Mobility is the key to successful strength training

Do you think mobility and strength training don’t go together? Find out here why good mobility can even improve your strength training (in the long run).

Since mobility is not my specialty, I asked FitnessAgony’s Winter to write this guest article. Mobility training is an important part of his training. You can see this on his blog and also on his Instagram channel.

Why mobility is also important for your strength training, for weight gain and what you can do to improve your mobility, he now explains to you:

Over and over, you see the boys in the gym leave the locker room and walk straight to the cars and free weights. For warm-up, short-term relief is performed, then begins: the more weight, the better. The number of repetitions should be achieved regardless of whether execution suffers. If necessary, it is also sufficient that only half of the range of motion is completed.

Unsurprisingly, this type of workout doesn’t give the desired success or lead to injury due to overload and improper sequence of movements. This type of injury can often be avoided with a few minutes of mobile warm-up.

Mobile exercise, as many people think, does not reduce your strength. It will even help you gain more strength. Those who are flexible can do many movements better, do not have to work with impulse or avoid correct sequence of movements using soft postures. In the long term, it may even help build strength and muscle mass.

Two strength exercises that require good mobility

In fact, mobilization makes sense for all strength training exercises. Especially with Basic Exercises. You get good mobility.

In the following two exercises, which should be part of every good strength training plan, your mobility is especially important.

Mobility Squat / Squat

Squats or squats are probably the exercise in which poor mobility is most noticeable. If you are not flexible enough in your spine, hips, knees, and ankles, you will not be able to do a clean squat with a full range of motion.

If your heels come off the floor in a deep squat or your back is rounded, you know you need to work in those places. Otherwise, you can never reach your full potential and stay below your potential.

Mobility Deadlift / Deadlift

Even with traction / traction, mobility is an important prerequisite for clean driving. The elasticity of the back of the thigh and mobility in the hip and spine are especially important here.

If you have to bend your knees too much during the deadlift, or if your pelvis tilts to the starting position so that your lower back is rounded, you should work on these two weak points. Stretching exercises for the back of the thigh and mobilization exercises for the thigh are now useful.

Stretching and Mobility Strength Training

In the next section, you will find five stretching and mobility exercises that you can easily integrate into your warm-up to get even stronger during strength training (long term).

Dog Stretch

This is probably the fastest way to briefly open and stretch both the entire front and the entire back of the body. The advantage of this exercise is that you not only stretch the muscles, but also open up the shoulder and hip joints, mobilize the spine and even the ankles.

Glory Stretch

You are standing with straight legs. Legs close together. Now you allow your upper body to hang forward. Stay relaxed and feel the pull on your calf and back of your thigh. Hold this position for about 20 seconds.

Then you straighten, extend your arms over your head and form a light, hollow back. You are actively pushing your hips forward. Hold this position for just 5 seconds and let yourself hang again. Repeat this three times.

This exercise stretches both the front and back of the body. However, the stretch is more selective and less dynamic. This stretch is especially suitable for exercise recovery time

Shoulder opener

Place your hands on a drawer, chair, table, or wall as shown. Just let your torso dangle until you feel a slight stretch in your front shoulder area. Hold this position for 20 seconds. Shake hands briefly. Then return to the starting position. Repeat this three times.

Ankle mobility to stretch the lower leg

Try to actively push your knees forward. Your goal is to touch the wall with your knee. At the beginning, you stand on your entire leg in the starting position. Later, you stand on your heels and further reduce the angle of the ankle.

Thigh Opening Ankle

The heel seat is ideal for stretching, opening and mobilizing the ankle in both directions. To relieve heavily stretched lift, you always push your hip as far forward as possible.

Create these five exercises as a warm-up before your next strength workout and see how your squat and deadlift mobility improves. By the way: The often feared loss of strength due to pre-workout stretching is minimal. This only happens after particularly long stretch units (over 40 seconds) per stretch.