Mobility vs. Flexibility. What Everyone Should Know About Joint Mobility.

Have you ever woken up in the morning with stiffness , pain points in your body, like knots, with the feeling of being trapped in your own body?

I'm sure you've already talked to a friend who recommended you do more stretching or try yoga, right?

This is the kind of conversation I hear very often because people associate the feeling of freedom in the body with being more flexible, being able to stretch.

It's understandable, we all have in mind the image of a cat who, as soon as he wakes up, will "stretch" and lengthen his spine to its full length.

This is what we also do in the morning when we wake up.

Well, that's not flexibility, that's joint mobility .

You will see in this article that it is good to have a certain flexibility but that it is much more important to be mobile in terms of feeling free in your body, free to move, light, to improve the longevity of your body and your athletic performance.

Joint Mobility Demonstration by Coach Slim

What exactly is joint mobility?

The two terms, mobility and flexibility, are very often used interchangeably today, even among professionals in the sports world.

However, they actually have different meanings.

Flexibility is the ability of your muscles to stretch or lengthen .

We are talking about soft tissue elongation.

It simply means making your muscles longer.

Mobility , on the other hand, is your ability to move your joints through their full range of motion with control , to allow your body to reach a given position.

This notion of control is very important.

Indeed, mobility allows you to reach a position and be able to generate force at the ends of your movement. In other words, mobility is flexibility with strength .

We will look at this concept in detail in a more concrete example.

Case study: the splits.

To illustrate the difference between flexibility and joint mobility, we will take the example of the splits .

As you can see, to be able to put your body in a given position, you need your muscles to be long enough and your joints to be able to reach the right position to allow movement.

To achieve the splits, let's take two scenarios.

Case No. 1.

An external element (a person, a device, etc.) forces your body into the splits position.
For example, someone who violently pushes your shoulders towards the ground and forces your body into the splits position.

Case No. 2.

You must lower yourself into the splits position, without using your hands, simply by spreading your legs apart, then come back up in the same way, only using your legs, until you are standing again.

The Splits by Coach Slim

Let's assume that in both cases you can do a big split.

In case #1, you will have to use only your flexibility while in case #2, you will have to use your mobility.

Joint mobility requires that you involve your nervous system in the movement .

In other words, you decide to move, not have an external element manipulate your body for you.

This is where the notion of strength + flexibility takes on its full meaning.

So you can be flexible but not necessarily mobile.

The importance of the neural network

You now understand that to achieve a position with control, your brain must send electrical signals, nerve messages, to your joints to be able to trigger the movement.

Being more mobile therefore means having a more powerful neural network .

To understand what this means, let's take the example of the Formula 1 driver.

The car here is your body and the driver is your brain.

You can imagine that someone who has never driven a Formula 1 car is probably not going to finish a race in one piece...

Sounds like a reasonable assumption, right?

Working on joint mobility is about improving the pilot.

We use exercises to improve the connection between your body and your brain .

The more developed your neural network is, the better your brain maps your body.

You then have a better representation of your body, greater control of each joint, a feeling of completely owning your body.

Passive (assisted) stretching vs. joint mobility

So it's joint mobility that helps unlock your body and make you feel free.

So, is yoga good or bad for joint mobility?

Most forms of yoga seen in the media often feature exercises that focus on holding static positions for long periods of time .

As you know by now, if you are not actively moving your joint through a movement, you are not going to greatly improve your joint mobility,

but rather focus your efforts around muscle stretching: flexibility .

Additionally, most people don't spend their lives on the move and therefore don't maintain their flexibility to a minimum.

This means that most of the time, when they try yoga, their muscles will be too short , too restrictive to allow them to get into the different positions that this practice requires.

They will feel like they are forcing themselves and so their nervous system will do everything to protect the body against injury.

When your nervous system does that, you're not going to improve your joint mobility at all.

It is a job that must be done gently .

This is why moving your body, getting in and out of different positions with all your attention on the joints you are trying to free up more is fundamental.

No “No Pain, No Gain” in joint mobility, but rather “No Brain, No Gain” .

Pistol Squat Demonstration by Coach Slim

Mind you, I didn't say not to learn anything from yoga.

There are several forms of movement-based yoga that can help you work on joint mobility, body control, and even develop core strength and muscle tone.

It is true, however, that we often see promoted the image of the active young woman with her leggings, her mat, who stretches for hours...

She doesn't move, she stretches.

What happens if you don't maintain your joint mobility?

Your body is designed to move.

The less you use it, the more you lose it.

So the primary goal of joint mobility is to maintain your body's natural functions.

You watch a child move and you immediately see that their movements are much more fluid than yours,
that he has no trouble sitting down in a deep squat ,
to roll on his back,
to raise one's arms above one's head (overhead)…

You can see that he is freer, that he feels much better in his body than you.

A child sitting in a deep squat with a straight back vs. an adult sitting on a chair with a curved back

The only difference with you is not the age difference but rather the number of hours spent moving your joints.

You don't get stiffer and less mobile as you get older, your body ages because you don't move it as much as you used to.

If you are not convinced, compare with other cultures that move more than we do in France and observe how people live and, above all, how they age.

For example, in Asia, everyone squats deeply to wait for the bus, smoke a cigarette, take an item from the bottom shelf at the supermarket, read a book, make a phone call, etc.

In Europe, on the other hand, we bend down by bending the spine.

It sounds ridiculous, but after 20 years of doing this, it's normal that you can't squat anymore.

To feel good, you need to move your joints every day .

How to Develop an Injury-Proof Body

A mobile body, with joints capable of achieving a wide range of motion, gives you access to a greater range of motion .

Concretely, you are able to put your body in more positions with ease, without pain, discomfort or restriction.

As we have seen, this means being able to generate force at the ends of one's movements.

In other words, your nervous system is more connected with your body.

When we get injured, it is often because an external element has put our body in a position that it was not ready, or not trained, to reach with control and strength.

This is for example the case when you are rolling in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and your training partner turns your ankle too fast, too far,

or even when the bar above your head pulls your shoulder too far back in your clean and jerk, or even when your ankle twists when your foot lands on a rock while you run...

All of these involuntary movement scenarios are nearly impossible to avoid, but the pain or injury they cause can be greatly reduced if you prepare your joints to withstand more shock, achieve a greater range of motion, and even lift more weight.

Back Bend Demonstration by Coach Slim

Joint mobility can help you develop a “bulletproof body.”

Moving with ease also improves your performance

This point is more obvious.

With a body that can move freely in the positions required by your sport, you will naturally feel more confident and be able to execute movements more efficiently .

CrossFit athlete prepares to lift the bar from his deep squat

As we saw previously, being more mobile means having a better connection between your brain and your body through better joint control.

So your neural network is more efficient , your synapses fire more quickly to execute movements.

Naturally, for explosive or strength movements, a better neural network can mean lifting the bar faster, throwing the ball further, rotating your hip higher in your kick…

You move better, you reach new positions with safety,

with the certainty that your body will not crack under the weight of this bar or will not tear a ligament because of the rotation speed of this movement.

It's as simple as that.

How to start training joint mobility?

Joint mobility work always begins with a personal assessment part.

You need to be able to address each joint and see how well, or how little, you are able to move each one through their full range of motion.

This will give you a kind of report on the current state of your body and its ability to move.

With this initial observation, you will deduce a priority list, all the joints that cause you problems and all the movement scenarios in which you feel uncomfortable.

These lists should also be linked to your goals for your body, your health, your movements.

You understand that if you are a mother who has back pain and wants to be able to lift her baby without pain, you will not have the same needs as a CrossFit athlete who wants to correct their posture or gain mobility in their wrists to improve their performance and protect themselves from injury.

Joint mobility work is contextual work .

Coach Slim helping a boxer with his shoulder internal rotation, in London

On the other hand, when it comes to developing general mobility or general flexibility of the body to unlock it, remove this feeling of stiffness, remove this feeling of being a prisoner of one's body in order to move on a daily basis with more ease and freedom,

I recommend implementing a good mobility routine into your daily life.

Luckily, we have a FREE training course that helps you do just that.

If you want a profound transformation of your movement capacity, a tailor-made and specific training for 12 weeks to address this problem,

The best option is our individual coaching.

I prepare athletes for competitions (MMA, CrossFit, Climbing, Marathon...), people who want to rehabilitate their body, people who have just had an operation and even those who want to avoid an operation.

The general idea is always the same: you need to start with an assessment of your current joint mobility, define your goals, and create a training structure tailored to meet them.

It's tedious work but it pays dividends in the long run.

Advice from your mobility coach

Joint mobility is therefore your ability to move .

You can train flexibility as much as you want, but if you can't move your joints, you'll never be free to move your body with ease, without pain, without restriction.

Take back control of your health and learn to move again!

Next time, move, move well.

Nomad Slim
Founder of MOUVERS