Range of Motion

Last night I lay on the floor to watch some t.v., which isn’t all that unusual, except I was flat on my back with my legs up on the wall. Sometimes I sit on the couch instead with one leg tucked up against the back pillow. Other times, I squat. Frequently I sit on the floor, leaning against the couch, with a rolling pin or lacrosse ball under my calf. Last night I was working on my hamstrings though. They were still tight from the long run over the weekend, and a leg up on the doorframe instead would have prevented me from watching NOVA.

This was not stretching. Instead I was trying to restore full range of motion (ROM), which is the degree of movement that can occur in a joint or the distance that an object can travel when attached to another object. I find that running leaves me tight in some very specific areas—hamstrings, lower back, and calves—the result being reduced stride length, inability to twist at the waist, and discomfort when I point my foot.

Physical therapists often work with their patients on range of motion. After my shoulder surgery, I was unable to externally rotate my left arm enough to put a jacket on with that limb first. The arm could not reach its full potential (no pun intended). Like every joint, every person has a full potential. The question is whether or not we are maximizing it or simply learning to live with the limits that are imposed unnecessarily.

I frequently have some permutation of the following conversation with many of my students:

Me: Aren’t you concerned about your ability to write clearly and fluently?

Student: I’m going to be a welder. I can make $40 an hour and will never need to write a thing.

Me: What if you get injured?

Student: What do you mean?

Me: What if something happens that prevents you from working as a welder?

Student: That won’t happen to me.

Make no mistake, I have a great deal of respect for welders or any other such trade. My problem is not with these students’ choices of employment but the limiting of their opportunity. They are purposefully reducing their range of motion.

Consider the following analogy. As an adult, perhaps married with a child or two, you are much like a limb. One part of you is intractably fixed at one point even as the rest of you maintains some degree of freedom. Now consider what happens if you suffer some kind of injury—not physically but metaphorically. Maybe the company you work for closes, and you lose your job. Your range of motion determines what you can arrive at next. A broader set of skills allows for a broader reach.

The irony is that from very early on we are encouraged to specialize as soon as individual talents are evident. We start perfecting repeated patterns of movement to the detriment of other movements or skills. I know boulderers (climbers who specialize in short, powerful routes) who can’t hike more than twenty minutes to crag despite their v-shaped torsos and crushing grip. The arms on runners are lean and strong like a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but when was the last time you saw a T-Rex do a pull-up? Strong writers abandon their pursuit of math skills leaving them sorely surprised when they discover that you can’t substitute an 8” loaf pan for a 9” one.

Range of motion is entirely about options. Like a joint we are all pinned down somewhere, by something. The choices that we make are dictated therefore by how far we can go despite the fixed point that inhibits us.

College increases range of motion. It offers us more than student loans. A post-secondary education—regardless of whether it is a state university, private institution, or community college—offers options allowing us to maximize our potential. Now try this. Lie down on the floor. Right now. Ok, maybe close the door first so no one thinks you are crazy. Now take one straight arm and raise it up over your head until your bicep grazes your ear. Your hand should touch the floor without you arching your back or bending at the elbow. If it doesn’t, you don’t have full range of motion. Now consider all of the things that have been out of reach because of this simple lack of ROM, and yet we accept it as normal. And, yes, you just executed a physical metaphor.

The next time you are watching t.v.—not doing anything, really—are you going to lie on the floor or just sprawl across the couch like a throw rug? Those students who are applying for this scholarship, they have decided to join me by tossing their legs up on the wall as well.