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The existence of problems creates the need for solutions. If you have a problem, you want it fixed. If someone offers a solution to your problem for a price that is more valuable to you than its cost, there will be an exchange of goods or services—this the most basic principle of business. Pain, injury, and lack of performance are some of the most common problems people face in life, so it is no surprise that the demand for an answer to these problems has created a huge marketplace within the health care, strength, and fitness industries.

With so many products and services available to address these problems, there is bound to be friction between competing individuals on which products work and don’t work and why. After all, with so much on the line for the individual, the business, and even the educator, being right is pretty important.

When it comes to training an athlete, preventing an injury, or helping someone out of pain, mobility is likely the most common term thrown out to solve these problems. For the last few decades, an immense amount of value has been placed on mobility. From the old presidential fitness tests to injury prevention screening, yoga, and every imaginable product to loosen, stretch, and percuss that stubborn, tight muscle, mobility has been the keystone to unlocking the elusive fix to all of our pain, injury, and performance problems.

But there does exist another contender in this search for solutions. That solution is stability. Both are important for sure, but which is more important? Mobility or stability? Which comes first? Which do we prioritize? Which do we work on first when there is a problem? For those involved in the healthcare, fitness, and strength industries, these are questions that have been long debated and have much enthusiasm behind them, creating the ultimate chicken vs. the egg debate in the human body. So which is the answer? How do we know once and for all?

Discussion

To start, let’s define these terms.

  • Mobility is the ability of a joint to move actively through its range of motion. 
  • Stability is the ability of the neuromuscular system to maintain and control a joint articulation in a given movement or position. 

It is also important at this time to add another definition to the conversation: Flexibility.

  • Flexibility is defined as the ability of a muscle or muscle groups to lengthen passively through a range of motion.

This is an important definition because flexibility and mobility are often incorrectly used interchangeably or as the same, like sprain and strain. The key differences here are that flexibility references a muscle or muscle group, whereas mobility refers to the joint itself. Also, flexibility is defined as a passive movement, and mobility is defined as an active movement. This means that flexibility is done in a relaxed muscle state, whereas mobility is done with the active contraction of the muscles.

Now that the above-mentioned terms have been clearly defined, we can already see an important component within the definition of mobility that lends a hand in solving whether mobility or stability comes first: Actively. In terms of kinesiology, active motion refers to motion that is controlled and created by our muscles. This means that mobility requires muscular contraction and coordination. In other words, mobility requires stability to occur.

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Why does this happen? Why does stability come before mobility? How can issues of stability cause perceived problems with mobility?

The answer is priority and survival. Our body is set up as a hierarchical system that prioritizes certain qualities, movements, or equilibriums over others. It does this because we are no different than we were ten thousand years ago in terms of our body’s physiological needs, all of which are centered around ensuring survival in our world.

If survival is the name of the game, one of the most important ways to increase our chances of survival is to decrease our likelihood of injury. Although there are many factors that determine the probability of survival, very few have the impact that an injury does. Therefore, our body is very interested in avoiding injury in its internal and external environment.

Internally, the nervous system plays a large role in avoiding injury by constantly monitoring and relaying the current status of joints and surrounding soft tissues back to its central control system, the brain. Information regarding the whereabouts of a particular joint, including its position and stability, are gathered by various mechanoreceptors located within the joint and surrounding ligaments, tendons, muscles, etc. If the brain senses instability in a joint, it will respond in a way that we are all very familiar with.

Imagine, for a minute, the following scenario: You are driving your car during the winter, or perhaps a very heavy downpour, and encounter an icy patch or standing water on the road. These changes in road conditions create a decrease in traction, and your tires begin to spin. Luckily, your vehicle's electronics system, which monitors and coordinates everything going on in your car, also contains a set of sensors that measure wheelspin and can sense this lack of stability caused by wheelspin. Instantly, the computer in your car responds by cutting power and braking at the wheel that has lost traction and stability with the road. Although under normal conditions, we like being able to apply power to the wheels, in this situation, activation of the car’s traction stability control results in you staying on course instead of spinning out and crashing.

In the body, when stability is lost at a joint, the same response occurs. If the brain senses instability, it will reduce joint range of motion. Imagine this time it is you that happens to walk or run across an icy or slick surface. Do your muscles loosen up or tense up? Is your reaction to increase your stride length or reduce it to a shuffle? In terms of our discussion, did your body prioritize stability or mobility?

Better yet, let’s reinforce your own experience of almost falling on your face or ass and watch this infamous snow jogger on YouTube. After watching it a few times, I want you to try to stop laughing and actually look at the mechanics of what happens in the body when she hits the icy patch. Then take a further look at this snapshot in time at 0:27. Why did her body respond that way?

Snow-Jogger-Snapshot

Well, unless you like tearing things and dislocating joints, it makes sense that the body will lock up in response to decreased stability and stop movement (i.e., it cut power and put on the brakes). The further a joint moves away from its neutral position, the more difficult it is to stabilize. The response to reduce movement (mobility) and tense up is done to maximize stability and avoid injury. This is why after hitting the patch of ice, the runner jolts into an almost textbook anatomical position. Unfortunately for her, this innate response is not enough.

In case you’re still in camp “mobility first,” let’s investigate this through the lens of the strength world. If you were to get ready to squat or have ever coached someone to squat, do you focus on depth first or getting tight first? Why do you position your rack height where it is and not lower? Why do you start with both feet underneath you and not in a split foot position?

Because stability comes first.

To squat effectively, we first need to create stability. To do this, we co-contract supporting musculature at the hip and trunk. This stability produces a platform for movement. Without it, your mobility will be cut short to avoid being crushed by the weight. This explains why mobility is a lot easier to achieve unloaded or lying on the ground doing hip circles because the joints are not challenged to stabilize.

Application

Mobility problems in my office are often not mobility problems but rather stability problems. Even when they truly are mobility problems, the best way to definitively determine they are a mobility problem is to first rule out the presence of stability issues.

For example, someone may have pain in the lower back while squatting and display the famed “butt wink” at the end of the range of motion in order to get to parallel. This is an extremely common problem and one that you can scour the internet for solutions. In fact, when you Google back pain when squatting, or how to fix a butt-wink in the squat, I bet you are told you have a hip mobility problem. This mobility approach of stretching is often coupled with reducing spinal loading for a period of time and a few corrective exercises.

This may be the internet consensus, but it is far from the answer. Time off for anyone will help the pain go away, but as the person moves back into exercise, the same dysfunctional patterns in creating stability will appear. Within a few weeks or months, this person is right back where they started. Chasing mobility ghosts with an hour of stretches each day is simply identifying a symptom of dysfunction rather than it’s cause and assuming the body is stupid. Did you ever stop to think perhaps your body isn’t wrong and the hip isn’t mobile for a reason? That maybe the body is protecting the hip by restricting its range of motion?

So how do we solve this problem once and for all? Start with stability. This includes evaluating and correcting existing motor patterns, teaching and cueing the squat, and strengthening weak points in the body.

Relating back to the idea that the body prioritizes function in order to survive, when it comes to movement, the priority is breathing, hip flexion, and hip extension. Without these movements, we cannot breathe or move. It is from here that the cause of the problem must be fixed. A ton of people benefit from improvements in breathing. Most of the reasons for this is outside of the scope of this article. If you wish to go deeper into the many effects of breathing, you can do so here.

One of the reasons for this is hip stability is promoted by proper (diaphragmatic) breathing. This is because the diaphragm (through connective tissue) is continuous with the psoas muscle which is the primary mover of hip flexion. It is also connected directly to the spine and quadratus lumborum muscles. If the diaphragm is not functioning correctly, these structures will not function correctly, thus creating changes in movement and stability in the hip and lower back.

A lack of proper function in the diaphragm and hip joint creates a scenario in which the nervous system must compensate to ensure its priorities are fulfilled. This occurs by the recruitment of accessory breathing muscles like the scalenes, pec minor, and intercostal muscles. In the hip, recruitment for hip flexion and extension can be local from muscles such as the quads, hamstrings, abs, or lower back muscles or through further extension outward of myofascial lines also known as myofascial meridians or trains to things like the arm, foot, or even jaw and neck.

That’s all good and well, but what does that have to do with our squatter?

A lot.

First, let’s recap what we have learned:

  1. Stability comes before mobility in the body.
  2. The nervous system senses and responds to a lapse in stability by compensating and recruiting accessory muscles to help create more stability.
  3. This compensatory response by the nervous system is survival-based and places the priority of movement in breathing, hip flexion, and hip extension.

If the above statements are true and our back-pained individual in question reach the end of their allowable range of motion in the squat (due to a lack of stability in their hip), in order to go lower, let’s say to parallel, the body will in fact find a way to go lower just not in the hip joint. Instead, we will see the butt-wink, as lumbar spine stability is sacrificed over hip stability (order of priority) to “get the job done.”

If the above scenario happens enough times, and the lower back is continually sacrificed, the result will be pain and tightness in the lower back. And what have we already established will be the popular recommendation for a tight and painful lower back? It’s a hip mobility issue that needs stretching and rest and some basic corrective exercises. If stability comes before mobility, an unstable hip will also be an immobile hip. Trying to increase mobility in the hip will not change the state of stability in the hip and more times than not, after weeks to months off of training and possibly thousands of dollars spent in health care, mobility products, or even online programs from internet gurus that claim they can fix you without even looking at you, this individual will find themselves in the same back pain boat within six months. The answer is to stop doing so much mobility and focus on building strength and stability in the hips. Recognizing stability comes first can expedite the process of healing from an injury, learning a movement pattern, and improving performance.

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