What’s the Difference Between Flexibility and Portability (and Why Should You Care)?
Flexibility used to be easy to understand: if you can do the splits or touch with your hands behind the shoulder blades, you are flexible. And if you’re not flexible, you need to do a few stretches. But in recent years, the term mobility has become more popular and it doesn’t mean the same thing.
Mobility work is more than just stretching. You can use a foam roller or do exercises that build strength while expanding the range of motion of your joints. You can do more dynamic stretches than static stretches if you work on your mobility. And that’s because flexibility is part of mobility, but they are not the same thing.
The expert definitions vary slightly, but the consensus seems to be this:
Flexibility is how far you can move the joint without injury. A passive stretch, such as trying to touch your toes while sitting with your feet on the floor, will test your limits of flexibility, specifically how passively your hamstrings can lengthen. This is roughly equivalent to your passive range of motion.
In contrast, mobility is how far you can move a joint. Imagine a dancer standing up and lifting a straight leg off the ground in front of him. If she can lift her leg high off the ground, she will have great mobility. But there is more going on than just the flexibility of the hamstring: it also has the strength, balance, and skills to allow the leg to take that position.
Why mobility is important
Most things in life require mobility, not just flexibility. Whether you are squatting with a barbell or squatting to lift your toddler, good mobility means you can bend your ankles, knees, and hips enough to keep your feet firmly on the ground while holding the weight (barbell or toddler) securely. …
People with tight calf muscles often find it difficult to squat to the correct depth , and one of the steps to a better squat is to increase calf flexibility to improve the range of motion through which the ankles can move. But there is more going on than just flexibility. A few more things that can affect your mobility:
- The structure of your joints . For example, some hip joints are more towards the front of the pelvis, some towards the sides . The exact position of the muscles and their attachment points are not always the same in different people. The structure of your body determines the range of possible motion, even without considering flexibility.
- Stability . Sometimes a muscle needs to contract to stabilize a joint, and as a result, it cannot relax too much, while keeping your body safe and in control. While we sometimes think of strength and mobility as opposites, sometimes getting stronger can help mobility.
- More power . Sometimes we are simply not strong enough to accept a certain position. The dancer in our previous example cannot take this position with only flexibility; she also needs to strengthen her hip flexors so she can lift the weight of her extended leg.
- Whether you are warmed up or not . A warm muscle can stretch further than a cold muscle, so it’s not uncommon to feel stiff at the beginning of a workout and have better mobility towards the end.
How to improve mobility
The first step in working on your mobility is to determine what movements you need to do and why. Then look for a routine or ask your instructor what to do to improve that particular type of mobility.
For example, we have several suggestions for improving ankle mobility when squatting . The first is not a stretch at all; this is advice to use high heels or plates. While this does not technically force your ankle to move further in range of motion, it allows you to move more under control, which effectively increases the mobility of your hips, allowing you to squat deeper. Our other tips include stretching and using a foam roller.
Foam rollers are popular for their mobility because they micro-stretch muscles without requiring you to perform certain static stretching movements. After you use the foam to roll out the muscles that need to be more flexible, you will probably notice that they become easier to move. For this reason, it is often done as part of a warm-up routine.
Dynamic stretching can also help with mobility, and it works well as part of a warm-up. Rather than sitting down and forcing a muscle into a stretched position, you use your body to actively move in a range of motion. Controlled articular rotations, or CARs , are one type of dynamic stretch in which you slowly move a joint, such as your shoulder, within its range of motion. As you move your arm more and more circles, you warm up the muscles that are being used and at the same time work on strength and flexibility.
Static stretching also occurs in training. While flexibility is only one part of portability, it is an important part! Static stretching might need you, and may not be necessary to achieve your goals of mobility, but their inclusion may be an effective way to develop the ability of your muscles to lengthen.