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  Over the last several years, Michael Boyle and Gray Cook’s “Joint-by-Joint Approach to Training” have changed the way the sports performance world looks at athletic development. Starting from the ground up, the joint-by-joint system outlines that the body has joints alternating in emphasis on whether they need mobility or stability to maximize function. Look at the chart below for more specific details on which joints need mobility and which need stability (note that if you read from left to right, you’ll see the progression from the ground up within the body: ankle -> knee -> hip -> lumbar (low back) -> thoracic (upper back) -> scapulothoracic (shoulder blades) -> glenohumeral (shoulder joint) -> elbow).
The Mobility-Stability Continuum
 Performance Implications If your ankle lacks mobility, you’ll get it from your knee. Result = knee pain (common in basketball players. If your hip lacks mobility, you’ll get it from your lumbar spine. Result = back pain (common in just about everyone, but especially hockey players and golfers). A lack of glenoumeral mobility results in increased range of motion and stresses across the elbow (common in tennis and baseball players). The list goes on. You can see how this joint-by-joint approach creates a paradigm that explains so many athletic injuries. While I’m sure this wasn’t the original intention of either Coach Boyle or Gray Cook, this idea has been interpreted in a black and white fashion: Joints either need mobility or they need stability. The truth is that EVERY joint falls somewhere on a mobility-stability continuum: ←----------------------------- Mobility Core Rotation Example Let’s take a look at the lumbar spine. Each segment of the lumbar spine has about 2-4 degrees of rotation range of motion, for a total of about 13 degrees total rotational capacity. In contrast, the thoracic spine has in excess of 70 degrees (and so do the hips: about 30-50 degrees in both internal and external rotation). From this viewpoint, it’s obvious that we should be emphasizing rotation through the hips and thoracic spine and NOT through the lumbar spine. This fits well in the mobility/stability table above. Failure to do so results in excess rotation through the lumbar spine, which can cause a host of disc and spinal bone issues. With that said, it’s important to note that we still NEED that 13 degrees of rotation range of motion in the lumbar spine and should use it. We don’t want to force motion past the end range of the joint, but using the allowable motion is absolutely essential to efficient movement. Coming back to the continuum, understand that even joints that necessitate a high level of mobility (e.g. the glenohumeral or “shoulder” joint) absolutely need some requisite stability. The same is true for the ankle. In both cases, ligament damage due to injury creates an increase in joint laxity, which by definition improves mobility. However, this mobility comes at the expense of NECESSARY structural stability and increases the risk of subsequent injury to that joint (one example of why previous injury is the best predictor of future injury). In reality, these joints probably don’t belong in columns as much as a continuum as displayed below. ←----------------------------- Glenohumeral Hip/Ankle Take Home Message When we think of maximizing human performance, we can never think in black and white terms. Each joint needs a specific balance of mobility and stability. If you take only one thing from this discussion, it should be that the body functions as a cohesive unit, meaning limitations in one area will absolutely affect (usually negatively) both adjacent areas and areas further up/down an anatomical pathway. This is just one more reason why isolation training is moronic.
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