Stability is often perceived as a good thing; single-leg stability, core stability and scapular stability are all terms that are commonly referred to when we’re talking about functional training and we see those things as being positive outcomes we want to get out of our training program.  Referring back to the joint-by-joint approach popularized by Mike Boyle and Gray Cook, some joints in the body should be geared more towards stability and some others should be geared more towards mobility.

The Joint-by-Joint Approach

But this doesn’t mean that those joints should have only one of the two (mobility OR stability).  Every joint in your body needs a healthy balance of both; some just need more of one than the other.  It’s also important to acknowledge that every joint in your body needs some sort of stability.  As physical therapist Charlie Weingroff puts it: “you need stability before mobility”.  In other words, if you can’t stabilize your joint, taking it into a full range of motion might not be a good idea.

When this guy talks, I listen

Stability is very important per se.  But stability is not always good.  Confused?  Perfect!  Let me explain: as I just mentioned, you NEED stability in every joint in your body, but if you can’t get stability with proper muscle activation and balance around a joint, most of the time your body will find a way to get that stability.  This is when compensation patterns occur; you have the wrong muscles trying to stabilize your joints because the right muscles that should stabilize aren’t doing their job.  Some other times, when the muscles’ contribution isn’t enough your body will look somewhere else to find stability.  This is when passive structures like ligaments and bones are being used for stability purposes, and that’s when things start to get pretty ugly.

When a baseball pitcher throws a baseball at 90mph and his arm rotates at 7,000°/second at the shoulder, if the the rotator cuff and scapular stabilizer muscles can’t control the deceleration, something else in your body will, because I can guarantee you that his arm is not just going to rip off his body and go flying in the air!

That means that something somewhere is stabilizing the arm at the shoulder in the deceleration phase.  And again if it’s not the right muscles doing it, it might mean some added stress on the ligaments of the shoulder, some irritation to the labrum, compensation patterns taking place by stabilization from the wrong muscles, etc.  There are plenty of examples like this one in athletic performance.

Always keep in mind that stability will happen one way or another.  We just need to make sure it’s happening at the right places with the right structures.  Otherwise we’re setting ourselves up for injuries.

Want to know how to get that stability at right places for optimal shoulder performance?  Enter your information below to get my ‘Shoulder Injury Prevention Strategies’ report for FREE!!!

I will be the first one to admit that this is something I’ve been fighting against for years.  We all know that it was common practice among lifters and athletes through the 70s and the 80s to static stretch before a training session or playing a sport.

This was almost a whole warm up right there!

And that was accepted as a typical injury prevention strategy before an activity.  That concept has been challenged a lot in the last decade and a half or so.  Many researches came out suggesting that static stretching may negatively impact force production output (read: strength and power).  The idea that static stretching by itself as a warm up procedure was a good injury prevention strategy has also been challenged a lot.  The result of this being that strength coaches and fitness professionals alike who stay current with the literature have abandoned the static stretching concept as a warm up procedure almost completely.  I, myself, have been supporting this theory that static stretching as a warm up is not appropriate.

But in the last couple of years, different strength coaches, like Mike Boyle have been trying to re-introduce the concept of static stretching as being part of a warm up (as opposed to being a whole warm up in itself).  Knowing what we know now about static stretching it seemed kind of counter-intuitive to me to do that.

After resisting to the concept, I finally gave it a shot.  Now I embrace it.

There’s a couple of things to take into account though, when using static stretching before training or sport:

• Even if there might be some benefits to doing static stretching before training, it cannot be used by itself as a complete warm up.  Soft-tissue work, mobility, dynamic stretching and movement preparations are all important parts of a warm up, as well.
• You don’t want to stretch for too long.  It’s called a warm up, not a cool down, so try to avoid spending over 10-15 minutes static stretching where your body might fall in sleep mode.
• Try to avoid static stretching the areas/muscles you’re going to involve in your training activity, because of the possible force production loss linked to static stretching.  Mobility and dynamic stretching drills might be better suited for these areas.

The whole reason to re-incorporate static stretching in the warm up, in my opinion, is because we spend so much time sitting in a day that there are many muscles and joint that suffer from that.  Therefore it’s important to give them length back before a training session; the last thing we want is to feel stiff and restricted from sitting all day before an activity.

Personally, I have been feeling so much better since re-incorporating some static stretches in my warm-up, and I definitely don’t feel as stiff when I train.  Here’s how you might want to incorporate static stretching in your pre-workout routine:

1. Soft-tissue work (foam rolling, stick, lacrosse ball, etc)
2. Static stretching circuit (4-5 stretches that don’t target muscles involved in your training for that day)
3. Dynamic stretching/mobility (6-8 movements that will target joints involved in your training for that day)
4. Movement preparation (If you do any kind of sprint/plyo/power exercises you’ll want to do movement prep)

After fighting against the concept of static stretching as part of a warm up for so long, I now embrace it.  You should definitely give it a shot if you’ve been in the same boat as I was for the last couple of years.