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Getting in Your Mobility and Muscular Imbalance Work
Nowadays the biggest issue that people want help with is “time”. The Internet, laptops, and smart phones should save us time, but they simply make it easier to do more work. In America, we are the absolute worst. It’s almost a competition to see who works the most.
I am not here to change the culture of America or the world. I just want people to stay healthy, so they can do the things that they love the most. I always encourage people to address their mobility and muscular imbalance weaknesses on a regular basis. A lot of people will tell me that they don’t have time, so they only focus on their program.
Look I am busy too, but I want to be able to train hard until I am 80-years-old. That means that I have to take care of myself. Mobility work takes me about ten extra minutes. I do ten minutes of mobility work specific to me, and then I start warming up. In between squat warm ups, I will add more mobility work for the first 3-4 warm ups. Here is what my warm ups looked like last night:
Jump Rope 60 seconds
Cobra Pose
Frog Pose
Kneeling Hip Flexor Stretch
Lacrosse Ball to glutes and piriformis
Side Lunge Adductor Stretch
Leg Swings
Squat Warm Up 70k
Russian Baby Makes
Squat Warm Up 120k
Kneeling Hip Flexor Stretch
Squat Warm Up 170k
PVC Pipe to all areas of the hip
Squat Warm Up 200k
Work Set 220k x 3
After squats, I did a Clean & Jerk EMOM that almost killed me, and then it was off to accessory work. I am a busy person, and I want most of my extra time spent with my family. I combine muscular imbalance work, accessory work, and conditioning. I have two days that alternate. One is upper body dominant, and the other is lower body dominant. I normally always throw in some kind of strong man work for trunk stability. Last night looked like this:
Conditioning/Accessory Work:
Fat Bar Push Presses x 10
Lunges40 yd
Unilateral Farmers Walk 20k each hand
3 Rounds
My pressing is definitely a weakness after I broke my neck in 2006. Lunges keep my knees and hips both moving and the connective tissue strong. Unilateral carries are probably my favorite because of the healthy way they target the hips. The QL muscle can become a very weak muscle because of the amount of sitting that we all do. It is used to lift the hips up and down. The QL is the source of a lot of injuries, so keeping it strong and moving properly is one of the keys to a long and healthy lifestyle of training. Carries also strengthen the trunk, glutes, and pretty much the entire body in a very functional way.
Don’t cheat the mundane aspects of training. If you want to train for the long haul, you can’t afford to skip these aspects of training. Remember mobility can be mixed in with your strength movements, and muscular imbalances can be addressed during your accessory work. A lot of people do accessory work without even thinking about the movements that they are performing. If you are already strong in an area, why continue to focus on that area. The body is like a sculpture. You should continue chiseling away until you have formed the perfect image. Of course none of us will ever finish the chiseling, but it’s the beautiful process that we all come to love.
This month we are coming out with our newest book “No Weaknesses”. It’s all about these topics and more. Their will be a 24-point test to take that will tell you exactly where you are weak, and I will explain exactly what to do. We address mobility movements for all the major joints that have worked for our athletes. It’s basically the perfect book to keep training long and hard for years to come.
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Good Morning from the outskirts of Las Vegas ; I love your combination warm up mobility….and Coach Mash just to add on to this (band resistance ) + (rotational shoulder mobility ) can and should be worked in between sets as the lifters start off with any movement under 70% . Take care