Pliability Takes on New Life After Rebrand, Making Big Waves

What began as a mobility platform for crossfitters has now evolved into something much bigger. The pliability team, formerly known as ROMWOD, has rapidly expanded in the last few years to include athletes from other disciplines and push its mission of making mobility a foundational part of every athletes training regime. 

ROMWOD rebranded as pliability in September 2022, and has since expanded its sport-specific daily mobility paths into the golfing world, along with swimmers, runners and more. The brand, however, hasn’t strayed far from its roots and recently partnered with six-time CrossFit Games winner Tia-Clair Toomey to create a pregnancy mobility track for every trimester. 

Remind me: pliability has been a fixture in the sport of CrossFit since 2015 and became one of the most popular mobility and recovery platforms. Elite CrossFit athletes like Noah Ohlsen and Emma Lawson have partnered with the brand, along with 2023 NOBULL CrossFit Games Fittest Woman on Earth Laura Horvath. 

We spoke with the managing director and founder of pliability Scott Perkins and Cody Mooney who is director of performance to discuss some of the company’s latest developments and its goals for the future.

• “ROMWOD was always a very CrossFit centric brand. We built it out for the crossfitter, everything you need training in the gym. What we wanted to do is open that up to multi-sport. CrossFit is home, but it’s for everyone,” said Perkins. 
• “pliability is for everyone. What we found is we can only grow so far within the CrossFit market. We want to take our message further, so the rebranded pliability allowed us to do that,” added Perkins. 
• “The rebrand of pliability what it allowed us to do most is to show how important mobility, recovery, flexibility all of these things are inside of training, inside of any sport,” said Mooney. 
• “CrossFit is a very unique sport where mobility is tested practically daily if you’re training for something or competing. Other sports it’s not so much, but when you have an injury you start to see it then. So our job is to really not just give a great product, we want to educate people on how to be able to implement mobility in an easier way and to show how important it is across all sports,” added Mooney. 

Mobility has become a pillar to an athlete’s training regime, as individuals become better educated on the benefits of recovery methods, such as stretching and cooling down after a workout. Mooney adds, athletes are smarter and have more tools than ever to assess their mobility needs. 

One of the latest collections added to pliability is led by Horvath and focuses on back pain mobility and forming healthy squat patterns. Horvath “has great mobility, so we thought she’d be a great athlete to kind of show this and she is a great mover,” said Mooney. 

Separately, Toomey and pliability have teamed up to provide a pregnancy track for expectant mothers. Toomey recently gave birth to her daughter Willow Clair Orr in May and notably worked out her entire pregnancy. 

• “For our daily routines we’re constantly going to evolve them. They’re always going to be a more passive approach with stretching, sticking with a longer timeframe, but we’ll continually bring new poses into that, we’ll bring new breath work, meditation, and mindfulness,” said Mooney. 
• “We’re going to be getting into the running space pretty heavily. We’re going to be continuing our golf tracks and continue our training tracks and really just learn to tailor down on specific things that people need.” 
• “We say if you do this daily, three to five times a week that you will have a level of mobility that allows you to do things safely and still gain mobility throughout that time.” 

The next issue to tackle is how to get individuals who really need it to come to pliability. Many people these days find themselves sitting at a desk or sitting on the couch. But “pain isn’t something that you have to go through daily,” said Mooney. 

Individuals who experience pain and think they can no longer be active should try to tap into their mobility and recovery because it “will allow you to do that and have longevity in whatever it is you’re doing.”
The bottom line: pliability’s job is not just as a mobility platform, but also a place to help people do what they love for as long as they want to do it. As leaders in the mobility space pliability wants everyone to know the community is not just for crossfitters, but it’s for everyone.