What is stability and why do you care?

Stability, quite literally, is firmness in position. It is continuance without change. A stable object does not move. It is hard to move. You can compare this to a job. A stable job is one that is hard to lose. It is held for a long period of time without change. However, that stability may be hard to acquire in the first place.

The same is true in the human body. It is the ability to hold firm in a position. It is the ability to continue without change when needed. If you’ve ever played a contact sport, you know the feeling I’m about to describe. You drop the shoulder and go to hit someone. Then, you bounce off of them as if they are a brick wall. That person is stable. Their body is capable of holding firm in a position. I want you to be like that. That is why I wrote this program.

The body, to be stable, must be able to also find these positions quickly. That means, it can recruit all of the right musculature for the task. That also means that the wrong musculature does not dominate to compensate for weakness. I’m sorry for the generalities here. We will get more specific below.

Before we go there, we must ask the question: Why do you need to be stable? It’s a great question. Stability brings the human body many things. These include, but are not limited to:

• Decreased aches and pains.
• Increase long-term joint health.
• Increased long-term tissue health.
• Increased long-term bone health.
• Increased strength potential.
• Decreased change of injury.

Stability is an often forgotten part of training. To become strong, we must start with a stable foundation. How do we build this foundation?

Building the Foundation

It begins with simple drills. These simple drills easily activate the musculature we want to stabilize us. Once this activation has happened, it becomes easier to utilize these muscles in more complex exercises.

That’s the next step. Once there is some baseline activation, we want to integrate. Integrated exercises are exercises in which numerous things are happening at the same time. I might be doing a Squat to a Pull. I might be holding a challenging isometric position while doing a movement. Who knows? The world is your oyster.

This integration allows for better motor pattern learning. The body can understand what has to happen, and at what time, to move efficiently. This is when the neurological system plays a role in training. We want to train the neurological system what to turn on and when. Once we have that, we have one piece of the puzzle.

The next piece is working towards adaptation. We want our muscles to become more capable. The basic exercises and integrated exercises will help create neurological efficiency. Pair that with an optimized workload and you start getting real results. The main muscular adaptation goal in the Integrated Stability phase of training is muscular endurance (apart from efficiency). We want our muscles to be able to do things well and for long periods of time.

In this program, you’ll see circuits that have rep ranges between 12 or more. Ensure that you use lighter weight to accomplish all of the reps prescribed. This will give your muscles endurance to do more work later. Also, doing many reps will allow for better pattern development.

Mobility

We can’t forget about mobility. After a warmup, we want to mobilize generally tight areas. The human body nowadays has some common tight areas that shouldn’t be. I target these in the Dynamic Mobility and Isolated Mobility sections.

Dynamic Mobility are mobility exercises that are done in the middle of a training session to prepare the body for the positions utilized in other exercises. The goal of these exercises is not to increase flexibility. Rather, it is to return your body to the state of its previously-most flexible. That was probably after your last stretching or training session.

Isolated Mobility includes foam rolling and static stretching at the end of a training session. The goal of this mobility type is to improve ranges of motion for limited musculature. These limited areas may prevent proper movement. This could include limiting the depth of a squat or the ability to extend your hips. These limitations can affect how stable you are.

An Integrated System

We have this Integrated Stability phase because the human body is an integrated system. That is why I believe that the Integrated Stability phase of training is the most important for people to master.

The slings are connected pieces of muscle and tissue that cross from the upper body to the lower body through the pelvis. They help transmit force and stabilize the system.

In the Integrated Stability phase, you will see many exercises that focus on connecting the upper and lower body. You will see how the core and pelvis are integral to how the whole system functions. These exercises will make you more capable, more stable, and more injury prone when the demands of your training intensify.

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