Train Movements Rather Than Muscles

If you have ever opened a fitness magazine, you’ll notice that it is flooded with supplement ads and models on steroids. And a lot of the articles are written for these body building steroid abusing people.

Now don’t get me wrong, every once in awhile I want to pump out some bicep curls to look nice, but this is certainly not the foundation of my fitness program, and it probably isn’t the way you should train either.

Many of theses articles recommend splitting the body up into pieces e.g

1. Monday- Chest
2. Tuesday- Back
3. Wednesday- Arms
4. Thursday- Shoulders
5. Friday- Rest
6. Saturday- Legs
7. Sunday- Rest

And usually in the the workouts there is a lot of isolation exercises that focuses on one muscle group.

This is NOT how to become athletic. This is the perfect way to become a stiff, inefficiency mover. You must remember that our bodies, specifically our neurological system, remembers movements. You may have heard of muscle memory, it’s really movement memory.

Think about this for a second. How do you type on a keyboard. However you started practicing is most likely the way you type today. If you learned to spread your fingers out, you’re probably an efficient typist. Whereas if you type with only your index finger, you have become an inefficient typist.
This same concept applies to the way you train your body. Do you isolate muscles, or do they work together in unison. Focusing on our primal movement patterns not only works your muscles just as hard, but creates a very efficient, athletic body.

There are 7 basic movements:

1. Squat
2. Lunge
3. Bend
4. Twist
5. Pull
6. Push
7. Gait

Gait is simply the way you walk or run. Walking should obviously be done on a daily basis. To simplify your workout program even further, you can either do full body workouts or split it in 2 parts 2 ways. Either upper body and lower body OR push and pull.

During these workouts, compound movements are used instead of isolating muscle groups. e.g

Instead of a bicep curl, replace it with a chin-up.

Rather than a leg curl, trade it for a romanian deadlift (RDL).

A more preferable exercise for a tricep pushdown would be bench press.

This is the way you should be training. Yeah it’s okay to do a couple bicep curls here and there, but as long as you integrate it later within the rest of your body’s movements. You can isolate, but you must integrate.

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