Mobility is a part of fitness training that is often overlooked as people focus on strength or power or cardiovascular endurance. But by skipping over mobility training, you limit the gains you can make in other areas.
In this blog I’ll go through what mobility is, why it’s important and some mobility exercises that are particularly useful for skiers.
What is Mobility and Mobility Training?
Mobility is the range of movement you have around a joint. By training your mobility you can increase your range of motion and the level of control you have over your movements. Mobility exercises are varied, they include:
· Simply moving your limbs to take a joint through its full range of motion.
· Stretching muscles around a joint to increase the available range of movement.
· Strengthening muscles around a joint to increase control over the range of movement.
Why is Mobility Training Important?
Our bodies are very adaptable and can find many different solutions to achieve a task. If we lack mobility in a particular joint, our body will provide a work-around using different muscles and movement patterns so that we can do what we want to do. However, this creates problems further down the line. By moving in a less efficient way we can cause imbalances in our muscles as some muscles work less and others a recruited more. Over time this can lead to tightness, pain and injury.
Additionally, when we train without having good mobility, we are moving in a less efficient way meaning we are not reaching our full potential.
For example, if you have reduced ankle mobility and perform a squat, it is likely that you will struggle to bring your hips below your knees without your heels lifting. By only performing the squat to half depth you place more strain on the quadriceps, and the glutes work less. Without your glutes firing properly you’ll find that you can’t lift as much weight, limiting your strength building goals.
Key Mobility Exercises for Skiers
The two joints where lack of mobility most commonly limits skiers are the ankle and hip. Lack of mobility in the ankle joint reduces the amount of pressure we can apply to the front of the boot and moves the weight back. A lack of mobility in the hips can make snow-ploughing difficult and painful (even if you’re an experienced skier well passed snowplough turns, it’s still a useful skill to have in your back pocket, especially if you have kids!) and reduces the level of performance you can achieve in your skiing.
Ankle Mobility Exercises:
· Single Leg Ankle Circles
· Knee to Wall
· Banded Dorsiflexion
Hip Mobility Exercises:
· Bear Sit Windscreen Wipers
· All Fours Knee Circles
· Lying Clams
Try adding one set of 12 of each of these exercises to the start or end of your workouts before the ski season and your muscles and joints will thank you!
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