The Work You Can't Skip

The Work You Can't Skip

"Every human should be able to perform basic maintenance on themselves."

I first heard Kelly Starrett say that nearly 20 years ago.

At the time, I had just come off eight years of endurance racing. My engine was strong, but my hips and shoulders were a mess from bike crashes and repetitive stress injuries. When I found CrossFit, I quickly realized I couldn't train the way I wanted to. I had persistent pain that prevented me from building any real strength in squats and overhead movements.

Around that time, Kelly - who owned CrossFit San Francisco, the 21st affiliate ever opened - created the Mobility Project, a daily video series teaching people how to take care of their own bodies.

That information changed my life.

Those videos didn't just get me out of pain. They’ve allowed me to continue training, competing, and coaching at a high level to this day.

Last weekend, I spent two days with K-Starr and The Ready State team working through their Mobility 102 certification. Much of it reinforced principles I've been using and teaching for years. But it also connected some important dots that I think can help all of us take a step forward.

The Position Problem

One of the biggest mistakes I see, especially in motivated athletes, is trying to solve movement problems with more strength.

This thinking is everywhere online. Quick fixes. Activation drills. "Top 3 exercises to fix your squat." It's a constant stream of content that skips a critical step.

If your body can't get into the positions a movement requires, it can't coordinate and produce force efficiently in those positions. Strength only solves the problem if you can express that strength in the right shapes.

If your ankles or hips won't allow squat depth, no amount of glute work is going to fix that. And you can't simply stretch your way out of it either. Range of motion is only beneficial when you can create stability through that range. The worst exercise-induced back injuries I've seen have happened to people who do yoga. Not because yoga is inherently harmful, but because too much flexibility without control is an injury waiting to happen.

If you constantly move through poor positions with poor mechanics, you will only get away with it for so long. Eventually, it catches up.

Mobility Is the Missing Link

Training, recovery, sleep, nutrition, hydration, stress - we talk about all of these as an interconnected system. Mobility sits right in the middle of it. If you want to perform consistently for a long time, it’s non-negotiable.

It influences how well you move, how efficiently you train, how completely you recover, and ultimately how long you can stay consistent. Most people treat mobility like an option - only adding it when something hurts, or when there's extra time.

There's never extra time.

And by the time something hurts, you've already paid a price. As I love to say: the easiest time to fix an injury is before it happens.

Maintenance Is the Work You Can't Skip

Which brings us back to where we started:

Every human should be able to perform basic maintenance on themselves.

The athletes who keep improving year after year - who stay healthy, move well, and avoid long layoffs - aren't lucky. They're paying attention and learning. They're identifying their limitations and doing something about them before those limitations become injuries.

This doesn't require an hour a day. In most cases, it's 10-15 minutes of focused, consistent work on the areas that need it most.

The problem is that this kind of work isn't exciting. In fact - it sucks. Its uncomfortable at best and for some it takes a while to produce results.

It’s easy to skip. Until it isn't.

If you ignore maintenance, your body will eventually force it on you.

What This Means for You

You have to take ownership of your movement. As coaches, we can identify issues, teach you what good positions look like, and build you a plan. But we can't do the work for you.

That part is yours.

If you want to schedule a one-on-one mobility and movement session, we'll assess your range of motion, identify the positions limiting your performance, and build a simple, targeted plan to address them. Not just more work, but the right work.

Do the maintenance and enjoy a more durable, pain-free and high performance body.

In health,

Coach Parker