It would make sense that improving your range of movement would lessen your chance of injury.

But how does it improve performance?

There are a lot of ideas we could form around how improving mobility may improve performance. But here I want to look at 2 big ones, one that is fairly obvious, and one that contradicts popular beliefs.  Discussing these points will require a bit of science, so buckle up and I’ll try and keep the jargon to a minimum.

1. Inability to access ideal form.

This one should be fairly obvious.

If you have limited ability to dorsiflex at the ankle (pull your toes towards your shin) your squat depth will suffer, which could impact easy to see examples such as a squat, or be the thing that causes you to get injured repeatedly when you run.

Less obvious movements that are impacted, are those that are easily compensated for.

For example, in order to press a weight overhead, it is necessary to flex the shoulder, and...