I’m continuing on with my Mobility (mWOD) rewind. No specific mWOD today.
There are many athletes in gym who have never heard of mobility, let alone be able to navigate through a mobilization effectively. With Mobility, just like CrossFit, we need to understand the language. Here’s my next set of mobility terms. This time it’s all about the tools:
EQUIPMENT
Foam roller – cylindrically shaped piece of rigid foam used to ‘roll’ out your tissue (muscles, tendons, fascia, etc) utilizing self-myofascial release techniques.
The Grid – a specific type of foam rolller that has a trademark design of ridges and grooves as well as a firm reinforced plastic inner body. You’ll see many of our athletes carrying them in their gym bag in an array of colors.
SuperNova – sometimes referred to as the Death Star (hat tip to our former Mobility Coach Julie). Another trademark design that is the size of a softball with ridges and grooves designed specifically to help mobilize target specific areas utlizing all 6 planes of movement, including myofascial release.
Mobility ball – umbrella term for any spherical object you can use to help target smaller areas for mobilization. Softball, baseball, lacrosse ball, golf ball, ping pong ball, bouncy ball, hand ball, tennis ball, racquet ball, etc. It’s the supernova without the trademark ridged design. The size of the ball will determine how well it can target a specific tissue area. Some of the balls used are less rigid and have some give to them, which can come in handy when performing specific mobilizations.
Jump Stretch band – thick bands used to mobilize and stretch joints and tissues using a fixed object as a cantilever. Each color represents a certain tensile strength (and thickness sometimes). As the colors get darker, the band gets thicker and tougher to stretch (in general).
PVC Pipe– a section of PVC pipe that closely mimics the dimensions of a barbell. You can use a PVC pipe to practice virtually everything you would perform with a barbell (without the added weight). The PVC pipe is a wonderful mobility tool to reach many target areas of the upper torso utilizing bilateral and unilateral balancing techniques as well as cantilever and passive motion stretching.
Monkey bar– (can be referred to as the monkey bars of death) just a fun term used to describe a barbell when its used for mobility purposes. The barbell can be an extremely effect mobilization tool for deep tissue treatment as well as hard to reach areas within certain joint spaces on the body.
FBO Fitness 