Q WILL A LACK OF MOBILITY HAMPER MY MUSCLE GAINS?

Look after your muscles and they’ll reward you with unprecedented growth

THE COACH

Dave Hembrough is a UKSCA accredited strength and conditioning coach and qualified sports therapist who has worked with professional athletes in a variety of sports.

If you lift weights or play sports regularly, there’s a good chance you’re repeating the same movement patterns a lot. The key to getting stronger, building more muscle and staying injury-free is to look after the muscles that perform these movements. If you don’t, they’ll tighten over time, restricting the range of motion through your joints, especially your ankles, hips, back and shoulders.

Mobility is defined as the ability to apply strength through a functional range of motion. If your range of motion is compromised, it will hamper force production and stop you from working out to your full capacity. For example, if you overwork your chest with too much bench pressing, your pectoral muscles will shorten and tighten, reducing your range of motion through your shoulders. The resulting restriction on the amount of force you can put through your shoulder will limit how heavy you’ll be able to lift.

Pause for thought

The main thing you can do to avoid these problems is warm up properly. A lot of guys do a couple of light sets then jump straight in with heavy weights. But you’re better off breaking each exercise down into stages and pausing briefly between each one to give your body a chance to adapt to the different muscle lengths and tensions it requires.

If you’re benching, pause for a couple of seconds at the bottom of the movement, and really draw the bar into your chest and squeeze your scapula back and down. With the deadlift, pause and create some tension in the bottom position by pushing your feet into the floor and gripping the bar, without lifting it off the floor. For squatting, sit into a deep air squat for three to five seconds, then stand up explosively. Aim for five sets of five reps for each move.

All filler, no killer

Another useful tool is adding filler exercises to rest periods during

your main workouts. These are usually stretches that work the opposing muscle groups to the ones being targeted by the lift (see the box, right).

It may seem like a hassle, but adding these to your sessions will help you train more frequently, and with greater intensity and consistency, because your joints won’t be restricted and you’ll be less prone to injury.

If you overwork your chest, your pectoral muscles will shorten and tighten