Advancing Levels -- Strength vs. Mobility

Hi,

I am on Foundation 1 and find that my strength levels are at a much higher level than my mobility levels. However, when asked to perform five mobility reps, I can do them, but because of my limited range of motion, I do not look like the instructors on the demo. I am mirroring the strength exercises to the demo, but I am not mirroring the mobility exercises to the demo. 

Should I remain on step one until I can replicate the demonstration or should I be on step four where my strength is?

Thank you!

Remain on step one until you can demonstrate full range of motion in the mobility exercise

Hi Jesse,

Jon is exactly correct.

Perhaps it will help if we get rid of an artificial distinction that currently exists in most peoples' attitudes towards their physical preparation.  Note: in reality there is no such thing as strength vs. mobility.  Nor is there such a thing as mobility vs. strength.  

There is simply your body, which exists as an integrated whole.  And it is either in balance.  Or it is out of balance.

If out of balance, in order to regain quality of life, health and athleticism, it must be brought back into balance.  And that means our primary focus must be correcting the most glaring deficiency; whether that deficiency is mobility or strength is ultimately inconsequential.  What does matter is bringing the body back into balance.

Scratching the 'ego' and focusing on what we are best at, while paying lip service to or ignoring our deficits altogether, is satisfying in the short term; but ultimately is a fast road to nowhere.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Allow me to give a perspective on the role and the importance of mobility work. There is this human reflex called the arthrokinetic reflex. The arthrokinetic reflex describes the hardwired neural loops governed by joint motion.

On the positive side this reflex is capable of keeping your body safe if you are on the brink of damaging a joint. On the other side though it can hold back your performance levels. Basically, this reflex may kick in way too soon. Mechanoreceptors surrounding your joints sends inputs to your brain and your spinal cord based on the joint motion that happens so that your brain is aware of the position of the joints. If your brain and spinal cord interpret the motions as a threat to structural integrity, the brain sends back inhibitory signals to tone down the movements which are about to occur.

Now, the whole point is that often due to existing compensatory movement patterns from old injuries this reflex tends to kick in way too early, which limits your physical performance - like we want to accelerated our car and push down the pedal but the reflex acts as a cruise controller and artificially sets our top speed. We want this reflex to only kick in when we are really in actual danger.

So we want to reduce the arthrokinetic reflex. Therefore we must know exactly why it kicks in, and then we have to identify the compensatory movement patterns and correct these. This is where mobility work comes in. We must help the brain relearn the correct movement pattern in order to inhibit the reflex and maximize the performance. This may be hard if you have had these compensatory movement patterns for a long time, since this is now the default position for the body to be in.

In terms of correcting the CMP effective mobility work must encompass:

- Every joint in the body since a bad postural habit tends to have a chain reaction of postural changes that are symptoms of the original injury.

- The movement must put your joints through their current fullest ranges of motion in every possible direction.

- The mobility work must happen at a speed and resistance which allows for full body control, awareness and coordination.

- Quality over quantity. You want your brain to rebuild a good movement pattern, not a sloppy one which still triggers the reflex inappropriately.

This is basically why mobility work is so damn important for performance. And I have not even touched upon the health benefits of proper posture and function.

As a final perspective this is also why proper movement in STRENGTH TRAINING is so important. Mobility work is "light" strength training, in strength training we absolutely do not want to see the reflex kick in too early. So no half reps, always maintain good form to hardwire the brain into correct movement patterns and prevent a meaningless inhibitory signal to your muscles

Very interesting, Alexander. Does the same protecting reflex kick in even if there's no preexisting injury?

I'm 65yrs old and just started foundation 1. I've lifted weights and done some bodyweight exercises all my life. I would like to advance certain exercises but due to certain restrictions in my mobility I feel there's not enough yrs left for me to get full mobility in some of these mobility exercises, not that my mobility won't improve,but never to the point what you consider full mobility. So am I doomed to doing the same steps and never advancing to the next one?

3 hours ago, Petri Widsten said:

Very interesting, Alexander. Does the same protecting reflex kick in even if there's no preexisting injury?

Yup. Define "injury." One could say life is injury, although I don't subscribe to such negative view point:) 

Our movement history, habits, sitting, lack of integrated, 3-dimensional movement... All create imprints and contribute to CMP. Our joints can only express the ROM our CNS views safe. In order to go beyond that we must train them, hence mobility work (sorry for rushed post).

41 minutes ago, Bill Kiick said:

I'm 65yrs old and just started foundation 1. I've lifted weights and done some bodyweight exercises all my life. I would like to advance certain exercises but due to certain restrictions in my mobility I feel there's not enough yrs left for me to get full mobility in some of these mobility exercises, not that my mobility won't improve,but never to the point what you consider full mobility. So am I doomed to doing the same steps and never advancing to the next one?

Not doomed.

I'd recommend you post form checks and be honest with the moderator team and we can do our best to help you on a case by case basis.

1 hour ago, Bill Kiick said:

I'm 65yrs old and just started foundation 1. I've lifted weights and done some bodyweight exercises all my life. I would like to advance certain exercises but due to certain restrictions in my mobility I feel there's not enough yrs left for me to get full mobility in some of these mobility exercises, not that my mobility won't improve,but never to the point what you consider full mobility. So am I doomed to doing the same steps and never advancing to the next one?

Sometimes there are numerous changes that occur within one step. I don't feel this gets enough credit.  

When one is in tune with the microchanges that take place while training the appropriate step, the realized gains in everyday's life movement is exhilarating. The training does not make YouTube videos but so what. The body is setting itself up for the next progression until the day we die. Who cares about exercise 2 when there are so many microchanges happening inside the body with exercise 1.  I feel ya though... I am just as impatient as the next.

7 hours ago, Petri Widsten said:

Very interesting, Alexander. Does the same protecting reflex kick in even if there's no preexisting injury?

As Eva stated injury is just a term for something negative having happened to the body. Compensatory movement patterns might arise just by sitting in terms of creating anterior pelvic tilt.

Bill:

I'm 61 and, like you, have just started Foundation 1 (9th week), after coming off back surgery last November. I feel your pain re the inevitability of time. I suppose it is human nature to want to progress as quickly as possible, no matter how old you are. But, for us more chronologically-challenged folks there is this additional perceived "constraint." I am dealing with that perception in a couple of ways:

1. Psychological/emotional--I could spout lots of aphorisms here, but they would be worth what you're paying for this response. ;-) Two things I will say: I know if I stop moving forward I will feel as if I have given up, and that is not in my nature; and I'm trying to cultivate a Zen-like attitude where I don't worry about how far I will get. Rather I'm just trying to enjoy the ride. I am genuinely curious to see where this will take me. I'm willing to bet I get farther enjoying the ride than pushing myself too hard.

2. Physical--I, too, suffer from some mobility limitations. There are some things I do to help with that, all of which I have learned here on the forum. One is to spend a little extra time on the mobility work that is the most challenging (e.g, swivel hips) at various times during the day, not just at workout time. Also, I have invested in the stretch series which is possibly the most valuable part of the program for me at this stage. The Coach and his team have put together a very comprehensive program. All of the pieces form a holistic approach to fitness..."balance" the Coach called it above.. To get the most out of it, if you have the time and necessary resources, fill out the toolbox and use them all. There are many alternatives to the stretch series, of course, such as yoga. I'm sure they would be useful, but I doubt they will integrate as well with F1.

My 2c,

Mark

9 hours ago, Bill Kiick said:

I'm 65yrs old and just started foundation 1. I've lifted weights and done some bodyweight exercises all my life. I would like to advance certain exercises but due to certain restrictions in my mobility I feel there's not enough yrs left for me to get full mobility in some of these mobility exercises, not that my mobility won't improve,but never to the point what you consider full mobility. So am I doomed to doing the same steps and never advancing to the next one?

At 65 most people are getting weaker and stiffer. Even if you retain the same mobility and strength you are still winning. In performing Foundation you will progress slower than those younger than you, but you will make changes that will allow you to live healthy as you age. 

On 6/23/2016 at 1:03 AM, Coach Sommer said:

Hi Jesse,

Jon is exactly correct.

Perhaps it will help if we get rid of an artificial distinction that currently exists in most peoples' attitudes towards their physical preparation.  Note: in reality there is no such thing as strength vs. mobility.  Nor is there such a thing as mobility vs. strength.  

There is simply your body, which exists as an integrated whole.  And it is either in balance.  Or it is out of balance.

If out of balance, in order to regain quality of life, health and athleticism, it must be brought back into balance.  And that means our primary focus must be correcting the most glaring deficiency; whether that deficiency is mobility or strength is ultimately inconsequential.  What does matter is bringing the body back into balance.

Scratching the 'ego' and focusing on what we are best at, while paying lip service to or ignoring our deficits altogether, is satisfying in the short term; but ultimately is a fast road to nowhere.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I'm going to have to print this out and put it somewhere that I can remember.  Thanks Coach!

On 6/23/2016 at 8:51 AM, Bill Kiick said:

I'm 65yrs old and just started foundation 1. I've lifted weights and done some bodyweight exercises all my life. I would like to advance certain exercises but due to certain restrictions in my mobility I feel there's not enough yrs left for me to get full mobility in some of these mobility exercises, not that my mobility won't improve,but never to the point what you consider full mobility. So am I doomed to doing the same steps and never advancing to the next one?

Bill,

I have nothing but total respect for your decision to undertake this life-changing journey. I thought I had to overcome a lot of self doubt to join GB, but I can now see that mine pales in comparison to yours.

The human body is an amazing work of art, and even though we may be totally convinced that the body is incapable of becoming a certain way, that would be nothing but a self-defeating exercise of judgment, albeit one that is probably based on "solid" past experience and what we believe is a prior "knowledge" of what our bodies are capable of. (The quotation marks are to show that what we sometimes think is solid evidence, quickly becomes speculative once we start to train consistently and intelligently using the training protocol of GST.)

When I began GST I had no idea that I had chronically inflexible ankle joints/Achilles' heels on both feet. I had no idea, because no prior sport had exposed this inflexibility to me in the manner that GST had. And when I discovered this reality, my initial reaction was "that's how my body was built, it'll never change no matter how hard I try to alter this reality." But then I decided to give my body a go and let it do the talking, not me. And although change is happening to that area, albeit very, very, slowly, I know that that's the right approach I should take in order to get the results I need, no matter how trivial or insignificant the progress may see to me.

I have a similar question to the first question of this thread.

And if we can mirror the mobility work perfectly well and this not the case for the strength part of the exercise?

For exemple

For RC PE1 i can do the mobility quite well, but i can't do the strength element exactly like in the videos. Why? tigth hamstrings => i can't hinge a lot, in other words i can't move my trunk forward keeping my hips still because my hamstrings don't allow it!

So we have 2 options there:

1) I can set the rings higher minimizing this problem, but i'm also reducing the ROM a little bit of the exercise. So i don't know if u guys consider it as a mastery, is it ?( i'll post a form check tomorrow ) OR

2) i'll need to gain more flexibility to my hamstrings doing the stretch series and other mobility works, because the mobility of RC PE1 do not help the hamstrings for doing a good form on the strenght element.

While it doesn't happens to MN PE1 for exemple:

The mobility work helps to have a better rom in the strengt element.

Can any1 give me a clue?

Point 2.

This program has inbuilt roadblocks. Younwill need to adress the terrible hamstrings eventually, so that is main priority now. If you feel good in the shoulders build some volume by doing higher reps so then you will master PE2 more quickly.

Ok Mark,

so all that i can do for the moment is to do the stretch series and also the MN PE 1 IM to help my hamstrings?

When i can "mirror" exactly as in the video and do the 5x15r i'll have mastery then?

Thanks for the high volume tip, i'm sure will need and do that, futhermore, it will also help my grip strength and this exercise feel so good.

The standard is the videos presented. You can perform active mobilty as much as you like in combination with the stretch series. I also like to do less intense versions of the stretch exercises that I need work on. For example every time you stand up from sitting on the lounge you could do a 30 second pike stretch.