Remember our Fancy New Toy Drive, going on all this week. Your donation will help us get some sweet new gear, and will give you the chance to leave your mark on our sweet new gym!
As we all know, mobility is important – and not just to help prevent injury. Your ability to produce power, whether in a strength session or during a WOD, is largely dependent on your ability to get into and maintain good positions. In other words, your mobility directly affects your workout results. All else equal, the athlete who can get into better positions will be the athlete who performs better.
This is why we spend a few minutes after each WOD working on mobility in our cool-down. The amount of mobility work we put in our cool-downs is enough to help a normally mobile person retain that mobility and make small improvements. It is not, however, enough work to take an inflexible or otherwise mobility-limited person from their position of disadvantage to full range-of-motion.
The bottom line is this: We all benefit greatly from better mobility, and in order to get better mobility, we need to do more mobility work. So how, then, do we fit this work in, and what should we do? Here are some tips to get you started:
Do the full cool-down every day
We all tend to skimp on the cool-down occasionally. Maybe you spend 30 seconds in a stretch that you’re supposed to hold for a minute, or maybe you skip a mobility piece that you don’t particularly like. Consistently taking the time to complete the entire cool-down, including rolling out your problem areas, is the minimum investment necessary to keep your body functionally mobile.
Use rest days as mobility days
Come in to Open Gym on Wednesday for some rolling and stretching. Spend 20 minutes at home on Sunday doing some couch stretches or yoga. Rest days are the perfect opportunity to spend some extra time working on your trouble spots.
Check out mobilitywod.com
Mobility WOD is a great resource, with tons of videos and explanations that will help you address pretty much any mobility restriction you might have. Just search for the body part or movement that is giving you trouble, and you’ll find tons of great information. (Many times, the first couple of results will be “Pro” results that you have to pay a subscription fee to access. Scroll down past those to find the free results, which are typically more than sufficient to get you pointed in the right direction.)
When in doubt, do SOMETHING
Having trouble getting full depth in the squat, but not sure what stretches will help the most? It’s better to try something, even if it’s not the perfect solution, than to sit on the couch and wish your squat was better. Ask a coach, check out Mobility WOD, or do a good old-fashioned Google search to find something that might help, and then give it a try for a couple of weeks.
The ability to move well is essential to both injury resistance and performance. Time invested in improving your mobility will reap benefits both in and out of the gym.
Lounging and mobility work after Saturday’s WOD!
Foundation
Drop Snatch
3 – 2 – 2 – 1 – 1 – 1
WOD
“Nancy”
5 Rounds for Time:
Run 400m
15 overhead squats (95/65)
