Strength to Protect Dangerous Flexibility

There’s a sign in our sister gym in Torrance, DEUCE Athletics, that says “A strong athlete is a safe athlete.” It one of my favorite saying for a couple reasons. For one it correctly identifies a positive relationship between strength and safety as opposed to the alleged danger we often assign to it.

A respected world-record holding coach, Shane Sweatt, can often be found saying we need two things when it comes to movement. The first is the mobility to get into a particular position. The second is the strength to maintain that position. The latter is what the sign in DEUCE Athletics refers to.

Flexibility seems to get a disproportional amount credit when it comes to keeping athletes healthy. In reality it’s only half of the battle. I’d argue there are more people that can get into ranges of motion than can maintain those ranges of motion. Said differently, many of us aren’t strong enough to avoid injury.

Take the endless discussion of back pain in America. Strength training seems to be the last thing one would recommend to someone with chronic back pain. Often times it’s the only thing one might suggest to avoid. 

I have to wonder how much pain and injury we’d avoid if we were more stable when we end up in sketchy positions. My opinion? We need to be stronger. We need to be strong in as many positions as possible. Variance is your safeguard.

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach