Flexibility vs. Mobility: What Is The Difference

Tanner Mackenzie • July 13, 2020

How You Can Improve Both Mobility and Flexibility

Flexibility and mobility. These are two terms we hear quite often, and that your Coach will often reference during training. A few of you probably know the difference between these two, but many of you may not!

Flexibility and mobility are interrelated, with one important difference. Where flexibility refers only to the ability of a joint to be placed in a certain position, mobility refers to this joint's ability to exert force while in this same position.

As an experiment, put a small bend in your knees, then bend over to try and touch your toes. Make a note of just how far down you can go while maintaining a neutral spine. You have just measured your flexibility through the posterior chain.

Consider whether you would be comfortable holding a 10lb weight in this position. How about a 20lb weight? 40lb? 80lb? 100lb? Mobility is an objective, but flexible measurement, that is affected by the demands being placed upon the joint (or system of joints). I like to refer to mobility as 'functional flexibility', or the ability to control the joints at their extreme ranges.

Now that we understand the difference between flexibility and mobility, let's take a look at how they can be improved.

Static, or passive stretching, is widely accepted and practiced for improving flexibility. It's the stretching everyone knows. Apply a stretch to a muscle, just past where you're comfortable, and hold. This is a perfectly effective way of increasing flexibility, but will not improve mobility.

A lesser known way of improving flexibility is active stretching. The antagonist (or opposing) muscles are engaged to pull on the stretched muscle. Many of you probably remember the Active Straight Leg Raise that forms part of the Functional Movement Screen we administer here at Nova on a regular basis. This is a great example of an active stretch. Again, while great for flexibility, there is a better option for mobility.

Two great ways to improve mobility are dynamic stretching and Controlled Articular Rotations (CARs). Dynamic stretching uses natural movements to slowly apply a stretch to a muscle group.

For example, slowly descending into a squat, challenging your range of motion while maintaining form, is a dynamic stretch. You can do the exact same thing with resistance. Dynamic stretching is not to be confused with ballistic stretching, which uses the momentum to force a joint beyond its normal range of motion (i.e: bouncing aggressively to reach for your toes, which could strain the back). This is dangerous and unproductive.

CARs are essentially a special type of dynamic stretch. They utilize rotational movements of a joint around its maximum range, to teach the brain and the body how to use these ranges. Below is a video featuring a great example of a shoulder CAR.

Hopefully this helped you understand a bit more about flexibility, mobility and how to improve them.

Happy stretching!