Why Is Mobility Important?

First time gym goers will often learn new movements and experiment with others that they see the people around them doing. When implementing new activities into a routine, whether its lifting weights or doing cardio on the stair stepper, it’s important to have decent mobility not only to decrease the risk of injury, but to function properly during everyday activities. Mobility, not to be confused with flexibility, is the ability of the two bones that connect at a joint to move uninhibited by surrounding tissue. Unfortunately, this side of physical fitness usually goes unaddressed because people do not take the time to do a meaningful warm-up. This article will help you differentiate mobility from flexibility, and review why it is important to recognize mobility as a unique facet of overall fitness.

Most people will get to the gym, do a quick warm-up that consists of talking to friends and checking their phones (maybe a little flexing in the mirror), and then jump right into sets of heavy compound movements. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is a recipe to get hurt, but you’d be surprised to find out how many people do just that. Stretching and mobility work isn’t glamorous. Putting up big weights will get the heads in the gym to turn, so you often see kids throw plates upon plates on the bar without doing even one set with the unloaded bar. If they don’t even do a proper warm up, you can almost guarantee they aren’t doing any mobility work to make sure their joints are healthy. Not doing this will put you in a vulnerable position for an injury that could set your progress back months, if not years. 

We all know the guys that show off to their friends saying: “My chest is so big I can’t touch my elbows together!” or “My arms are too big to touch my shoulders with my fingertips!” Many of us have been that guy at some point. Everyone “oohs” and “ahhs” at your parlor trick, but unless you’re 250+ pounds, you should not have these issues. That is a result of poor mobility, not massive, gloat-worthy muscles.

The important thing to remember about mobility is that it differs from flexibility (a subset of mobility), which is the ability to stretch a muscle in a static environment. Mobility means being able to move a joint through a full range of motion in a dynamic environment. This means that your ligaments, muscles, and nervous system capabilities are all factored in to determine whether or not a particular joint is immobile. For example, someone who is flexible might be able to do a full split on the ground and stretch from side to side, touching their nose to the ground. But mobility determines whether they can summon these skills to do a split jump in the air. A martial artist who can kick his opponent’s head would be considered mobile because he is strong in that split position and can bring force down on his opponent. Someone might be flexible enough to get in that position on the ground, but in a dynamic environment, their nervous system will not allow it if they are immobile.

Having poor mobility WILL eventually lead to injuries. Just because you haven’t had any serious problems yet doesn’t mean it won’t come back to bite you in the future. Most of the time, mobility problems lead to more muscle tears and strains than lifting with poor technique will. So take at least 15 minutes before every workout to foam roll muscles to break up scar tissue and then STRETCH! Don’t mess around and BS it. Really make the stretch uncomfortable, and it will pay off in the long run. As you slowly improve, you will find it easier to fix form, get stronger, and feel less tension overall in your joints. Implementing mobility work in your routine will not only reap performance benefit, it will improve overall wellness and flexibility.

Savannah Steamer

ACL injury prevention

Everybody wants to jump higher and run faster. I understand that because most game changing plays are determined by fractions of a second but ACL injuries continue to rise every year. ACL injuries can be one of the most devastating knee injuries yet they are so common. Even with advances in medicine about 25% of those that have ACL reconstruction will have a second ACL injury. That’s a 1 in 4 chance of reinjuring the same ACL.

Females have a 3 times greater risk than males in regards to ACL injuries. There is a lot that goes into why but that’s not the point of this blog. But the main reason is when the knees collapse or as we in the industry call valgus collapse or abducted position of the knee. This position is usually achieved during landing and cutting (deceleration phase of the cut). Now this knee collapse can be fixed by a coach who knows what they are doing. The poor neuromuscular control involved in landing and cutting can be modified through proper training.

This isn’t achieved with more jumping and sprinting but by coaching the landing and deceleration phase of running. Think of a club volleyball player who plays volleyball everyday of the year. Jumping, running, landing and cutting. Now if their movement patterns are wrong they end up practicing this improper pattern hundreds if not thousands of times a year. Your strength and conditioning coach needs to focus on sound running, jumping, deceleration and body mechanics and then strengthen these good patterns with properly progressed weight training.

Teaching the mechanics is crucial but without strengthening their body your child won't have the strength to maintain them under higher work loads.  Most facilities think that simply making a kid run around and get tired is good enough but we know that teaching these proper patterns is the key to preventing injury and increasing sporting performance. If your coach doesn’t work on any of this then I hate to break it to you but your child is just an ACL injury waiting to happen. Please understand that your child is at a critical time in their sporting career and from what I’ve heard from our Spot family parents is that other programs are not preparing children for their sport. Most of them just run kids through cones and ladders failing to address the important issues that really help children prevent injuries.

Don't wait get your child the coaching they deserve.

Coach B

 

 

Why Your Kid Needs Strength Training

Parents seem hesitant to allow their kids to participate in a structured strength training program. They want their kids to run around, play sports, and be active but think that strength training is dangerous and/or unnecessary. Not only is strength training safe and beneficial for kids of every age but it’s benefits extend beyond just making your kid a better athlete- it’s integral to preventing injuries and creating good patterns in kids for life

Children/young adults have incredibly malleable nervous systems. That means that whatever motor patterns they learn at that age will stick with them or life. The kids that don’t learn how to properly use their bodies and muscles at a young age are the ones who will develop problems as adults and hurt themselves not just with poor form in the weight room but from every day activities such as picking up a box from the ground.

Aside from the obvious benefits of making your kid a better athlete, strength training actually prevents injury. Stronger muscles, bones, joints and tendons all help the body withstand the toll that sports takes on it. Kids spend most of the day sitting around at school or home being sedentary and don’t build up the necessary strength in their daily activities which puts them in a position to get injured once they participate in sports and other physical activity. Even if your kid doesn’t play contact sports, the body needs to withstand the major compressive forces of running, jumping, stopping, and turning- which everyone does. The children that know how to use the right muscles in their bodies and who have the right patterns are the ones who will not only excel at sports, but will also avoid injury.

Your kid will only be as good at their sport as their body allows them to be. If they aren’t strong and can’t utilize their bodies properly, not only will they fail to reach their potential but they will also be at a much higher risk for minor to season-ending injuries. So build up their strength- and their confidence- and get them in the weight room.

-Coach Lily

Kids need physical preparation for sport and rest: Says Top NFL Orthopedic Surgeon

By Zach Gallmann

The link below will guide you to a very informative article about a top NFL orthopedic surgeon, Dr. James Andrews.  His message?  Kids need time to be kids. Kids need time to recover. Kids need proper preparation for their sport.  Here at The Spot, we have the same beliefs.  We see it all the time; kids come to us, in middle school and high school, with extreme shoulder issues, knee issues, tight hips, and a host of other issues, and the parents wonder why they aren't performing at the level they should be.  Then, we hear that the child has a hitting coach, or a swinging coach, basically just lots of "skills" coaches, but no coaches who are teaching them to move their bodies properly.  Add to this that they get little to no down time and injuries start to creep in.  What happened to letting kids run free to learn the valuable skill of play?  I know I gained more body awareness and physical readiness from climbing trees and rocks than any sports coach ever taught me.

Another crucial problem we see is that kids are being sent out onto the playing field without any sort of strength training or physical preparation training under their belts.  Would you, as a parent, step out onto a football field without having the proper strength and injury preventative training?  If you did could you withstand, without injury, getting tackled by a linebacker at full speed?  I know I wouldn't.   So why would anyone send their child out onto a playing field without the proper preparation, if they wouldn't want to do it themselves?  This is a question that defies logic and ends up getting a lot of kids needlessly injured.  This is one of the primary reasons that we started our KAAT (Kids Athletic Ability Training) program.  With this program we take kids from 6-11 years old and teach them sound athletic patterns such as running, jumping and most importantly deceleration.  With these patterns we also strengthen these kids thru a properly progressed weight training program that starts with body weight exercises and moves to loaded efforts.  This great program will help these kids not only excel at their sports, but do it without getting injured.

We understand what it's like to want to be a champions, and want our kids to be champions.  Unfortunately, all too often, we see the downfalls of kids being injured from not being properly prepared for sport.  These needless injuries could be prevented if parents would just properly prepare their kids for sport by putting them in a program like our KAAT program.  Our main goal when we train an athlete, at any age, is to make sure they are ready to excel at their sport, safely.  Strength training is one of the best ways to prepare athletes to prevent injury in sport.  An example we use a lot, but I'll throw it out there again is: when a child runs or jumps out of a tree, they exert up to 5x their body weight in compressive forces on their joints.  If that sounds pretty taxing, it's because it is.  Building strength to absorb that force is the greatest way for kids to be able to manage that type of demand and not end up injured.  For more information on our KAAT program CLICK HERE.

Finally, I encourage you to read the article below and think about what Dr. Andrews has to say.  Kids need to be kids.  Kids need time off to recover.  Sure, a college scholarship is great, but not at the risk of blowing out an ACL or two, instead of leading a strong, healthy life.

Click here to read article.