The Fundamental Movements

Fundamental movements. We talk about these FIVE fundamental movement patterns all the time at SPARC Athens. These are the movements that we often take for granted: Squat, Push, Pull, Hinge and Loaded Carry. In layman’s terms you could restate them as: standing and sitting, pushing a door closed, pulling up out of a chair, picking an object off the ground, carrying the groceries into the house. These seemingly mundane movements are at the core of everything we - humans - do to live. Unfortunately, many of our day jobs make it very difficult to sustain healthy movement patterns. Sitting in a chair all day staring at our computers is not a fundamental movement pattern.

One of the best ways to offset all the damage inactivity causes to the human body is to take a few minutes every day to perform combinations of the fundamental movement patterns. Some movements pair better with others, but the act of incorporating all these movements into your daily routines will make a major difference in how you feel. Here are some suggestions:

A. Loaded Carry with a Squat Pattern.

B. Squat Pattern with a Hinge.

C. Hinge Pattern with an Upper Pull.

D. Upper Pull with an Upper Push

Too many people worry about the weight or the structure of the workout. Keep it simple. If you have children, use them as your loads. Here’s a great, short workout using your kids as weights:

1) Have your child bear hug you with arms around your neck. (make sure it’s your child. trying to explain that you were only using them as the load for a workout is a little difficult)

2) Squat 10 times down to a chair.

3) Walk for 20-40 yards carrying your child.

4) Squat 10 times down to a chair.

5) Walk 20-40 yards carrying your child.

Perform the pairing around eight times. It’s much more difficult than you might expect. The load - even the relatively light load of a small child - is never released during this workout. That fact alone will make this workout extraordinarily metabolically demanding. Every muscle in your body will engage in order to stabilize your body. Kids tend to move around a lot, so you will constantly have to adjust and balance. The photo was taken at the 2013 US National Championships. This victory lap finished with me carrying both of my children for 200 meters!

How good are these types of programs? FIVE Time Olympian in the High Jump, Amy Acuff, credited all the informal loaded carries that occur during motherhood (carrying her babies around) increased her overall body strength without adding size. And it was, ultimately, a major factor in making her FIFTH Olympic team.

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