few weeks, I began to feel like myself again. I slowly increased sets, increased weights, and added some more exercises.

That was months ago. I now feel almost as good as when I was in high school. I learned a lot from that long battle with mobility. You need to find what works for you. Listening to your body is important. If you want to fix a movement, you need to do the movement.

Find What Works for You

It is important to find out what works for you. For example, one of my problems was tight and weak glutes. Everyone recommended the pigeon pose to stretch my glutes. I tried it many times but it never worked for me. It always caused pain in my knee. I eventually found a stretch that worked for me, and that is what I use now. Likewise, everyone recommended the banded side walk for strengthening my glutes. Whenever I did it I never felt it. I decided to hop on the “bad girl” machine. More properly known as the hip abductor machine. That machine lit my glutes up. Along with that, I added in cable pull-throughs, and those helped. I saw multiple PT and strength coaches, but no one recommended either of those.

Listen to your Body

Many people, myself included don’t understand what signals their body is passing. You have to be able to listen to your body. I don’t want to sound like a self-help guru, but it’s true. If something is tight, you probably need to stretch or massage (foam roll) it. If something hurts, you may need to rest it. I do think there will be some pain in training. You have to be able to tell if the pain is abnormal.

My warmup now varies depending on how I am feeling. Most days I will stretch and foam roll very little. If I am feeling abnormally tight then I will stretch and foam roll more than normal.

Work on the Movement

Most of my problems were exposed in the squat. For a while, I thought stretching and foam rolling would help improve my squat position. Eventually, I started working on my squat by squatting. I added in goblet squats, box squats, and belt squats. I backed the weight off and focused more on my form. Getting the “weighted stretch” worked much better than trying to foam roll my way to a better squat position. Working on a position under load improves that position if your limitation is mobility.

 

I’m not saying that foam rolling and stretching have no use, but they should be used diligently. I see many people at my gym spend too much time working on mobility. But they come back the next day and are still tight in the same positions. Have a plan on how you are going to fix your issues. If something doesn’t work, try something new.