One thing that I feel could use some clarification
is the difference between flexibility and mobility, since they are often used
synonymously and their importance is frequently understated. All sports,
whether individual or team sports, require some degree of both flexibility and
mobility to be successful, since both are basic physical fitness elements. In
fact, flexibility is often seen as a component of mobility, so it’s important
to understand the difference between the two.
Here are the definitions:
Here are the definitions:
Flexibility: the ability to increase your range of
motion through the passive stretching of a set of muscles
Mobility: the ability to move a joint through a
range of motion in an active setting using the nervous system, the joint,
ligaments near the joint, and muscles surrounding it.
As you can see, these are very different and it is
important to be familiar with this because a lot of times, people try to fix
what they perceive as a flexibility issue with more and more stretching, when
in fact they have a mobility issue. More stretching will not fix a mobility
issue and the flexibility of a muscle depends on the mobility of nearby joints.
Also, the thing about flexibility is that after a stretching session, the
muscle reverts back to its original state to some degree. Usually, athletes who
participate in sports that require exceptional flexibility must warm up for
5-10 minutes to see that flexibility again.
Mobility, on the other hand, is based on many
factors, one of them being the nervous system. If your body is not strong
enough to achieve a certain position during a movement, your nervous system
will not allow it to happen. For example, both gymnasts and kick boxers must be
flexible, but mobility dictates whether or not that gymnast can do a split jump
or if that kick boxer can kick his opponent’s head. It doesn’t matter if they
can do passive splits all day long, if they don’t have good mobility, they will
not be able to do the movement in an active setting, thus making that
flexibility useless.
This is all very important because immobile joints
affect nearby joints and it can be hard to pinpoint exactly where a problem may
be. It’s not uncommon to see people remedying hip immobility with more hamstring
stretching and then they’re wondering why their joints are screaming at them and they
can’t get off the couch. So remember to implement some mobility work into your
routine and to get some stretching done each day.
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