STRENGTH: How to integrate MOBO into your strength training.

One of the biggest questions we get is “how do combine my mobo/proprioception/balance/stability work into my strength and power work. Well, let’s get to it!

Traditional “strength” and power work is all about learning to produce MORE FORCE and produce is QUICKER.

Stability / balance/ proprioceptive work is all about trying to build STRATEGY.

BOTH are important for your sport! I’ve always said “you can’t put a jet engine on a paper airplane” ….or “you can’t fire a cannon from a canoe”. Point is to be a athlete, you need to be strong and powerful, but you need to be able to CONTROL that strength and power. So you do in fact need to train BOTH aspects here.

But let’s be clear - we need to stop mincing words. For the most part, to train stability and balance work we do LOTS of reps that aren’t really that hard. You may use body weight or light resistance from a band (as the vast majority of exercises on this exercise library). If you are doing this type of work, it will pay off, but lets’s stop saying we are making our body “stronger” you may get a little strength, but not much. Instead, you are training STRATEGY.

Because if the goal is to train your body to produce more force and do it quicker, we do a totally different type of training. For the most part, strength and power work should be done with your feet on solid ground. Why? To generate massive amounts of force your nervous system needs to feel “safe”Putting your body on solid ground is a better environment to train the skills of strength and power.

 A daily schedule to train COMPREHENSIVELY

If the above picture looks like an Oreo to you, its a sign that you are just hungry. But in reality, this its not a bad analogy. In the center, I wrote that its the meat and potatoes of your workout. I could also say its your double-stuff filling in your Oreo - doesn’t matter - the point is that this is the stuff that most people think of as “strength and power work”. Its really important. But to get your body READY to produce large amounts of force, we need to get your mind and body in the right zone. So we need to decide what to put in the cookies on top and below the double stuff filling.

As the start of your workout, the focus is to get your body into the right frame of mind. You do NOT need to do 45 min of core work. I see people doing this all the time. And then when they get to their “DRIVE” lifts, they are too tired, and blew their workout before they even began. But you should start with about 5-15 min of movements to get your body in the zone, and ready. I typically have my athletes perform unstable surface training - like MOBO - in this part of the workout. The reason is that your BRAIN is FRESH and ready to FOCUS (see the STABILITY TAB next to the clickable runner for more on that). You’ll get the most out of your time on your MOBO here, and it will also serve as a dynamic warm up for the DRIVE movements.

The bottom cookie is what I labeled as “CORRECT.” The realtity is that we are pushing our bodies so hard. And when you are always pushing and pushing, you are pushing your body to the limit. And that body takes constant maintain to be able to keep showing up for you. So if you have some rotator cuff work you do for your shoulders, it goes here. If you have some hip stability work it goes here. And if you need some extra time on your foot and Anke, more MOBO work can go here too. The point is that this area is here to fix the niggles that you find you are dealing with most often. If you don’t need any “extra” time, then go home and relax….

I hope this was helpful to look a a solid strategy to improve your outcomes from the stability and strength training you put into your workouts. I have a LOT more in my book Running Rewired, but this should be a great primer to help you make sense of things. And speaking of making sense - write it all down! Before you go to the gym, write down a plan on what you are going to do. That way you can keep your head focused on your effort and not chasing your tail in the gym. Happy training!