Stretching vs Mobility

🧠 Key Differences Between Stretching and Mobilizing

• Stretching

  • Involves holding a position to lengthen muscle fibers.

  • Provides temporary relief or flexibility gains.

  • Commonly used before activity but doesn’t create lasting change in movement capacity.

• Mobilizing

  • Focuses on developing control and stability in various positions, not just lengthening muscles.

  • Aims to create permanent, functional improvements in movement.

  • Builds the body’s confidence (“safety”) to operate in broader ranges of motion.

⚙️ The Three Variables of Mobilization

1. Balance (positional control) – maintaining stability in a position.

2. Resistance control – managing muscular effort or load within a position.

3. Speed control – controlling movement velocity (least tolerated and introduced last).

🏋️ How to Train Mobility

• Mobilization can be applied through many disciplines: weight training, yoga, barre, etc.

• Start with balance, then resistance, and finally speed as your control improves.

• If recovering from injury, begin simply—e.g., holding an arm in space and stabilizing it.

• Use tools like SMR, trigger point therapy, deep tissue massage, cupping, or acupuncture to access restricted tissue—then apply mobility training to build control.

💪 Strength, Reps, and End-Range Control

• Repetitions help maintain muscle tension for 60–90 seconds (hypertrophy zone).

• Slowing down reps and pausing at end ranges develops strength where muscles are most stretched or contracted.

• Strengthening end ranges naturally strengthens the middle range of motion as well.

🧩 Overall Concept

• Mobility training builds skills, not just flexibility.

• “If you don’t use it, you lose it”—adults often lose multidirectional movement patterns from childhood.

• True movement longevity comes from training the mobility variables rather than just stretching.

• Approach movement with the goal of balance, resistance control, and speed, in that order.