 Our next caller is Kristen from Connecticut. Hi Kristen, how can we help you? Hi guys, so my question is, is it beneficial to lift and build strength if mobility is poor? So for myself, I poor mobility my hips. I'm wondering if I should solely focus on mobility or if it's okay to incorporate strength along with that. I love this question. Yeah, no, that's a good question. And people do this often because strength is fun, mobility isn't- You just jump right past. Nearly, it's just nearly not as sexy, but let me change the, let me give you an analogy, right? So let's say somebody runs with a strong limp or a hop. This is just how they run. They've always learned how to run and they wanna learn how to run faster and they wanna get better at it. Imagine if a coach just said, just run faster. We're not gonna change that weird hop or limp that you have. You're just gonna run as fast as you possibly can. What do you think would end up happening? Now, if you're thinking that they're gonna probably injure themselves or just get solidify that really bad running pattern, you're absolutely correct. So this is the challenge with getting stronger with poor mobility. Whatever is giving you poor mobility will just become stronger. So you're applying pressure to the hinges, if you will, on your body. More and more with more strength and poor mobility, you are asking for an injury or trouble and you're also limiting your potential. There's only so strong and so good that you can get when your mobility is poor. There's a much higher potential with good mobility. So if you don't address it now, you're gonna limit your potential and increase your risk of injury. There's also a bit of a misconception that we can't get stronger while we focus on mobility. So I think that's important. It's not like an either or. It's not, oh, you can focus on getting strong or you can work just getting on mobile. I mean, you can actually be focused on mobility and build strength. So it's not like it's an either or type of situation. It's just you shift your priority versus neglecting mobility and just training to get stronger to Sal's point. Yeah, that's not the ideal situation, but there's nothing wrong with you addressing mobility while you're also getting stronger. I mean, that's like, that's why maps performance. Are you following any of the maps programs? Oh, that's great. I'm so glad you just said that because I'm running maps performance right now. Oh, there you go. I mean, that's ideal. You will get stronger in that program, but the program really is centered around mobility with the mobility focus in it. Okay, great. Yeah, and, you know, one more question around this. For you personally, what's the challenge? Is strength something that you're really, really after? Does it feel like there's a trade-off to you? Is that why you're asking this question? I just can't get as low in the squat as I would like to. Like if I definitely stand in like a sumo position, I can get low, but if I'm like hip-width apart or shoulder-width apart and my feet facing forward, I can't get below parallel. So just to get those strength gains by getting lower into a squat is really what I'm looking for. Now, have you tried like squatting on a block with your heels on a block before or using those squat shoes? Yeah, I've tried on like a block, like on a weight kind of, but not with squat shoes ever, no. Yeah, I'm just wondering if you can get lower by doing that and that would be a definite indicator that ankle mobility might be something that you want to look into and address because it will provide you a lot more stability and ankle support when you get dropped down into your squat. Do you have access to Maps Prime? Yeah, I have Maps Prime. Okay, use that. Use that, do the compass test, do the priming before your workout, be consistent with that. It'll make a big difference. And then, you know, back to what Adam was saying about increasing strength and mobility, I'm gonna add something to that. It looks different than what you might anticipate. So what I mean by that is, let's say you normally squat 150 pounds down to parallel, okay, but you work on mobility and your squat doesn't go up in weight, but now you're squatting an inch lower in your squat. You've just gotten stronger. So strength gains look a little different than they do when you're just adding weight to the bar. Adding a little bit more of a range of motion that you can control means you got stronger. So make sure you pay attention to that. Don't worry as much about the weight on the bar if you're improving mobility and stability. That means your strength is going. Yeah, you're basically unlocking a new exercise that way. Great. And then I wanna go back to what Justin asked you because you didn't get a chance to answer. When you lifted your heels and were squatting, did you notice you could get deeper that way? Yes, I could, yeah. And that was just body weight, but yeah. Okay, so that, I mean, that's a clear indication that I would be working on your combat stretch. So it make that just a routine every day, regardless of your squatting, every day before you lift. And then if you can multiple times throughout the day, starting to do the combat stretch and start to improve your ankle mobility and that alone should already start to help out the depth in your squat. Okay, great. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you guys. Yeah, that's a good conversation because I can understand like the, it feels like a trade-off, right? Oh, I'm not, I wanna add more weight. That's more important than me improving my mobility. It's more fun or whatever. Oh yeah, I mean, that's one of those conversations I'm constantly having to have, especially with athletes too. But what they don't realize is if they put the work into that, like you actually can produce more force, which means you get stronger and you're able to apply more of this strength in more directions. Well, I've shared on the podcast, it's been a while since we talked about this, but there was a time not that long ago where I could barely break 90 degrees on a squat. And I could easily do 405 back then at 90 degrees. And it took me a really long time to get to the place where I was squatting the same amount of weight all the way I asked for grass. But one of the things that I noticed was the development in my legs with lighter weight. So even though I wasn't lifting as much weight as I was say five, six years ago, because I had a much deeper range of motion, the development in my quads was superior to what it was before when I was lifting more weight. So a lot of times we just think that, oh, if I don't see more weight going on the bar, I'm not making strength improvements. But if you increase your range of motion, like Sal was saying a couple inches, you are getting stronger.