An illustration of this difference

difference can compare a typical 8-year-old girl

girl vs. an adult gymnast. Many
young girls have CRAZY flexibility…
flexibility… they can pretzel themselves
themselves into super
super extreme positions.
positions.
But most of them struggle to generate much force in those positions. Gymnasts, on the other
hand, can produce meaningfully high forces through their whole flexible ROM, and thus ca n
move in very cool ways. The mobility of gymnasts makes way for abilities i n many other sports,
while the passive flexibility of children stops short
short at something like a parlor trick.

This distinction between flexibility and mobility is important, because many “coaches” use the
terms mistakenly. For example, when powerlifters can’t hit depth with heavy weights without
their backs rounding, it’s rarely a mobility issue… your back isn’t weak when it i t can lift hundreds
of pounds. It’s almost always a flexibility issue, and addressing that is a different problem than
one of addressing mobility. On the other hand, working with untrained but flexible people IS a
mobility problem, because they already have the flexibility and just need the strength. And for
them, end-range or full-range strength training is the most effective remedy, not fancy drills or
foam rolling techniques. TLDR: know what’s actually going on before addressing it.

2.) On the topic of knowing what’s going on before addressing it, “more mobility work” has for
some people become a panacea in strength training. If you go to nearly any social media forum or
post where someone is asking about why they are stalling in the squat or their technique breaks
down in the deadlift, something like half of all comments will be “you need to work on your
mobility.” Again, because mobility is combination of strength and flexibility, that advice alone
isn’t even instructive… does the person need more flexibility, more strength, or both?

Another common piece

piece of advice is “it seems like you aren’t
aren’t activating your _____ muscles. You
should do _____ fancy drills to help.”

Here’s the breakdown of the problems with such advice:

a.) Lift execution is limited in most cases by some combination of:

- Strength deficit (you just need to get fucking stronger)

- Flexibility problems (you’re tight as fuck and need to get more flexible to hit the positions)

- Technique problems (nothing’s “misfiring,” you just aren’t moving correctly because you don’t
know how… you need a coach’s eye and lots of reps to actually improve your technique)

b.) In some MUCH RARER cases, cases, you have some kind
kind of medical condition where some muscles
are not being activated properly. First of all, this is very rare and should never be a first guess.
Second of all, if you don’t see a doctor and he doesn’t measure muscle activation directly in that
area, you can’t tell for sure that’s the problem. And that diagnosis sure as hell can’t be done via
online video by someone you’ve never met.

c.) Some drills can make you more aware of and more in control of some muscles and
movements. But those drills are rarely very long and they are usually just a part of a 15 minute or
shorter warmup you do before you actually lift. To quote Dr. Quinn Henoch and Dr. James
Hoffmann, if your general warmup takes longer than 30 minutes, either most of it is time wasted
or something much more serious than drills can solve is amiss with your body.