Mobility issues, what they look like
Movements require a combination of mobility and stability to be performed successfully. Going through movement without adequate mobility can lead to loss of stability and vice versa. For example a pistol squat requires mobility at the ankle and the hip to maintain balance over the standing foot while dropping into the depth of the squat. Additionally, the pistol squat requires stability of the foot for balance, knee, hip and core. If you lack ankle mobility, your weight shifts backwards, causing either a loss of balance of a compensation of raising the heels to bring your weight forward. Lacking hip mobility to properly bend forward can lead to your weight staying posterior and also be compensated for by rounding your low back. In both of these situations mobility deficits can cause a loss of stability, as the stable component was required to compensate. The inability to bend the hip leading to the loss of a stable trunk posture, bending the back instead. The inability to bend at the ankle leading to loss of a stable foot position.
Pistol squat
Mobility demands (You could film a video of an exercise for each mobility need. The post could be 3 areas to mobilize to improve pistol squating)
Hip flexion 120-135
Ankle dorsiflexion 40-60
Knee flexion 130-150
Stability demands (Same as above but a different post)
Trunk extension
Hip extension glute
Hip rotation/abduction/adduction hip rotators, hip adductors
Knee extension quad
Ankle dorsiflexion calf
Foot/arch foot intrinsics/ankle everters/inverters.
Remember that mobility is the foundation. Limitations here will lead to compensation, sacrificing stability. For example at the depth of my pistol squat I could use more ankle dorsiflexion to keep my weight over my feet, due to that limitation I end up rounding my low back slightly. This is a classic for squat patterns where the hips or ankles are lacking mobility and the stabilizing structures compensate (low back and feet). The mobility needs vary depending on your femur to tibia length ratio, in my case- increased demands. Before loading a pattern, develop a strong foundation with minimal compensations.
Some common compensations include rounded low back/pelvis, knee valgus (knocked in), collapsed ankle/arch, heels lifting, feet rotating outwards at depth.
Modifications can allow you to train a pattern safely without all of the necessary mobility by reducing demands. This could be a heel lift, a box to control depth, bands or surfaces to reduce loading or facilitate core engagement.
Mobility can be tested across each joint separately. You can use this information to determine if you meet the prerequisites to perform the movement in question. Continuing to use the pistol squat, the requirements vary depending on the build of the individual since variables such as torso length, femur length, and tibia length can increase the demand for mobility at certain parts compared to the rest. A longer femur to tibia ratio leads to increased mobility requirements at the hip and ankle.
The squat tends to require about 40 degrees of ankle dorsiflexion, 120 degrees of hip flexion and 140 degrees of knee flexion roughly. Additionally some hip horizontal adduction (15-20 degrees) and internal rotation (15 degrees) is helpful. For the pistol squat the hamstring must be flexible to maintain its elevated position (70 degrees straight leg raise). Taking these measurements on yourself can be difficult to do accurately but some simple movement tests can give you more than enough information.
To test for the hip and knee flexion mobility you can perform a Childs pose stretch. To test for ankle mobility you can perform a wall soleus stretch. To test for hip adduction, you can perform ea
Stability issues, what they look like
When we clearly have enough mobility but cannot successfully perform a movement, it is often due to lack of stability. Often times some sort of assistance that provides stability can allow you to become successful.
We can break down muscles in the body into two categories- Movers and stabilizers. Aptly named, movers are great at moving your bones in a direction and with force. If things were simple, that would be all you need to function, but sadly that is not the case. Stabilizers create the necessary stability to allow you to move. For example, when you open a door, your hand pulling the handle of the door creates the movement of the door swinging open. The hinge of the door is what prevents that force from causing the door to simply fall off or separate from the wall that it was designed to fix to. Our joints are not build with such rigid structures that the boney structure gives all the stability that we need. For example, the shoulder joint is actually quite shallow,
without all the muscular and connective tissue attachments the arm would literally fall off. The rotator cuff, a group of 4 muscles that stabilize the shoulder, is a great example of a stabilizer. These muscles act to draw the ball of the humerus into the socket. The attachment point of these muscles make them poor movers but they are great at creating stability.
Using the door analogy if you want to create stability, you need to be close to what you are stabilizing (door closest to the hinge). To create movement you want to be furthest out to have the most leverage. A muscle can be somewhat in-between these two roles but it’s impossible to excel at both. Good thing we have over 600 muscles.
When we look at exercises for the shoulder, we can simply examine the muscle engagement across the shoulder girdle during major push pull movements. For the chest press exercise your prime movers would be the deltoid, pectoralis major and triceps. Stabilizers would be the rotator cuff complex for the shoulder joint and the serrates anterior for the shoulder blade. Proper stabilization tends to lead to good form when performing these exercises. With a chest press movement, paused at the middle, ideally we would have the elbows stacked under your hands so your main movers can directly drive outward to straighten your arms. When your elbows flare outward you tend to lose stability and your main movers also loose leverage. The rotator cuff engages to hold your elbows in, creating a bit of a rotational movement. Also the added weight driving down into your arms, push shoulder blades to retraction direction, again causing you to lose stability and leverage from your movers. The serrates anterior combats these forces.
Isolated stability exercises for the shoulder in these movements would include a simple shoulder external rotation exercise and a scapular protraction exercise. There are numerous positions that each exercise can be done in and should be utilized in the way that most accurately relates to primary exercises you are performing. An example of a bench press specific external rotation exercise would be a banded wand press. A simple cue during bench pressing to “don’t let me tickle you” for tucking the elbows in can be helpful to learn how to utilize this stability. Performing push up plus or serrates punches can teach you to engage the shoulder blade into protraction during the pressing movement. Do not forget that integrating protraction into the bench press must separately be trained.
Numerous injuries can stem from poor stability during exercise. A poorly stabilized shoulder joint can lead to injuries such as shoulder impingement, dislocation/subluxation, labral injuries, RTC strain, scapular dyskinesia and many others. Understanding your injury’s pathology is important but that information only helps us to understand what structure is healing and its predicted progression to recovery. We need to understand mechanisms of injury to be able to prepare the injured tissue to be retrained and rehabilitated. Injury prevention also depends on understanding the mechanisms to be better prepared in the future.