Mobility FoR Skiers
Mobility
By Andrea Henkel Burke
Why taking care of your mobility is so important!
As Nordic skiers and Biathletes we are training lots of hours running, skiing, roller skiing, biking, and in the gym. We need to put in many quality hours, in a variety of activities, to get the necessary training effect. Unfortunately, with such a busy training schedule, stretching, mobility, and recovery sessions are often the first activities to get cut.
I'm sure you are not hearing this for the first time, but mobility and flexibility are part of the whole puzzle that allows us to reach our full potential as athletes. I think at this time of the year, when you are mostly busy with racing and recovering from racing, it might be a good time to actually experience and feel the positive side effects of mobility, which is the topic of the article today.
Our joints are made to move in a full range of motion, and we have a total of 360 in our body! When all of these joints are running well, we feel the opposite of stiff and achy getting out of the bed in the morning! This alone should be reason enough to take care of our joints!
Each joint has a maximum range of motion, if one joint doesn´t, it can cause some trouble in other areas.
Think of your body as a bustling city with lots of highways, roads, buildings, traffic lights, electricity lines and everything in-between. Now imagine there is a big hole in one of the streets, some cars make it around the hole, but every once in a while an accident happens because of it. The traffic is now not smooth in this area, everyone needs to slow down, even stop and wait until the area is cleared out again. Drivers, who usually take this route, are now looking for other ways around. Because of that, areas which had no problems before, are now having traffic problems. A couple corners further down, on the other end of the city, they try to solve this problem with extra effort and help from the police. This area is now improving again with this effort, but all the other regions are left out and have to find their own solution. Long story short – to fix the hole where all these accidents initially happened would be the better solution, also for the other side of the city.
Now I think everyone knows what I´m talking about, and I want to continue with examples in our body. Believe it or not, when we have an issue in our wrist, the root problem could potentially come from mobility problems in the ankle on the other side of your body. We try to work on our wrist – and it helps- but it still does not solve the core problem, and other issues will continue to creep up. This wrist problem could be because you rolled your ankle a couple of years ago and did not correctly rehab. Because of that now your knee, as the next joint up, has to take over this range of motion. But the knee is not made for this job. Now the knee passes on this task to the hip, then the lower back, here it goes to the other side of your body to the shoulder – elbow – wrist... Knowing this you might think that the problem can be solved when your ankle is healed again, but that's not always the case. You might not have issues on this end anymore, but are you using the full potential of the joint again? Or did it “forget” what it is able to do and how far it's able to move?
Now our neurological system comes into play. We are getting good at precisely what we do. If we have a good or bad pattern, we are getting good in using this pattern. For example, if we don´t tilt our ankle, we are getting good in that. The good news is that we can change that through our whole life. Of course, some things might take longer than others, but it is possible.
Now let's get back to our city! The problem street doesn´t have a hole anymore. Now it has nice, fresh, smooth pavement again, but not many drivers remember the road without a hole, and everyone is still taking this newly discovered route. If everyone would hear on the radio that the road is open again, you know what would happen.
In our body example, we want to tell your brain again that this ankle is able to tilt in a full range of motion, with no “danger.” How do we do that? We tilt the ankle slow and controlled as far as possible without any pain. Sometimes this is a one session solution (when everyone was listening to the one radio announcement). Other neurological systems might need more input. What is most important is to take an “all is safe” position, which is basically the opposite from searching in your smartphone. It's an upright position with a long spine and a relaxed body.
To get the connection that your wrist hurts because your ankle doesn´t tilt is not very obvious. But our neurological system has some patterns, as well as our body “network.” The ankle probably has “forgotten” about its full potential, as the drivers forgot about the old way of driving to work.
By taking care of your mobility, you might avoid any future issues. That's why taking care of your whole body, not just your physical training sessions, is so important. Increased joint mobility will help prevent future injuries, which in turn will allow you to train more and let's not forget about a better feeling getting out of bed in the morning!
As Nordic skiers and Biathletes we are training lots of hours running, skiing, roller skiing, biking, and in the gym. We need to put in many quality hours, in a variety of activities, to get the necessary training effect. Unfortunately, with such a busy training schedule, stretching, mobility, and recovery sessions are often the first activities to get cut.
I'm sure you are not hearing this for the first time, but mobility and flexibility are part of the whole puzzle that allows us to reach our full potential as athletes. I think at this time of the year, when you are mostly busy with racing and recovering from racing, it might be a good time to actually experience and feel the positive side effects of mobility, which is the topic of the article today.
Our joints are made to move in a full range of motion, and we have a total of 360 in our body! When all of these joints are running well, we feel the opposite of stiff and achy getting out of the bed in the morning! This alone should be reason enough to take care of our joints!
Each joint has a maximum range of motion, if one joint doesn´t, it can cause some trouble in other areas.
Think of your body as a bustling city with lots of highways, roads, buildings, traffic lights, electricity lines and everything in-between. Now imagine there is a big hole in one of the streets, some cars make it around the hole, but every once in a while an accident happens because of it. The traffic is now not smooth in this area, everyone needs to slow down, even stop and wait until the area is cleared out again. Drivers, who usually take this route, are now looking for other ways around. Because of that, areas which had no problems before, are now having traffic problems. A couple corners further down, on the other end of the city, they try to solve this problem with extra effort and help from the police. This area is now improving again with this effort, but all the other regions are left out and have to find their own solution. Long story short – to fix the hole where all these accidents initially happened would be the better solution, also for the other side of the city.
Now I think everyone knows what I´m talking about, and I want to continue with examples in our body. Believe it or not, when we have an issue in our wrist, the root problem could potentially come from mobility problems in the ankle on the other side of your body. We try to work on our wrist – and it helps- but it still does not solve the core problem, and other issues will continue to creep up. This wrist problem could be because you rolled your ankle a couple of years ago and did not correctly rehab. Because of that now your knee, as the next joint up, has to take over this range of motion. But the knee is not made for this job. Now the knee passes on this task to the hip, then the lower back, here it goes to the other side of your body to the shoulder – elbow – wrist... Knowing this you might think that the problem can be solved when your ankle is healed again, but that's not always the case. You might not have issues on this end anymore, but are you using the full potential of the joint again? Or did it “forget” what it is able to do and how far it's able to move?
Now our neurological system comes into play. We are getting good at precisely what we do. If we have a good or bad pattern, we are getting good in using this pattern. For example, if we don´t tilt our ankle, we are getting good in that. The good news is that we can change that through our whole life. Of course, some things might take longer than others, but it is possible.
Now let's get back to our city! The problem street doesn´t have a hole anymore. Now it has nice, fresh, smooth pavement again, but not many drivers remember the road without a hole, and everyone is still taking this newly discovered route. If everyone would hear on the radio that the road is open again, you know what would happen.
In our body example, we want to tell your brain again that this ankle is able to tilt in a full range of motion, with no “danger.” How do we do that? We tilt the ankle slow and controlled as far as possible without any pain. Sometimes this is a one session solution (when everyone was listening to the one radio announcement). Other neurological systems might need more input. What is most important is to take an “all is safe” position, which is basically the opposite from searching in your smartphone. It's an upright position with a long spine and a relaxed body.
To get the connection that your wrist hurts because your ankle doesn´t tilt is not very obvious. But our neurological system has some patterns, as well as our body “network.” The ankle probably has “forgotten” about its full potential, as the drivers forgot about the old way of driving to work.
By taking care of your mobility, you might avoid any future issues. That's why taking care of your whole body, not just your physical training sessions, is so important. Increased joint mobility will help prevent future injuries, which in turn will allow you to train more and let's not forget about a better feeling getting out of bed in the morning!
Start with your feet!
They are usually in shoes and boots – let them free, whenever you can! Move them around. Tilt them, stretch them, bend and straighten them in all directions. Rotate them, move your toes, spread your toes. It´s a great start!