Let’s say someone can’t hit depth on a squat, or cant setup up under a barbell to squat (complain of tightness in their shoulders), or any other “mobility restriction”. Is there any benefit to include mobility work? Or is there an alternative.
Thanks,
you guys are changing how I view pain, and the information i put out. (Pt student and coach)
I can’t talk on the behalf of BBM but I don’t think there’s much need for Mobility work, I was one of the people who did mobility work for 20 minutes preworkout and ended up just wasting my time.
As for your question, you could try doing a front squat and to get into position they can try different grip widths.
This may help:
I read that article! From my understanding, it’s looking at mobility work, excluding the last section (which touches on performance) and its relationship with injury risk. However if someone’s ROM doesnt allow them to execute the main lifts, for example if someone can only lift their arm 120 degrees (instead of the full 180degrees, how would they be able to OHP? Or from a performance standpoint, someone cant get into the prerequisite positions of the powerlifts, would it then make sense to do mobility work?
Hi Jacob,
This a grey topic. There are some folks lacking the necessary movements to complete a full OHP. In this case, they don’t OHP.
see this video: start at the 1 hour 4 minute mark. Some folks will lack full mobility of one or more body parts.
In some circumstances, modifications need to be made. For others, mobility/flexibility/etc may restore their deficits. The answer is “it depends.” From an anecdotal perspective, most won’t benefit from additional mobility work outside of practice the movements themselves. If they can’t achieve the full motion, then a scaled version that’s progressed over time typically achieves it.
From a performance perspective I ask “what’s prerequisite?” If you mean hip crease below knees in a squat, then adjusting stance width/foot flare/hip ER/etc may accommodate anthropometrics. The same can be seen in olympic lifting, power lifting, etc. Everyone adjusts the technique based on pain, injury, genetics etc to complete the movement in its most efficient fashion.
Hope that helps
Hey Matthew, thanks lot for the response. It is a grey topic for sure! (similar to most of the rehab industry right now ha!) It’s sometimes tough, when people have expectations as far as what they need (stretching more mobility) and then having to slowly educate them and find some middle ground.
Hey Jacob - our stance is mobility work, as it typically is used in today’s world, is bullshit and isn’t necessary. However, if we define the term as the ability to move then this is a different discussion. In your example, if the person wants to overhead press then we’d work on overhead pressing within the confines of their current abilities and as time goes on they’d improve. I’m curious why you think someone with 120 degrees of shoulder flexion can’t overhead press - given the overhead press is more than just shoulder flexion. If we want to improve at a movement then we must train the movement - but perhaps we do so in different variations such as close neutral grip machine overhead press, dumbbells, then barbell, etc. Hope this helps. Happy to discuss more.