Mobility, Flexibility and Stability - Why are they important in performance?

Hello again and welcome.  Today’s article will be based around mobility, flexibility and stability. I’m sure these are generic terms you have all heard of before, but this article will look specifically into why we should focus on them when training.

What are they?

Okay, so to start off with, let’s look at how these terms are defined. I always believe it is important to have definitions in the back of your mind when training so we can justify our training methods by keeping a focus on the enhancements we are trying to achieve.

Mobility is the ability to be able to move freely and easily, flexibility is the range of motion possible at a joint or muscle and stability describes how efficiently the body manages forces to remain stable under pressure.

Why should mobility, flexibility and stability be trained?

A short session containing mobility, flexibility and stability exercises before a training session will increase the body’s ability to move freely and easily, increase the range of movement possible and improve the ability to maintain form under external forces. These training adaptions will consequently improve your level of performance and also decrease your risk of injury.

How can these be trained?

Personally, I like to add the session onto the start of my normal training session, incorporating it into my warm up. Along with mobility, flexibility and stability exercises, the session consists of foam rolling and some glute activation. This acts as a pre-training session to prepare the body for exercise to ensure I am reducing my injury risk but also maximizing my levels of performance.

Mobility

In order to allow the body to move freely and easily, we need to loosen off and exercise our joints and muscles through their full range of motion. It is recommended to focus on joints such as your shoulders, back, hips, knees, ankles as well as all major muscle groups.

I start my initial focus on general mobility by going for a short jog, incorporating skipping, arm circles and trunk twists. I then focus on my back by performing various back loosening exercises such as knee rolls or cat-camels then onto my hips with some hip openers and leg swings.

Following on from these exercises, I would then further focus on the lower body by performing a number of functional squat and lunge (forward, backward, lateral) based exercises, promoting that high range of movement in my joints and muscles.

Flexibility

Once warm, and you have been through your mobility exercises, we can now look to increase that current range of movement through some flexibility exercises. There are numerous ways to train flexibility; it may be worth looking into each method and seeing which is best for you. Most commonly used methods as part of a warm up protocol are static and dynamic stretching. When stretching statically, ease the body into a position in which you can feel a slight stretch or discomfort (not pain) and hold for around 30 seconds. Any increase in flexibility this generates will consequently improve your mobility also.

For sports such as football, there is clearly significance on the lower body. Try to focus on your glutes, hamstrings, groin, quadriceps, hip flexors and calves.

Stability

Similarly to mobility and flexibility, the actual exercises you select are dependent on your sport. For example, if your sport is tennis, you may focus more on the stability of your shoulders but there are several areas of the body that require stability work. As I am a footballer myself, for the purpose of this article we will focus on ankle stability.

In sports such as football, it is often required to make sharp lateral movements from a single leg stance. Consequently there is a load being placed on the ankle which, if not managed correctly, can lead to injury. If the ankle is strong and stable enough to manage these loads correctly, we can cut away quicker, sharper and more powerfully (away from opposition). Another advantage of ‘stronger ankles’ is improved balance. Strengthening the muscles surrounding the ankle will enhance our balance when performing on a single leg.

Some example exercises include hop and sticks (forward, back, lateral, 180 degree turn), single leg balances (even or uneven surface; un-weighted or weighted) and single leg medicine ball throw and catches to add a force to resist against, forcing your ankle to work and developing balance.

What does the research say?

Now lets look at what the research has had to say regarding mobility, flexibility and stability. All references can be found below in case you would like to look further into any studies or read up further on any theory.  

So, is it really worth it?

Joyce and Lewington (2014) write that mobility exercises should focus on joint range of motion and tissue length. Athletes should perform a series of these mobility movements to access full range of motion, stabilise the joint and create clean movement within the body, preparing them for maximum performance.

A study by Johnson et al. (2014) investigated hamstring flexibility, measuring knee extension range of motion, after a six week programme of stretching. Results showed that participants were successful in increasing their joint range of motion after the programme, which supports the hypothesis behind flexibility training.

A study looking into ankle sprains by Thacker et al. (2003), concluded that special emphasis should be placed on ankle strengthening, particularly with use of a balance board or similar.  It was suggested such methods are likely to lead to a reduction in injury risk and improvement in performance

Joyce and Lewington (2014) also state that unstable surfaces are a potent tool for stimulating muscle stabilisers and incorporating this stability / balance training into a warm up can enhance proprioceptive input.  This also reduces the risk of lower back or leg injuries (Bird and Stuart, 2012).

So why not find the time to incorporate this into your training programme and see if it works for you?

As always, We’d love to hear what you think!

References

Bird, S. and Stuart, W. (2012). Integrating Balance and Postural Stability Exercises into the Functional Warm-up for Youth Athletes. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 34(3), pp.73-79.

Johnson, A., Mitchell, U., Meek, K. and Feland, J. (2014). Hamstring flexibility increases the same with 3 or 9 repetitions of stretching held for a total time of 90 s. Physical Therapy in Sport, 15(2), pp.101-105.

Joyce, D. and Lewindon, D. (2014). High-performance training for sports. Human Kinetics

Thacker, S., Stroup, D., Branche, C., Gilchrist, J. and Goodman, R. (2003). Prevention of ankle sprains in sports: An Update. International Sports Medicine Journal, 4(4).