3 Reasons Why Your Poor Mobility is Holding You Back

So many lifters are willing to complain ad nauseam about their lack of mobility, but very few of those people are willing to get up and fix it. Most individuals would prefer to deadlift heavy and get their heart rates up than spend about 10-15 minutes addressing their muscular imbalances and chronically tight areas.

What those people might not realize, is that their lack of mobility is actually sabotaging their progress. Instead, they'd rather just cut to the chase and dive face first into their workouts. They see the value in heavy lifting and pushing hard, but they neglect the accessory mobility work. It's easy to ignore, because the immediate pay-off might be minimal. They release a tight muscle once or twice, and don't make any lasting changes. Like strength training, though, consistency is the key. Doing a handful of stretches, some self-massage, and corrective exercises every few days will go a long way. Not only will you feel more loosey-goosey, but you may even PR your lifts just from adding some more range of motion to your joints!

If your overhead squat looks like that of the guy on the right, this article is about you.

Hopefully, this post will help knock some common sense into you and remind you to pay more attention to the corrective exercises. Here are three major reasons why your limited range of motion is holding you back from getting stronger:

1. You can't get into the right positions. Movements like the front squat require a considerable range of motion. If your latissimus dorsi and pectoralis minors are tight, you won't be able to achieve an ideal position in the lift. No matter how many times a coach may say "elbows up," you just can't get them any higher. Your mobility is going to hinder your progress, because if you cannot keep your torso upright, then you won't be able to support a significant amount of weight in that position. I have met plenty of people who have ample strength, but stagnate on the clean, because their chest drops every time they catch the barbell. Their legs can support the weight without a problem, but their shoulders aren't having it. If these people did some work on the areas in question (pecs and lats), they would, undoubtedly, get an immediate PR on their cleans.
2. Your potential for force production is limited. A muscle has to lengthen before a contraction. A length-tension of a relationship of a muscle explains that a muscle can produce an optimal amount of force at a certain length. For example, if you were to pick up a heavy book, you wouldn't do so with a fully extended elbow. Instead, you would probably bend your elbows a bit. Now, this continuum of ideal length is a balance. If someone is too flexible, force production will be limited, and the opposite is also true. If you are inflexible, the muscles are constantly partially contracted. Take a look at the diagram below of a muscle cross-section. The top model (a) cannot produce enough force because there is too much of an overlap, whereas option (c) can't produce optimal force because there's no overlap at all. Option (b) is just right: a little bit of overlap so that the muscles are at their ideal length for force production. So, if your hamstrings are "tight" you won't be able to produce true power on a sprint or a vertical jump, for example.
   
3. Muscles are not firing in the proper sequence. If you're tight, you're more than likely compensating in ways you don't even realize. For example, if your ankle mobility needs some help, chances are, you're using the muscles on the medial portion of your leg (hip adductors) way too much, while the lateral muscles (abductors, gluteus medius, tensor fascia latae) aren't working enough. Every time you squat, lunge, or sprint, your mechanics are altered. Because your muscles are not in symbioses, this could mean a slower 400 meter time or a weaker back squat. Once the kinetic chain works as it is supposed to, your mechanics are more efficient and you might find that previously challenging movements are a bit easier!

Bodyworker Thomas Myers notes, "organismic movement and stretching – yoga‬, pilates, training‬, manual therapy – can help cells to their proper tension environment by relieving pressure or strain, and this results in better functioning all over." It's great to work hard and get stronger, but it's also important to give your muscles some love and alleviate tension in the body.

Ultimately, if you find that your performance has plateaued, perhaps it is time to finally work on improving your tin man status of mobility and join the supple side.

Up, Up, and Away (Exercises to Improve Your Vertical Jump)

I don't know if there's something strange in the air lately, but for whatever reason, I've gotten a lot of questions about how to improve a vertical jump. Some individuals are naturally gifted with hops, but for the rest of us who need to work hard to become more powerful, we have to add more explosive movements into our routines. If you want to sky like Jordan, you want to make sure you're using the correct exercises.

This could be you! (Don't quote me on that, though...)

So what determines how high you can jump? There are a couple of factors, but I'll name the most pertinent:

• Muscle fiber distribution. Okay, so, in a nutshell, you have two different types of muscle fibers: type I and type II. Type I fibers (also known as slow twitch), do not fatigue easily. An endurance athlete will have well-developed type I fibers. Think: marathon runner. Type II fibers (also known as fast twitch) are split up into type IIa and IIb, and type IIb is the most easily fatigued. Someone with a higher percentage of type IIb fibers would be a 100 meter sprinter or a javelin thrower. Movements that are really short in nature require more speed and power. The fiber makeup of a muscle is determined by your genetics, but your training can help express and further develop either fast twitch or slow twitch fibers. If you train in an explosive, high-intensity manner, you are going to develop your fast twitch fibers to the best of your genetic ability.
• Rate of force development. This builds on the first bullet point. Let's say you tried to do a power clean for the first time. Initially, while you're learning the movement, you will probably pretty slow moving under the barbell. Two years later, your bar speed will be significantly faster. Granted, you've also become more competent and confident with the movement, and you are stronger, but your rate of force development (RFD) has improved significantly. How quickly you can express force is incredibly important in working your ups.

Now that the bulk of the science-y stuff is out of the way, we can get to the meat of the article: here some exercises that will help you leap tall buildings in a single bound. (Actually, maybe don't try to jump buildings just yet...)

1. Back squats (I have faith I don't need to post a video for this one...)
2. Power cleans
3. Power snatches
4. Push jerks
5. Depth jumps
6. Jumping lunges
7. Bulgarian split squat jumps
8. Low hurdle hops
9. Barbell jumping squats (no need to go heavy, here. Maybe 20-30% of your best squat.)
10. Barbell pogo jumps (similar as the previous exercise, but not as much hip/knee bend)

Ideally, we want to train strength in conjunction with plyometrics. For example, a six week study by Adams and his colleagues found that individuals who performed strength and plyometric exercises, saw a greater increase in vertical jump than the strength group and the plyometrics group alone: 

"Examination of the mean scores shows that the [strength] group increased 3.30 centimeters in vertical jump, the [plyometrics] group increased 3.81 centimeters and the [strength/plyometrics] group increased 10.67 centimeters. The results indicate that both [strength] and [plyometric] training are necessary for improving hip and thigh power production as measured by vertical jumping ability."

 A 10.67 centimeter increase in vertical jump in only 6 weeks is pretty solid! Basically, just jumping a lot will increase your jumping height, but if you perform strength training on top of that, your results will be significantly better.

If you want to get the most bang for your buck, Olympic weightlifting (snatch, clean, and jerk) movements are superior. "Olympic [weightlifting] exercises seemed to produce broader performance improvements than [vertical jump] exercises in physically active subjects," found Tricoli et. al. They continue to say, "groups using the [weightlifting] program increased [10 meter sprinting speed] more than those using the [vertical jump] program." So, not only did these movements effect the jumping height of the test subjects, but it also made them sprint faster!

In short, if you're looking to improve your jumps, try the exercises in the above list. Both strength training and plyometric training can be combined so that you can slam dunk like the pros in no time.

How Bigger Hamstrings Will Improve Your Athleticism and Prevent Injury

Let's talk about everyone's favorite chain: the posterior chain. So many songs have been written about it, but yet, some people oddly neglect to sufficiently train the glutes and hamstrings.

With this overwhelming abuse of the quadriceps complex, it is important that lifters prioritize isolation of the hamstring muscles to balance out the discrepancy in strength. Hamstring strength can play a role in improved power output, running economy, and may even reduce the risk of injuries like ACL tears.

As much as I love squats (and believe them to be one of the most beneficial exercises), the squat does not actually activate the posterior chain as much as many people think. In fact, many people squatting are quad-dominant, and under-utilize the gluteus maximus.

Before I elaborate, we need to review a little bit of anatomy. The muscles we refer to as the "hamstrings" are actually three separate muscles: the biceps femoris (which has a long head and a short head), the semimembranosus, and the semitendinosus. These two joint muscles work together to flex the knees and extend the hips.

Now that that's out of the way, we can talk about how these muscles affect performance. Since they act as hip extensors, strong hamstrings are going to be crucial for a high jump and a fast sprint. A 2007 study on sprinters concluded that "[...]the muscles mainly responsible for forward propulsion in full speed sprinting are the hamstrings, the glutaeus maximus and the adductor longus. The hamstrings are singled out as the most important contributors to produce highest speed levels." Essentially, an athlete with well-developed hamstrings will be able to horizontally accelerate much faster than an opponent with weaker hamstrings. Each stride will allow him to generate greater hip extension, getting more power as he straightens his legs. While quadriceps strength is necessary, it is the posterior chain that allows him to push harder off of the ground.

Similarly, another study found that runners with a smaller hamstring-to-quad ratio, meaning that there was not as big of a strength/size disparity between the two muscles, had a better running economy. This balance between the quadriceps and the hamstrings allowed the runners to be more efficient in their cadence. It was deduced that "runners should consider implementing hamstring exercises to improve their f-H:Q (hamstring to quad) ratios."

Usain Bolt has some serious hamstring pump.

The muscles activated in jumping are very similar to those we recruit in sprinting. While sprinting is unilateral, jumping is a bilateral movement. The extension of the hips, knees, and ankles, however, is much the same.

A four week study on males (with no strength training experience) found that the Nordic hamstring exercise (which I will show you later in this article) "[produced] favourable neuromuscular adaptations for the possible prevention of hamstring injuries while enhancing performance in athletic, untrained males." Using this exercise, on average, their vertical jump heights increased by about 6.3 cm in a month! That's pretty substantial. Granted, these are untrained individuals, but athletes could still reap some benefits from building the hamstrings.

I am a firm believer that a stronger, all-around, individual will be more resilient to injury. There is a decent amount of evidence to support the idea that hamstring strengthening can prevent the incidence of hamstring pulls, ACL tears, and other such injuries.

Askling et. al. tested hamstring injury in high-level soccer players. He put the players on an eccentric hamstring strengthening protocol 1-2 times a week for 10 weeks. "The results showed that the occurrence of hamstring strain injuries was clearly lower in the training group (3/15) than in the control group (10/15). In addition, there were significant increases in strength and speed in the training group." So the players got stronger, faster, and stayed injury free. What more could an athlete or a coach want!?

Here's the part you've been waiting for--the exercise section:

1. Russian leg curls
2. Good-mornings
3. Hip extensions (add weight if necessary)
4. Single leg RDL
5. Barbell hip thrusters
6. Stability ball leg curls 
7. Single leg sliding leg curl (advanced)
8. Slow eccentric RDLs
9. Reverse hypers
10. Stiff legged deadlifts

Not only will you have a better-looking rear-end, you'll be stronger, faster, and more injury resistant. Sounds like a win, win, win to me. Build those posterior chains!

Why You Need to Have a Big Butt

Having a big butt is certainly preferable for models twerking in rap videos, but it's also extremely important in athletic performance. Weather you're a soccer player, a running back or just simply working out to maintain a healthy lifestyle, you need to make sure you're giving your butt the attention it deserves.

I know what you're thinking: "But Arianna! I can squat 250 pounds. My glutes are really strong!" In a perfect world, you would achieve glute activation in the back squat, but many of the back squats I see people execute in the gym make use of the anterior quadriceps muscle and recruit minimal activation from their posterior chain. The truth is, if you are a predominantly sedentary person (meaning you sit for 4+ hours a day at home or at work), you probably don't know how to correctly activate your glutes because you're not using them for the majority of the day. Fear not--you are part of the American majority who sits at a desk job all day. It's no wonder that we don't know how to activate the right muscle groups considering we don't use them as often as we should.

Underactive or weak glutes can cause a ton of problems, including lower back pain, knee pain, IT band syndrome, and a whole slew of other maladies. Your quadriceps may be strong enough to squat 250 lbs, but guess what? If you learned how to activate your glutes properly, you would easily squat over 300 lbs.

The gluteus maximus (one of three muscles that make up what we collectively call the "glutes") is the biggest muscle in your body. Now, if we learn how to properly employ the strength of this tremendous group of muscles, we are going to see some real magic happen. Whether we're doing a deadlift, a squat, a box jump or a clean and jerk, we need to learn to properly harness the power from our glutes in order to move the most amount of weight and avoid injury.

In order to utilize the strength of the ever-powerful gluteal muscles, we must focus on activating them. Some great exercises can be found in my previous article about warm-ups, but I'll list a few more that I really like here:

• Single leg or weighted glute bridges
• Banded walks
• Reverse hyper extensions
• Single leg Romanian deadlifts
• GHD raise
• Bulgarian split squats
• Reverse lunges
• Side plank with abduction

Once you learn to properly engage your posterior chain, you will see tremendous gains in strength while simultaneously protecting your body from injury. If you have humongous quadriceps and a small butt, that should be a red flag to you that your glutes needs some more attention. Channel your inner Nicki Minaj and start building a bigger booty!

Plyometrics and Power

Looking to get stronger, fitter, faster, and more powerful? Plyometrics, or fast, explosive movements, are a great way to improve your overall fitness levels and get your heart rate up. Box jumps, jumping lunges, brad jumps and clapping push-ups are just a few examples of plyometric movements. These exercises require no equipment and help you develop explosive power that will ultimately lead to increases in strength and speed.

These movements make use of your fast twitch muscle fibers (as opposed to the slow twitch muscle fibers used predominantly used in strength training) to create as a tremendous amount of strength and speed in a very short period of time.

In a lift like the squat, powerful hips will help you get out of the hole once the weight gets heavy. Exercises like the box jump or broad jump help to develop that explosive power that will ultimately translate to squatting or deadlifting more weight. Likewise, clapping push-ups can really teach an athlete how to develop bar speed on a bench press.

One study at Western Michigan University showed that a 6-week plyometric training program significantly increased the agility of athletes. The amount of power developed in a successful plyometric program can ultimately translate to other activities such as shuttle sprints.

Assuming you really pay attention to the way you perform these movements (focusing on stability), there are numerous benefits to plyometric training. At the end of your next workout, spend about 10-15 minutes on a few, quick sets of explosive exercises. Focus on form, then speed. Once you get the form down, you will see your strength and overall athletic performance skyrocket.

Squats: the King of All Exercises

The most aggravating fallacy I hear is "squats are bad for your knees." No, you know what's bad for your knees? Squatting improperly. Sitting is also really bad for your knees, but that's another discussion entirely.

CrossFitter Miranda Oldroyd doing a heavy back squat.

Squats just might be the number one best exercise for you. Why? Well, there are many reasons, but the number one reason being that it is extremely applicable to daily life. Every time we sit down in a chair, go to the bathroom, or pick something up off of the floor, we are doing a variation of a squat. To quote the CrossFit journal:

"Squatting is just one example of a movement that is universally valuable and essential yet rarely taught to any but the most advanced of athletes. This is a tragedy."

Aside from its universal application, a properly executed squat will work every muscle from your abdominals and the erectors in your spine all of the way down to the muscles in your feet. Squats are great for increasing total body strength.

So if you want to get better at any given sport, improve your overall strength, and get legs of steel, squats are the way to go! Here are some other amazing benefits of squats, if you aren't sold already:

1. Squats help improve hip, glute and hamstring flexibility.
2. They increase your overall power output (think about how much power is necessary to get out of the bottom of a heavy squat).
• A recent study showed that squats improved the sprint performance of rugby players
• Another study suggests that squats increase the height of your vertical jump
3. They improve core strength

Without squatting, we would not be able to perform simple everyday tasks life requires. It is impossible to sit in our desk chairs without squatting first. We can't avoid doing them, so we might as well embrace them!