HOW YOU MOVE IN THE GYM = HOW YOU MOVE IN LIFE

So you've started up a new gym routine, you've got the gear, you've got the motivation and you've got the gym membership. Just don't leave the knowledge required to train you safely and effectively at the door!

You may have a Personal Trainer, but not all Personal Trainer's are created equal. Some can push you to the point of injury and beyond. If your Personal Trainer is letting you repeat a poor movement habit without correcting you over a period of time, this can create dysfunction in your body and those movement habits stay with you for life if not changed. Inevitably, leading to injury further down the track. If you have a Personal Trainer, make sure they have a lot of knowledge on the human body and movement and not just a PT certification as this is not enough to train people safely.

It's not all about Personal Trainers though, you may be training yourself and that's great! Just make sure you aren't performing poor movement habits. It is worth educating yourself on proper movement technique for all basic movements such as squats; lunges; pull-ups; pushups etc before going crazy at the gym.

I've spent a lot of time in different commercial gyms and have seen a whole lot of poor movement. You know that person is inflicting harm on themselves and they probably don't even know it YET. 

When it comes to FOOTWEAR, less is more! When it comes to EXERCISE CHOICE, there are too many variables influencing this, but you always want to include functional, full body movements in your workout. And when it comes to WHY, well this is where it gets fun, as really it comes down to what your flexibility is like; where your strength is at; what your goals are; how you feel on the day - so many variables that affect WHY you choose certain movements over others.

If you find yourself stuck in a rut with working out or are unsure how to put workouts together for yourself then consider joining our Your Moov strength program. Where we program all your workouts for you so you can spend more time training & less time thinking.

You won't regret it!

MOVEMENT...WHAT IT REALLY MEANS!

American Turner Gymnasium 1860

An online lecture I saw recently given by Dr Ed Thomas, an expert in the foundation of Physical Education, drove me to analyse what fitness is today in comparison to what it was historically.  Historically, there are three fundamentals of movement and fitness, these are Progression, Variety & Precision.  

Now from what I can tell and have observed over the years is that the majority of fitness enthusiasts seem to do well to take care of the Variety aspect of fitness, it's not hard to keep workouts varied.  Progression seems to be mostly adhered to, it's quite simple, you learn a movement to a satisfactory level until it becomes quite comfortable and then you progress that movement, either by adding weight, increasing reps or challenging the movement to a higher level of difficulty (i.e. advancing from a squat to a single leg squat progression).  Now, I have to take a pause here, although progression seems to be quite evident in most fitness programmes, there is a little issue that is quite niggling…this would be the over-eagerness to progress.  This is a huge issue that is present within our field, you may have someone who is recently able to squat their own bodyweight comfortably but then wants to throw 40kgs onto their back and continue to squat, or a personal trainer who wants to make a client sweat more by handing them heavier weights resulting in a less precise movement pattern.  You can't expect the body to move as efficiently with extra load in a movement pattern that is newly learned with only bodyweight or that is challenging enough with the current weight used.  This brings me to the third and final (and I personally believe the most important) fundamental...Precision.

We need to find a way back to basics and get the population moving well and precisely again, we are so far away from our own mind-body connection that most people just go through the motions of exercise without ever making a conscious connection to how they are moving, why they are moving or how they are breathing.  There was no sloppiness in movement back in the 1800's & most of the 1900's, precision was the key focus and the fitness just followed.

In Gray Cook's book, "Movement", he talks about the origins of Martial Arts and sums up what fitness should and used to be.  Somehow recent generations have managed to distort this approach and turn it on it's back.  Current jobs and lifestyles have a huge role to play and make it hard for the body to hold onto fundamental physical fitness, but not impossible by far!  "Purposeful movement perfection was the focus, and physical conditioning happened as a natural side effect".

Modern day gyms are stacked full of equipment promoting dysfunctional movement.  The use of fixed machines encourage your body not to utilise it's core stabilising musculature and instead, rely on your large, global muscles for movement.  In our daily lives we need to be able to squat, lunge, push, pull, reach, run, bend and rotate, all done whilst fighting gravity (not sitting locked into a machine).  This is when our bodies are moving as intended.  These are the movements we need to perfect and do with precision in order to be healthy, fit individuals avoiding injury.

Look at gyms from ancient times and see if you can spot a hamstring curl, a pec deck or a leg extension machine anywhere?  They only use anti-gravity equipment in the form of ropes, rings, parallel bars, ladders etc and hand weights in the shape of dumbbells, kettle bells, medicine balls and clubs.

Train functional movement patterns and make sure you do it with Precision, Variety & Progression in order to achieve true fitness.  Don't rush into a new movement before you have perfected its predecessor and don't load up a movement pattern before being comfortable and strong enough in doing it body weighted first.

This is How We Train at Moov

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In an article I recently read by Strongfirst they talk about how they design their programmes in order to achieve optimal strength, mobility, stability and fat loss.

They talk about the seven primal movement patterns that are utilised by us humans on a daily basis. These are spoken of a lot in the movement world.  Paul Chek, founder of the C.H.E.K. Institute, is also known for promoting the seven primal movement patterns in his teachings.

These are better known as:

Squat
Lunge
Push
Pull
Bend/hinge
Twist/rotation
Gait/loaded carry

There are some variations around. As mentioned in the Strongfirst article, I also like to include counter-rotation movements as these are imperative to encourage better functionality of the obliques and promote trunk stability. Movements such as the Pallof Press; Half-Kneeling Pull to Push; Bird Dog etc are great as counter-rotation exercises.

At Moov we love to train the body as a system and not as individual parts.  We don't need static machines taking up space, at Moov, YOUR BODY IS THE MACHINE! We design our programmes not only around the primal movements mentioned above but also specific to your weaknesses and needs. We do not randomly select a bunch of exercises for you during your workouts, the exercises chosen are all there for a reason and specific to YOU.

We aim to restore movement that is lacking if you come to us for an assessment and training. Getting you to explore new boundaries leads to an optimal way of being with higher functionality; better flexibility; increased stability and a heightened awareness of yourself.

JOIN US AND TRAIN ONLINE USING OUR VERSATILE APP!

YOU WILL LEARN THE FUNDAMENTALS OF MOVEMENT AND HOW TO EXERCISE SMART.

PROGRAMS THOUGHTFULLY PUT TOGETHER BY A PHYSIOTHERAPIST QUALIFIED PERSONAL TRAINER.

GETTING YOU ON THE ROAD TO FITNESS SAFELY AND EFFECTIVELY!

online functional strength training program for women