There is an enormous amount of free health information available on the internet these days. Some great, some good, some average, and some rubbish. Well, a lot of rubbish. And in all categories there are many different experts/pseudo experts giving new, different and sometimes misleading information about the best way to improve your x [insert movement here] or perfect your y [insert any performance marker here].

Overall, the health and fitness community is better informed as a result of all this free information. However, the application of the information is often very superficial. What I mean by this is, most people operate as a monkey see, monkey do approach to mobility, corrective, health, fitness etc. They see an elite athlete completing an exercise, mobilisation or correction on facebook or instagram and they drop everything and try it or include it in their training program. What they don’t take into consideration is why the athlete was completing this exercise? What progressions did they use to get to that point? What is the athlete trying to achieve with that movement correction? And what objective measure is the athlete using to measure their progress?

Most aggressive mobilisations will make a change to someones range of motion for an instant. However, if you are adding range to an unstable region that is only presenting as stiff as a protective mechanism to help create some stability, then you run the risk of doing more harm than good. If you are applying a corrective exercise to improve shoulder stabilisation but the appropriate progressions to that movement haven’t been worked through, then you will just compensate your way through the movement and simply add dysfunction to dysfunction.

As a result of not understanding the why and what behind the exercise or mobilisation, the appropriate response isn’t achieved so they then jump to the next interesting thing they see… This is what I like to call  Mobility Attention Deficit Disorder (MADD)

It is really simple: have a structured approach. The hopper method doesn’t work for movement and mobility change. Constantly varied is great for fitness, but it’s a fast track to failure for mobility and movement quality. ​

Here is the fail proof approach to avoid developing MADD

1. Focus on a MAXIMUM of 3 key components at a time.
2. Work at your 3 key areas EVERY DAY.
3. Hold course. Continue to work on your 3 key areas for 4-6 weeks.
4. Re-evaluate your plan after 4-6 weeks and alter your focus areas accordingly.

I completely understand that not everyone has access to health professional that they can trust to help them with their movement, but if YOU do please make sure you apply these 3 simple steps to your work with them.

1. Have a movement assessment with a health professional that understands the movement demands of your sport.
2. Establish that they have a plan for progression and work WITH them to develop and evolve your plan based on YOUR goals and objectives.
3. Re-assess and re-evaluate your plan with your health professional after your 4-6week block and make a plan for the next 4-6 weeks.

So the message is simple FOCUS, don’t jump from shiny thing to shiny thing. By all means research, try new things, watch videos and follow your favourite athletes BUT, have a plan for YOU and try things that fit into YOUR plan. Use short term prioritisation as building blocks toward a long term goal and you can make exceptional changes to your mobility and movement quality. Don’t leave it to chance and don’t let your mobility attention deficit disorder let you down and limit your performance.

Still want some help developing a personalised plan? Then CONTACT US at Move Train Perform.

MTP now offer ONLINE and REMOTE warm up and corrective exercise programming so you don’t have to be able to come into our clinics to benefit from our expertise!