This one goes out to the lifters who are having trouble with exercise selection. This will be just a quick tip to help you narrow your focus in the weight room.

Strength training can take on many different identities however the core focus should always be the same. MOVEMENT QUALITY. Our bodies have the innate ability to move in such extreme and exciting ways that limiting ourselves to the monotonous seated position is sinful! Not to mention chronically painful. Subjecting your skeleton to extreme ranges of motion and non conventional lifting patterns will have a massive positive impact on your day to day living. Get off the seated row, the 90degree bench or seated lat pull down and find ways of using your body to develop those same lifting patterns.

If your strength program is designed around movement, the stiff and bulky idealisms surrounding weight lifting will disappear. The biggest itch that I have with the new box gyms is their design! They are filled machines that assist and isolate movement causing joint stiffness and decreased coordination/proprioception. You spend a lot of money to get fit and stay healthy yet a lot of the ‘functional’ and fundamental patterns are grossly undervalued.

One of my favourite picks are the crawling patterns. Try manipulating your spacial awareness and coordination through quadruped movement patterns. Challenge your mind and your joints to maneuver and carry its own weight.

Challenge your body in new ways to ultimately understand the meaning of movement quality.

Andrew LoCurto BKin, CSCS, CPT

Performance Coach