Mobility vs Yoga: Why Joint Mobility Is Much Better Than Prolonged Static Stretching?

Today, we can usually find answers to most of our questions with just a few clicks from our phones. Yet in the fields of sports and health, some questions still remain without definitive answers or unanimous consensus.

Today, we're addressing one of these questions: How can I actually become more flexible? Should I stretch or not? Before or after training? Will stretching or yoga really help me feel more flexible and lighter? Will it protect me from injury? And what is mobility? What exercises should I do? How many hours a week?

These are the mountain of questions that can come to mind when we talk about flexibility and freedom of movement.

In 2019, I published an article on the difference between joint mobility and flexibility. However, I still receive messages from people who confuse these two training modalities.

I understand that it is easy to drown in the mass of information , sometimes contradictory, that we can find on the Internet, the hearsay of friends and colleagues, the “good advice” from the guy in the gym, what your PE teacher told you, what you saw in the latest Kung-Fu film on TV...

Many still think that: flexibility = stretching = yoga .

Let's not prolong the suspense any longer: It's FALSE!

I will try to provide some answers to clarify all this and at the same time try to argue the following point:

Joint mobility is much better than static stretching (ie. yoga) for better movement.

In this article, I want to give all the keys to clearly understand the difference and the interest of these training methods , their effects on the body, on flexibility, on injury prevention, and expose the myths about yoga, the bad associations with other benefits on better movement,

and allow you to make your choice, with full knowledge of the facts , according to your objectives for your body, your movements, your performance, your health, and your longevity.

Very good reading my move!

Foreword

In this article, we will talk about yoga, joint mobility, natural movements, performance, health... how to take care of your body.

These are topics that affect each of us , especially if we have experienced injuries, pain, trauma or if we belong to communities or groups (yogis, vegans, athletes, etc.)

I will use factual and contextual arguments, but I will also appeal to common sense, empiricism and observation of living things to present my point.

I invite the reader to keep an open and curious mind , not to take things too seriously if they clash with already deeply held beliefs, and not to hesitate to apply their own critical sense to refute, qualify, complement, or bring useful elements to the conversation.

I also invite you, if you wish to contribute to this discussion, to comment below the article in the section dedicated to this.

As always, I share with love, kindness and a little humor , what I think is useful to feel better in your body, move better, more freely, be in harmony with your heart, your mind and fully exploit your human potential.

That's it for the little message for the most belligerent trolls on the Internet haha ​​;p

What does it mean to move your body more freely?

We all want to be able to move our bodies with a certain ease , without pain or discomfort that prevents us from either making basic everyday movements or sometimes even preventing us from practicing the sports we love.

So, yes, we live in a world that promotes sedentary lifestyles, comfort, and immediacy . We have access to everything, right away, more easily than at any other time in human history.

However, this modern life is not without its share of negative effects on our body and our health.

We don't move anymore, we eat badly, we are stressed, and all of this has toxic repercussions on the way we feel in our body, our energy level, our hormones and by extension, on our thoughts, our state of mind, our ambitions, our positivity...

I think we all experience, at some point in our lives, pain, stiffness, restrictions, pinching, strange noises, cracking, or major injuries and accidents that handicap us physically and mentally .

The primary goal of physical practice, for me, is above all to feel good in one's body.

If I ask you now to imagine feeling good in your body, without talking about aesthetics or any particular performance, simply by thinking about what you would be supposed to be able to do easily in an ideal world,

I think we all share, more or less, the same vision of what a healthy body should be able to do:

• That of a body that is both flexible and strong .
• That of a coordinated , agile, skillful body.
  
• That of a body capable of performing all basic movements without problem such as pushing, pulling, squatting...
  
• That of a body with a sufficient level of endurance to not be out of breath every time you climb stairs.
• That of a body you can count on in all circumstances (sport, work, daily life, etc.)
• That of a body that is your ally for life , and not against which you have to fight every day.
• That of a body which is a vector of elevation

A good mental image I like to use to clearly visualize this is to find the body we had as children .

A body that functions perfectly, without ever needing to warm up or stretch, a body without any fear of daring to move, a body that is injury-proof, totally free, a body that functions on pure intuition .

The dream, I know ^^

Concretely, how does this translate?

1. More range of motion.
   We need to be able to move our limbs with a greater degree of freedom, that is, to be able to bend, unbend, turn and twist each of the joints in all directions (well almost ^^)
2. Less pain, stiffness, and limitations
   This goes hand in hand with the first point, but being able to move with more range of motion is pointless if every movement you make hurts all the time. We want a well-oiled machine, but also one in which we feel safe without having to constantly sound the alarm.
3. More strength and control
   If you want to truly enjoy your body and be able to do lots of activities, there's no point in just being all flabby and flaccid. We want to be able to take action, actively interact with our environment, and therefore be able to initiate movements.
4. Don't get hurt
   To feel better about your body, it's important to have confidence in your abilities, your resistance to shocks, and your resilience in the face of stress. We want to feel antifragile and able to meet the demands of all our physical activities without the fear of breaking, moving, or tearing something.

If we start from this postulate to define a body capable of moving freely, the following arguments will make sense, I think.

If your definition of a freer body is one that has a certain aesthetic, is capable of lifting a certain number of kilos, is capable of contortionist movements and triple backflips, the rest of the article will not help you.

As I mentioned in the foreword, we try to use common sense here and consider the modern human being who evolves in our current environment: city life, ultra-present technology, office work, sedentary lifestyle, ease of transport, access to medication, little manual work outdoors...

For the specific case of athletes, artists, people needing performance enhancement to meet specific demands of their sport, you are also taken into account a little further on in the article.

Now that we have defined the body capable of moving freely, let's talk more specifically about one of the attributes we mentioned, flexibility ,

and let's see together how to work it, the role of joint mobility and static stretching, how they compare to each other, in which contexts to use them...

Joint mobility vs. static stretching

Let's take a look at the definition of joint mobility and static stretching in the context of better movement defined above.

The foundation of the movement

By definition, joint mobility is the ability to move your joints through their full range of motion with control, contracting muscles to stabilize and generate force throughout the desired movement , even at the extremes of those ranges.

It's actively moving the elements of your body, with strength and control, to get into and out of positions safely.

What does this mean in concrete terms?

This means that there is a standardized expectation of organized positions that we, human beings, modern or ancestral, athletic or not, young or old, male or female…, that we all, should be able to enter and exit competently.

As you can see, the notion of mobility implies a notion of strength and control of the body and therefore, it is the work of the command center, that is to say, the work of your nervous system .

Mobility is NOT just an expression of your flexibility and range of motion, it is also related to your body's production of quality movements .

No momentum, no holding static positions, no stretching, no forcing your body into a position it can't yet access, no partner work, no external tools... It's about being able to establish a precise map of your body in your brain.

Put very roughly: mobility = flexibility + strength + control

So training mobility is training to become stronger so you can control your body in motion.

The problem with yoga (stretching)

For many, yoga is all about going to a studio with your Lululemon mat, your Plant-based Vegan Healthy Smoothie, your complete tight-fitting outfit in the same color made from recycled material, putting on some incense, and starting a series of exercises in which you hold static positions for a very long time, and ending in Savasana lying on your back, pretending that you are capable of meditating and going on an astral journey...

Even if it could be the case, it is obviously very caricatured.

Yes, even if in Bali or Thailand, we find that a lot hahaha

There are several forms of yoga that are more dynamic and will require you to do complex movements such as balances with more intense transitions, tempos, speeds, etc.

However, we will talk about modern yoga , the most popular (the one that maintains static positions for a long time) in the context of moving better.

The problem with this yoga is that there is less conscious movement and much more emphasis on long, deep poses and prolonged static stretches.

By awareness in movement, I am referring to the previous idea of ​​actively moving one's body.

Without this, we are passive , we do not initiate the movement, so we do not use our nervous system as with joint mobility.

It's like when you ask someone to pull your arm back. You don't initiate that movement. Your brain doesn't send the message to the muscles to contract and move your arm.

We therefore lose the ability to manage, order, regulate and have this conversation with our body to enter, exit and even maintain positions, even at the end of normative amplitudes.

This is where we run the risk of becoming all soft, all flaccid, that is to say, developing hyperflexibility/hypermobility in our joints. We run the risk of becoming unstable and potentially injuring ourselves.

If you do some research on the original philosophy of Yoga, how it was practiced before this marketing tsunami, this meteoric rise in popularity, and this cultural appropriation by the West, you may come across this kind of definition:

Action is movement with intelligence … This all sounds strangely like the definition of joint mobility 😉

Please note , I am not saying that static stretching, classic yoga or stretching, are useless and should be banned.

Remember, we try to approach these different physical practices in the context of moving better.

Does this correspond to our basic assumption or not?
Will stretching really make you feel like you were a kid?
Do you really need to be able to do the splits or put your feet behind your head to feel freer in your body and be able to carry out everyday movements without pain?

These are the kinds of questions you should keep in mind throughout this reading.

What does Science say?

What we know today is what joint mobility work and prolonged static stretching generate as reactions in our body at the tissue level.

That's all!

Despite what you might think, there is no consensus on the effects of static stretching on the ability to move better.

It's shocking to think, however, that in most traditional forms of training, such as martial arts or dance, and even in PE classes at school, students are still being taught that stretching is important for maintaining flexibility and avoiding injury...

This is not a criticism of our educators but rather the observation that there are areas of teaching about the body and health that need improvement.

When stretches are held repeatedly for long periods of time, this results in a phenomenon called creep .

Simply put, it's how our tissues physically adapt to constant stress (where fascia and other tissues lengthen resulting in less resistance)

What happens is that the sensation of pain in that area decreases , in other words, your brain understands that you can stretch that muscle further and that you are not going to tear it.

One less sensation means that the sensors responsible for sending a pain signal to the brain are delaying this signal .

These sensations of increased flexibility linked to prolonged stretching do not last over time (48 hours maximum) but you can well imagine that if you repeat them, you delay (in a manner of speaking, not physiologically) the triggering of the alarm signal.

The problem, as you might expect, is that this can lead to excessive and permanent changes (ligaments and tendons), resulting in a loss of proprioception , which is our sense of where our limbs and joints are positioned in space.

Not only does increased or excess creep lead to loss of proprioception, but creep has also been found to decrease and delay reflex force generation in muscles and further affect joint stability.

This is what you can observe when a Yogi arrives in a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class for the first time.

So yes, he can hold the splits, the back bridge or even put his legs behind his head, but he is unable to generate the slightest force with his hips, his shoulders, his back.

He can't tighten a triangle, push an opponent's body, bridge or shrimp out... He's all soft.

Flexible but not strong.
Flexible but not supple.
Flexible but unable to control his body.
Flexible but unstable and prone to injury .

A yogi is flexible but not necessarily mobile.

In the context of movement, maintaining a static position for a long time does not allow you to gain strength, control, awareness of your body moving in space and therefore does not give you a disposition for greater freedom of movement.

Additionally, creating an unstable and fragile body makes you much more prone to injury.

I have thousands of students in my mobility training courses, and among them, many yoga practitioners, teachers and hobbyists , who have shared with me their stories of hip replacements, chronic hip pain, lower back or neck weakness, asymmetries hampering their freedom of movement and their well-being.

I'm not saying that yoga will necessarily lead to all of this. I'm simply saying that, as with all sports, too much of it can lead to certain problems.

We will see in the next section that the practice of yoga is not all beautiful and rosy and is not the ultimate magic solution, as it is sold to us , to become flexible and move your body better.

Again, I repeat myself but this is important, I am NOT saying that yoga is useless!

In the context of moving one's body more freely , with strength, flexibility, control, coordination, without the fear of injury, and being able to approach any sport with confidence, without having a body that is too rigid, restricted, with too many shortcomings, and which has adapted to a single practice for too long...

My opinion is that yoga is not effective (and not necessary) to achieve this goal.

Personally, I do not teach any of my students static stretching ,

to any of my combat sports athletes (MMA, Muay Thai, Jiu-Jitsu, Boxing…), climbing, CrossFit, running, Calisthenics, weightlifting… and even to the recreational practitioners that I have and even to the Yoga lovers that I take care of.

Train more efficiently

The final argument in this Mobility vs. Yoga section is time.

It's no secret that yoga is time-consuming if you want to use it simply as a complement to your workouts.

If you do weight training 4 times a week with 90 minute to 2 hour sessions or you do MMA every day with 2 workouts per day (martial arts and physical preparation) or even if you do mountain biking and running only on the weekends, you are not going to get away with adding yoga to your weeks.

I personally don't have the time to do 1 hour of static stretching every 2 days to feel less stiff, only temporarily , and not when I need it, on the tatamis the next day or on my bike 3 days later...

This doesn't make sense!

You practice your mobility routine for 15 to 20 minutes, once a day , and it transfers to all your physical activities, all the gestures of your daily life and it remains for life as long as you maintain this regularity.

The important thing to remember here is that moving your body more freely requires physical practice that helps you regain control of your body and allows you to gain skills.

Mobility is the active practice of flexibility , whereas yoga is the passive practice of flexibility.

What they both have in common is that they claim to allow you to move freely.

The real weakness of yoga is the intention . (in the present context of course)

This intention, this will to actively move the body , to move the limb to reach this position, to generate force at every moment during the movement, is literally a generator of the movement,

It is this connection of the nervous system with the body , which is transferred into sports, work, playing with children, in short, life.

So the takeaway here is NOT that yoga is bad for you. There are so many health benefits , breathing, meditation, certain movements, and lots of beautiful things to be gained from it.

As with all movement practices 😉

Let's simply avoid mechanical associations without logical foundations , no reflection, without analysis of one's body and its needs that yoga, stretching and static stretching are THE definition of flexibility and freedom in the body.

This is completely false as you may have realized.

The ultimate weapon for moving better is what your body is constantly asking you for: intentional movement.

In this sense, it would seem that by definition, joint mobility is much more relevant than yoga (static stretching) to meet this objective.

But then, you might already be wondering what the point of static stretching is if it's so ineffective and doesn't meet the requirements of our definition of a body capable of moving freely.

If you're asking yourself this question at this point in the article, you clearly don't need to read the rest.

Hahaha, but read on anyway to make sure you understand the point, improve your movement vocabulary and grasp the nuances and context in which we operate.

Everything is contextual, I repeat.

Modern yoga is enjoying ever-increasing popularity and is still the one most people turn to , believing they are doing the right thing and are working towards greater freedom of movement in their sports and daily lives.

Even with the rise of practices like CrossFit or MMA which increasingly promote the importance of joint mobility for their sport ,

It is yoga that reaps the rewards when it comes to finding answers to questions of flexibility , removing stiffness, pain, feeling better in one's body and moving better.

Now let's look at the counter arguments to the biggest claims made by yoga sellers .

PS : Yes, I distinguish between yoga sellers (advertisers, big brands, bloggers, Instagram influencers, etc.), real Indian gurus, or Tibetan monks, or even recreational practitioners, authentic, humble, honest and sincere in their approach to feeling better and taking pleasure through the practice of these various forms of yoga that they love.

The 5 Biggest Myths About Yoga

I've selected a few of the most common things we hear about Yoga and its benefits for the body, movement, health, and longevity.

We will only talk about the physical aspect here because that is the theme of this article.

The more spiritual, meditative, emotional and stress management, breathing, and connection of body, heart, and mind benefits have nothing to do with the subject of this article.

Again, remember the context: becoming more flexible and moving the body more freely .

No, yoga does not make you more flexible!

As we have seen, active flexibility is what will bring you joint mobility .

If you are looking for a way to gain range of motion, be able to put your body into deeper positions and increase your flexions, extensions, internal and external rotations, abductions and adductions…

by being able to generate force at any point in the movement safely (while maintaining increased control),

like for example for your Squats in bodybuilding, your Snatches or Clean and Jerks in CrossFit or your Muscle Ups in Calisthenics, or sending your legs higher in Muay Thai...

Yoga cannot help you effectively.

No, yoga does not help prevent injuries!

One of the arguments we hear very often.

I think we already covered this in the previous section if you understood that to avoid getting hurt, you first need a high-performance alarm system ,

in other words, a nervous system connected precisely to each part of your body and capable of sending you a precise signal telling you to slow down in a certain flexion or to avoid going beyond a certain angle in a certain rotation...

Again, prolonged passive stretching does not give you the training needed to develop such a nervous system.

Preventing the risk of injury is, above all, about becoming stronger and having better control of your body.

It seems obvious, yet many of us are looking for miracle solutions, new training protocols, or even using external tools that are supposed to help protect us from shocks.

What does a vehicle need to resist damage ? Think of a presidential car versus a Twingo.

You need a better body, more power in your engine, longer-lasting tires, better navigation, bulletproof windows...

For the human body, it is strength and coordination , in other words, joint mobility, strength training, muscle conditioning, development of endurance…

Stretching, long static poses, muscle strain, joint hypermobility… do not offer these benefits .

No, yoga does not improve your ease of movement!

A golden rule for moving better in your sport is to practice it more.

There are no surprises in that.

Everything is contextual!

Mind you, this doesn't mean practicing more intensely. On the contrary, it means having more volume of conscious training .

Moving with more ease: what does it mean? And for whom? And for what purpose?

For the Judoka, this will perhaps mean improving their grip, their transitions, their speed of execution of throws on the ground.

For the swimmer, this will mean improving left-right coordination, wrist and finger relaxation out of the water, and elbow flexion.

For the boxer, this will mean improving his footwork, his arm extension, his chest rotations, etc.

It's about making an assessment of what you're lacking and addressing it: it could be a lack of mobility, strength, explosiveness, poor breathing or poor stress management...

In my opinion, the most important attribute to improve your ease of movement in any situation is coordination.

It's again this connection between the nervous system and the body.

Does yoga improve coordination? I haven't seen any research on this that would support the argument I often hear: "Yogis have more body awareness than other people."

Again, in WHAT CONTEXT ?

It is clear that yoga improves body awareness . The goal is literally to improve the mind-body connection, to be able to feel every part of your body and visualize them precisely in your mind.

I don't refute that.

I'm simply saying that being able to feel the different parts of your body better does n't necessarily mean being able to manipulate those different parts of your body in a coordinated way and therefore move better.

A dancer is much more coordinated, has better body awareness, a better representation of his body in his mind and above all a better representation of his body in movement in space.

That's what ease of movement means to me.

It means having better coordination , better spatial awareness, visualizing your body in movement more precisely, being able to activate the right muscle and joint chains, in the right order, at the right amplitude, with the level of force sufficient to carry out the movement and then link these movements together.

Yoga has enormous benefits for someone who leads a sedentary lifestyle and does not practice these types of arts or sports. There is no doubt about that.

Can we extend this impact to all sports , all practitioners, all levels, all humans? I don't think so.

If you practice Muay Thai and want to move better, will yoga be helpful? Perhaps yes, depending on your specific situation, your needs, your goals, your injury history, etc.

Afterwards, is it more effective than fixing your mobility, working on your Muay Thai- specific conditioning, repeating your scales, improving your footwork, your arm-eye coordination... I don't think so.

In this sense, yoga is not this magical, all-purpose supplement that is sometimes sold to us as a practice that works for all humans in the same way and that helps everyone move better.

No, yoga does not improve your fitness!

Yet another common misconception associated with yoga, constantly shared by our “yoga salespeople” with the famous: yoga for weight loss, yoga for cardio, yoga for muscle gain…

Once again, common sense must be used.

I understand that we can love a physical practice so much that we want it to be almost magical , capable of fixing all our problems and allowing us to achieve all our physical goals.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that.

There is no single practice that will work to improve your physical conditioning in a general, complete, and holistic way.

The body is a machine that is far too complex and sophisticated to be treated as a simple logical switch: If you do A, you will get B, C, D, … and Z.

I understand how tempting, easy , and enjoyable it is to say to yourself, I just have to do one thing and boom, everything will be fixed.

“Yoga salesmen” know perfectly well how to exploit our cognitive biases, our constant search for the easy solution , and use this to sell us these lies.

Do you want to get stronger, gain more muscle mass, lose fat mass, be more explosive, faster, more powerful, jump higher, run faster or longer…?

You have to understand and accept that getting in better physical shape is a difficult task ,

It requires working on several variables at once (physical training, diet, stress management, etc.), it sometimes requires forcing yourself to do things you don't like, it requires discipline, devotion, etc.

Once we accept this reality, we are also better able to make an honest analysis of the state of our body , our movements and our health in order to move forward in the right direction.

No, yoga does not improve athletic performance!

Following on from the previous point, do prolonged stretching sessions, even if done quickly, dynamically , with awareness and working on different breathing methods,

it will NEVER be an effective way to help you lift heavier, jump higher, run faster, hit harder…

Here again, common sense, experience and empiricism are our allies in understanding that:

“yoga to improve your Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu”, “yoga to help improve your CrossFit WOD times”, “yoga to get a Men's Physique in bodybuilding”, surfing…” and other marketing fantasies are all hot air.

More flexibility has no noticeable, measurable impact transferable to any athletic attributes.

The only 2 attributes that help and enhance overall human athletic performance are:

1. The force
2. Coordination

Another extra point for joint mobility ^^

Working on your strength and coordination will never be wasted time .

You can never have too much , unlike the hypermobility/hyperflexibility that excessive stretching (prolonged stretching) can develop.

To relieve pain, improve performance, be more resistant to shock, prevent injuries, being stronger is essential.

Again, this is harder to develop than living in the illusion that you are a better athlete because you stretch 2 to 3 times a week...

In summary

To move your body more freely and with more ease, it is above all a question of changing your paradigm .

We must, as much as possible, try to look at the body and physicality, not through a single lens, but from the multitude of angles and colors that the body presents.

This doesn't mean we should give up on doing activities that make us feel good. On the contrary!

It is very important to have practices that nourish our heart and soul , allow us to calm down, refocus, return to the present moment, feel grateful and joyful.

Simply, let's not be blinded by these benefits and positive sensations to the point of missing the signals from our body that may indicate muscular weakness, joint imbalance, a lack of endurance or strength, an unbalanced diet, a lack of sleep...

A frozen mind can only produce a frozen body.

The importance of reconnecting with one's physicality

To sum up, yoga is a wonderful practice that can bring us so many benefits for the body, heart and mind.

If you like it, do it!

In the context of moving better, long sessions of static stretching, holding fixed poses for long periods of time, is NOT an effective tool and can sometimes even be a damaging tool.

Deficiencies in strength, body control, proprioception, neural activation, hypermobility, postural imbalances... make it a tool far inferior to joint mobility.

My advice is very simple: analyze your needs with complete sincerity and honesty.

If you want to improve your movements because you have certain gaps or restrictions that prevent you from making your body do what you want it to do, simply go back to the basics :

Joint Mobility + Strength

Reopen the dialogue with your body, then establish the best strategy to help you achieve greater physical autonomy.

Before looking at what's fashionable, what's in this or that magazine, let's address our physicality and allow ourselves to do what the human-animal is supposed to do :

Move your body.

This is the approach at the Nomadslim Movement Academy: a simple 3-step method to achieve this:

1. Learn to move each of your joints, one by one, with strength, control, and in sufficient ranges of motion to initiate movement .
2. Develop your physical condition, strength relative to your body weight, endurance, muscle mass, joint strengthening to enable movement .
3. Learns new movements, develops a complex neural network, gains complexity and efficiency, gains technical and expressive skills to express movement .

If you don't know where to start, start by educating yourself with our online courses and rediscovering how your body is supposed to move.

If this article was useful to you, if it was able to provide you with some answers, if it was able to arouse your curiosity and you would like to give your opinion on the subject, share your feedback, your understanding of yoga, ask me your questions,

don't hesitate to comment in the section just below.

Thank you again for your time and attention.

Nomad Slim
Founder of MOUVERS