One of the biggest take away’s I got from Perform Better in 2016 was the importance of mobility and actually doing the corrective work to fix any movement problems, injuries or tweaks.
I’m a huge believer with mobility work anyway and you guys are constantly asked to stretch or move differently or try different stuff and that’s great.
But one idea stood out more than anything. Gray Cook, a world renowned physio and one of the founders of the functional movement screen, spoke about ankle mobility and how important it is to the entire body.
His attitude is that if you have tight ankles alongside pain in the body, you must address it first before trying to fix anything else.
If you don’t have a properly working ankle, the rest of your body will find ways to compensate for the lack of movement there by stiffening up other areas of the body.
Often this results in a tight hip, jacked up knee, dodgy low back or even neck and shoulder problems, all from the ankle!
This is highly important and could save you hundreds of dollars and hours of your life at physios, chiros, etc.
It means that if your ankles are tight and you can get them to an acceptable range of motion on both sides, much of your injury or pain concerns could vanish.
If the ankles are sorted and the pain is still there, then it’s time to go into more specifics with heads and shoulders, knees and toes.
But you’ve got to do the work.
We can only train you for several hours per week, which leaves 160 +/- hours where you are doing things which may help or hinder your ability to move well or eat well.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
Now you may just want to lose 3-5 kilos and that’s a great goal, but our first priority with our training system is to keep the athlete healthy.
If you are healthy and your body is working right, we can push you harder, you can do some of the advanced exercises and you can continue to train.
If you have a knee that keeps you out of action or stops you from doing an exercise or many, you’ll likely not eat well and get frustrated by your lack of or slow progress.
So please, do what it takes to get or keep your body moving well and you’ll be far more likely to reach your goals in a timely fashion and do the activities that you want to do.
When I give you homework, because I know it will help you get better faster, do it! I’m not wasting your time.
I’m saving you time, money and unwanted frustration!!!
With that in mind, we’ll look at some ankle and foot specific drills being incorporated into our warmups and workouts so you get as much in training and don’t have to do as much at home.
One of the best things I ever did with my clients was getting people into a deep squat position more often.
This position encourages the hip, knee and ankle to move better and increase the range of motion with one move.
You’ve probably even heard me talk about being able to sit in the bottom of a deep squat position for up to 10 minutes to reinforce the position and progress faster.
You can sit in a deep squat in front of the TV for all I care. Just get it done and your body will thank you.
I know. It worked for me and it’s worked wonders for so many of you guys.
I like doing things the easy way, the fast way.
I’m sure you do too. Working up to a 10 minute deep squat is one of those ways to look after your ankle, knee and hip mobility, even shoulder mobility, in the shortest possible time with the least amount of effort.
And yes, I can spend 10 minutes in this position and I continue to practice because I don’t want to lose it!
Yep, move it or lose it.
Anyway that’s enough about that. I’ll have some new stuff for you when I see you and that’ll be real soon.
Enjoy the rest of your week and make sure you do the work!
Trav
