Mobility and Stability: Two Sides of the Same Coin

As I continue with weekly mobility and stability posts, I want to give a little background on why these two areas of rehab and performance enhancement are so important in the first place. When a PT or strength coach looks closely at the body, they break it down by joint and each joint has a preference for mobility or stability. You can see in the image below, that these joints tend to alternate as we move up or down the kinetic chain.

blue = stability and red = mobility

We tend to think of these joints exactly as they are listed but the truth is that mobility and stability require balance like anything else. In fact, we can’t isolate the joints from the muscles that work to move them and each muscle is connected to other muscles in a sling or chain and impact what the others can and can’t do. With this knowledge, I view this alternating joint model more as a continuum of movement at each joint with a preference for one side of the continuum versus the other.

  Now, why is it important to know what preference each joint region has? When it comes to performance, every 1% of improvement can be the difference between winning and losing. So, when something isn’t moving as much as it should, say your thoracic spine, then something else has to take up that slack (usually your low back). BAM – that’s where pain, injury, or decreased performance can creep in. If you are adding speed on top of an already difficult movement, that makes it even harder to maintain the proper ‘setting’ at each joint.

       Even though this sounds like it could be a daunting task to manage each joint individually, PTs and other coaches typically build mobility and single joint stability work in to other activities. In this way, we can affect a local joint by using a global (full body) pattern. If your PT feels the need to scale things back, you might isolate one joint and work on improving its preferential side of the continuum before moving back to global exercises and eventually return to sport training. It is important for any type of athlete - fitness, sport, or even weekend warrior – to find a good PT who can screen your joint mobility and stability every so often to make sure you are able to keep performing at your best.

Check out my Instagram for more mobility and stability drills in the coming weeks!