RE-THINKING MOBILITY TRAINING
The conventional wisdom that stretching is the path to flexibility is increasingly being challenged

Muscles generate tension; it's their fundamental role. They pull, influencing the distance between attachment points and directly affecting the joint. This muscular tension is crucial for body positioning, active joint stabilization, and precise control of movement. Your ability to generate this tension shapes your interaction with the physical world. Simply put, muscle tension is useful, valuable, and important. 

 

Pre-Activity Preparation

If a muscle's job is to generate tension, why do we constantly try to "loosen" it through stretching or massage before activity? Would you run with a loose shoelace? Probably not. So why run with a "loose" hamstring? It's time to question if everything truly needs to be loose, and to reconsider our usual approach to exercise preparation. Remember: Mobility without stability often leads to vulnerability.

 

Challenging the "Stretch It Out" Mindset

The widely accepted practice of "stretching it out" might need a closer look. Many of our current mobility practices are inefficient, harmful, or even dangerous. That excessive tension you feel in one area could actually stem from poor contractile control, weakness, or underuse elsewhere. Instead of relying heavily on passive stretching, we should increase our efforts to train the skill of contractile control. Let's focus on:

• Contraction sensitivity

• Active range of motion

• Agonist isometric contractions at end range

• Internal performance

This can yield astounding results, a value already recognized and embraced by many high-level athletes.