Mobility vs Stability

I talk about mobility and stability a lot.  After all, I did name our practice The MOBILE Athlete.  

But as I talk with athletes, I’m finding out there is a lot of confusion about what mobility and stability are, why they are important, and why we can’t just focus on one.  

Let’s start with mobility.  When people hear mobility, they often think of flexibility which is not entirely the correct definition.  Mobility is the ability to access all the ranges of motion of a joint, freely and easily, and under your own strength.  

For example, lay flat on the ground and raise one foot up as far are you can toward the ceiling.  You are demonstrating one aspect of hip mobility.  You have moved your leg as far as you can, under your own strength.  Now, if your friend comes over and pushes on that leg to move it just a little further, you are now demonstrating the flexibility of your joint.  Flexibility isn’t determined by your own strength.  Someone could manually stretch you all day long and you could still lack mobility. 

Stability is a bit different.  Stability is the ability of the body to maintain, control, and support the joints through their entire range of motion.  

For example, hold your arm directly out in front of you.  The arm should be able to remain stable in that position.  If I come by and begin to apply counter pressure to that arm it should remain in the same, out-stretched position.  If your arm begins to falter against my counter pressure, you have poor stability.  

Also, stability gets worse the farther your are from your body.  Imagine holding a heavy weight close to your body and then trying to hold that same heavy weight with both arms fully extended away from your body.  Its gets way harder to do! That’s because our joints become more unstable the farther we are from the joint.  The body grows fatigued more quickly the farther the weight is from your body.  

So why does this matter?!?

Mobility and stability need to be addressed simultaneously.  If we lack mobility we will also lack stability and vice versa.  Imagine you are bending over to pick up a heavy box, barbell, or your child from the floor.  We need mobility of our joints to get in to this bent over position.  AND we need stability of the joint to maintain postural equilibrium that supports the joints through the entire movement.  

Those whose training primarily includes a lot of stretching movements tend to have decent mobility but very poor stability.  

Those whose training primarily includes weightlifting tend to have decent stability but very poor mobility.  

You’ll never be as mobile as you could be if you lack stability. And you’ll never be as strong as you could be if you lack mobility.  

Maybe this all still sounds like gibberish to you! No problem! That’s why we are here! At The Mobile Athlete, we take the complex concepts and apply them to your specific goals, lifestyle, limitations.  You don’t need a doctorate degree in movement and the human body to work with us, we did that work already! You just need come ready to solve your problem.