In my opinion, flexibility and mobility training is the most overhyped and oversold ‘thing’ in the whole of the fitness industry. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter, if anyone disagrees or agrees I’d love to chat.
The range you need is the range you need, no more.
Range of motion and flexibility are context and task specific, if you have desk job and train 3-4 per week in the gym, want to be a functional human, run, pick your kids up and throw them above your head, squat and hinge down to pick something up of the ground you don’t need to be able to externally rotate your hip to 280 degrees (over exaggerating for dramatic effect!). On the other hand, if you’re a professional contortionist and you make your money by being able to put your feet around your head, you do need that range! Case in point, if you need range of motion to do a specific task work on that ability, when you have that range work on other important qualities. People may say “but what if ‘x’ happens and you need more range of motion”…then have a level of preparedness that is robust for this situation. Think about the tasks that you do, the range of motion required, work backwards from the tasks you do then go from there. Not just aimlessly work towards something that isn’t of value.
All systems attempt to achieve the same thing.
FRC, AIM, PRI, RPR, FMS, ROMWOD etc etc methods try to manipulate the nervous system (the body’s central command) in one way or another they attempt to give your ‘brain’ the sensation that a specific range of motion is deemed ‘safe’. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve heard people say ‘x’ is tight, stretch ‘x’, in matter of fact what is more than likely happening is that your body is defending its self from a specific range because you don’t have neurological control and strength in that position, or because of certain misalignments in terms of bone structure giving your ‘body’ the perceived feeling of being centred when in fact certain joints are out of line and working against each other or genetic pre determined anthropometrics resulting in your body being designed in a specific way that just means you are made that way (maybe my hips just can’t do that because of there shape!!!???). Ultimately there’s many reasons why something may feel ‘tight’ there is not one simple answer. However, there are definitely commonalities as a human species. Learn to manipulate the nervous system (I use breathing drills with clients) to get the specific adaption you desire, this is basically the whole premise of training, strength training causes adaptions to your CNS to recruit more motor units, motor unit synchronisation, motor unit firing rate etc etc when we think about human adaption we need to think big world, not small world. The human bodily systems do not work in isolation EVER, it is a complex system of systems, we must respect this.
What if more and more range is not better. Chase other qualities.
People chase flexibility and range of motion like its the holy grail…why? It’s hardly ever a key performance indicator, there are more important qualities to develop. Going back to my first point, if you have the range - maintain it and do something else, if you don’t - work towards it. There comes a point when stretching and mobility training can actually become detrimental to performance (rare but can happen). Example, you stretch so much and for so long that you lose muscle-tendon stiffness which results in increased energy cost for said movement because now you have reduced your elastic ability. In extreme cases (dance & gymnastics etc) the culture is so embedded that you must stretch long passive holds in extreme end range positions that this may even be a cause of injury? (Obviously I would never say that is for sure but I’m speculating). In my opinion better practice of strength training through a full range of motion would be better to increase task specific flexibility and neuromuscular control at end ranges (where most injuries take place).
The test, re test problem.
You’re at a seminar, 40 people in attendance, the instructor has just tested an attendee posterior length (via the active straight leg raise or similar), the attendee is really eager to learn and believe in this new and exciting system of improving flexibility. They now do ’x’ you now have more range. No shit! Please don’t be surprised by these cases! In this situation there is so few cases literally no matter what you did that this wouldn’t improve solely because of the socio-psychology factors, of course other complex factors in play but this is the big one. The point I’m making is don’t think that test, re-test situations are ground breaking, again, going back to my earlier point, all systems attempt to do the same thing by manipulating the nervous system. Most systems work, some are better than others, they are all tools in a tool box, don’t be so tied to one that you close your mind to others.
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To conclude, if you have the range - maintain it and do something else, if you don’t - work towards it in a sensible logic manner. This may sound pretty obvious but ultimately what I’m trying to get across is that unless you really want to, you do not need to dedicate hours to mobility training - learn to manipulate the nervous systems via certain breathing drills, train strength movements through a full range of motion and complete a purposeful warm up and movement prep prior to every session you do, and that’ll ensure you develop and maintain good levels of range of motion.
