We evolved from ancestors who hunted for their food, and made everything they had. Their existence was physically demanding, and totally dependent on their skill and abilities. They learned from an early age that they had to be adept at running, lifting, swimming, jumping, and climbing. The more of these activities they excelled at, the more likely they were to pass on their genes to a new generation.
As man has evolved, we began to use our large brain capacity to make life simpler for us. We developed ranged weapons like bows and guns to help us kill our prey from a distance instead of fighting with it hand to hand. We developed agricultural practices to allow us to have food on hand without having to scavenge for it. We developed societal structures that allowed some of us to pursue intellectual development and more cerebral pursuits while compensating others to grow and kill our food for us. Somewhere along the way, we stopped moving enough. As a result, Americans now have one of the unhealthiest populations of all modern “civilized” nations, with obesity and disease rampant, and medicines and drugs required for a semblance of normal life. Is this the best our larger brain capacity can manage?
When our ancestors fought for their existence, they existed in a primal state. In this primal state, they engaged in what author Paul Chek has identified as Primal Movement Patterns. They would squat, lunge, push, pull, twist, bend, and locomote. All of these activities were integral to human existence at its most basic level, and required strong, flexible, balanced, and coordinated individuals to survive in that primal world. Today, we have modern conveniences to do most of our moving for us. They lift our garage door so our car can carry us to work, where an elevator shuttles us to our cubicle. Machines wash our clothes and dishes, freeing us to sit and watch TV or spend hours on the computer, watching other people move and do silly things on YouTube.
In the absence of the primal movements required for survival, we are forced to look elsewhere for exercise. It comes to us in the form of ellipticals, treadmills, bicycles and rowing machines. It looks like a leg press, a seated incline press, a lat pull- down station, or perhaps a preacher curl bench. While these types of apparatuses are conducive to specific muscular development, they don’t translate very well in the real world. The Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands (S.A.I.D.) principle of exercise states, in essence, that the closer an exercise mimics the movement required of the individual, the more benefit that exercise is to the individual. If you’re training to sit down and push an object away from you, then fire away with conventional machines. If however, you’re training to become a stronger hiker, a better skier, a more proficient tennis player or just a more capable soccer mom, then conventional exercises and machines are not the answer, they are part of the problem.
Machines are by design, isolationists. They isolate one body part to the exclusion of others, to focus energy and effort in one controlled, balanced, stabilized movement. It is precisely the control, the balance, the stabilization that one requires from a movement to make it functional, and for that movement to enhance ones ability to perform movement in the real world.
I train my clients movements instead of muscles. Coordinated movement patterns allow us to interact with real world demands at the highest level possible. When people integrate bending, twisting, and pulling, they prepare for whatever life throws at them. When they coordinate squatting, pushing, and moving at the same time, not only do they train smarter, they train harder. By using more muscle tissue in the exercise, they thereby increase metabolic demands, burning more calories in less time. More metabolic demand produces the stimulus for muscular growth, and allows for more efficient fat-burning in the future.
To get the most benefit in the shortest time, perform freestanding, core-dependent, complex functional exercises. These types of exercises are more challenging, but also more rewarding, more interesting, and more fun.
