Flexibility Q

Arsenal1986

Hi guys

Just a quick q, am wondering am I ridiculosly unflexible or what my problem is and if its lack of flexibility can someone point me in the direction of a good stretching routine. Train in Raw so have access to foam rollers etc.

Basically, I've been lifting for a number of years now, am not that weak - deadlift 180, bench 115 etc @ about 82 BW but have only noticed lately how ridiculosly unflexible I am.

Really noticed it when i started Front squating, found it extremly hard to keep my upper body upright throughout the motion. In addition when I try to do overhead squats with even a broom I can't. When i get into or even near the hole I just fall backwards onto my ass. Is this lack of flexibility, weak stabilizer muscles or weak abs or a combination? I also find it impossible in overhead squats to keep my arms directly overhead throughout, as in by the time my thighs are getting even near parallel my arms will have gone from overhead to nearly nose level if you get me.

I'm presuming this is ridiculosly tight shoulders?

Any help appreciated!

Doctor_Socks

A regular poster here, Transform, has a great video on flexibility standards. Wouldn't embed for me properly so heres the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrXNeFsO3TM

Barry.Oglesby

I could probably get a guy with poor mobility to achieve all of the standards in the video above in about 5 minutes. Not through increasing his flexibility, but just by doing the stretches slightly differently. Don't get me wrong they're decent stretches but I think the video is just a bit mistitled.

The overhead squat test is probably as good as any to discover your mobility problems, but the issues you're describing could point to tightnesses or weaknesses in basically your whole body. based on what you've described, you could have:
-Tight shoulders
-Poor thoracic mobility
-poor lumbar stability
-tight hips
-tight hamstrings
-weak glutes
-poor knee stability
-poor ankle mobility
-no big toes
-leprosy

I would say that like a lot of guys who "lift", you probably have a combination of all of those things, and everyday you do to the gym and do your squat/bench/dead/gunz and abz you're reinforcing these problems and no amount of touching your toes will fix that.

I know you're drowning and I'm just describing the water, but you'd really have to be in front of a professional to know what needs to be done.

Transform

Barry.Oglesby wrote: »

I could probably get a guy with poor mobility to achieve all of the standards in the video above in about 5 minutes. Not through increasing his flexibility, but just by doing the stretches slightly differently. Don't get me wrong they're decent stretches but I think the video is just a bit mistitled.

The overhead squat test is probably as good as any to discover your mobility problems, but the issues you're describing could point to tightnesses or weaknesses in basically your whole body. based on what you've described, you could have:
-Tight shoulders
-Poor thoracic mobility
-poor lumbar stability
-tight hips
-tight hamstrings
-weak glutes
-poor knee stability
-poor ankle mobility
-no big toes
-leprosy

I would say that like a lot of guys who "lift", you probably have a combination of all of those things, and everyday you do to the gym and do your squat/bench/dead/gunz and abz you're reinforcing these problems and no amount of touching your toes will fix that.

I know you're drowning and I'm just describing the water, but you'd really have to be in front of a professional to know what needs to be done.

would agree with most of that but would be massively impressed if anyone came to me with e.g. poor shoulder mobility (especially if they are older or have had poor mobility for quite some time) and was able to hit the shoulder standard shown in the video within 5mins.

Any kind of FMS or mobility test would show up issues really quickly but what i see every single dam day are poor ankle mobility , tight calves, IT band, piriformis/hips and shoulders

Barry.Oglesby

Transform wrote: »

would agree with most of that but would be massively impressed if anyone came to me with e.g. poor shoulder mobility (especially if they are older or have had poor mobility for quite some time) and was able to hit the shoulder standard shown in the video within 5mins.

It can be done! Not through any training but just different positioning. Y'know... cheating.

Transform

Barry.Oglesby wrote: »

It can be done! Not through any training but just different positioning. Y'know... cheating.

agreed, i think if everyone on here did the following -

1) get asssessed (trainer, any variation of an FMS, physio screen etc)
2) use all tools available to improve mobility
3) maintain changes by keeping up what bloody worked (this is the hardest part i find)
4) = you will get stronger, faster, fitter and less injury prone