posted on June 10, 2021
Since you guys can’t seem to get enough of me, this blog is going to consist of multiple parts. A series if you will, with my progress and we will call it “Fixing Maggie”. Quickly after I started working at Union I was told that my mobility is complete and utter trash. I always knew that I tight hips, but I was just convinced that it was because of the way that I am built. As you all know from past blog posts, I spent most of my life playing basketball. In basketball, your ankles and hips are meant to be stable and we did not focus on flexibility for those parts of our body. We were meant to be strong in a wide position especially as a post player. As my coach liked to call it, “taking up space”. That is why I am way more comfortable in a sumo stance when doing lifts, rather than conventional or narrow stance. I was trained to take up as much space as possible #justgirlythings.
After a quick ankle mobility test that Curtis told me to do, I was shocked to find out that the immobility in my ankles was affecting the mobility in my hips. My knee is supposed to be able to touch the wall in the photo shown, but as you can see it is nowhere near it and trust me I am pushing hard. I was also honored to be named the worst ankle mobility of all time as Curt so proudly stated. This photo was taken about 4 weeks ago and I have been doing about 30 minutes of hip and ankle mobility exercises 4-5 times a week since then. Focusing on this is important for me to become a better lifter and minimize injury as much as I can. I am also curious to see where my potential is as a lifter because I have been enjoying it a lot. If I have better range of motion I will be able to handle heavier loads and progress in my strength which is the ultimate goal. So far, there has been a noticeable change in the way that I squat. Don’t worry photos will be coming soon; I know you are all itching to see.
My mobility program consists of hip and ankle banded distractions, hip airplanes, spiderman stretches, calf release, banded floss, 90/90 stretch, and tempo goblet squats. I do these before my squat days in order to warm up those mechanisms and have a more successful squat day in terms of range of motion and stability. I have also programed different forms of squats into my split during the week that include pit shark, box squats and back squats. When I approach the bottom of my squats, it was almost like my hips were locking and I would stick coming out of the hole. That ½ second was confusing especially when it was not a lot of weight and the rest of the squat was smooth. I mean maybe it wasn’t the smoothest being that I am still new to this whole weight lifting thing, but smooth for me. Since starting this mobility program along with my training program, I have noticed less locking and pain in my hips and ability to add more weight while staying as smooth as I can. If you would like to talk to me more about it or if you want to follow my journey to a better squat let me know!
Happy training,
Magz
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