7 Fundamental Movement Patterns

As humans we were created as functional mammals with four limbs attached to a central trunk. We were given the gift of movement through the prime movers of our hip and shoulder joints, built to move on a 360 degree axis. We are able to run, crawl and rotate through multiple planes and axes of movement; a blessing few other animals on this planet have. Unfortunately, as time has progressed and technology has advanced it seems we have moved further and further away from using and challenging our bodies to their full movement capabilities. In modern day society a large proportion of our population find themselves sat a desk for a significant portion of their conscious life, depriving the body of its movement oxygen and becoming victims to the sedentary lifestyle plagued by inability to move properly and common problems that are associated such as: tight hips and lower back, inability to play with your children, lack of strength, osteoarthritis, coronary heart disease and stroke.

There are 7 basic fundamental movements that all humans should be incorporating into their lifestyle on a regular basis. All of these movements are ones that we are able to execute perfectly as a baby growing up where there is a daily focus on simply moving around and exploring what we are able to achieve, but as we grow older we begin to stop taking advantage of these skills and take them for granted.

1. Squat

• The squat is a one of the most crucial movements for the humans to produce, requiring mobility through the ankle, knee, hip and thoracic spine. The squat also requires an ability to brace through our core and strength in our quadriceps and posterior chain. The squats particular relevance to building posterior strength translates over to our ability to produce power in sporting events.

2. Hinge

• Otherwise known as bending over, this is when our baby’s body learns to pivot using the muscles of her hips and thighs, and the stabilisers of the spine. Hinging is a complex pattern that enables lifting and carrying. Hinging refers to our ability to hinge at the hip and requires sufficient mobility through the posterior muscle groups of the hamstrings and glutes. Being able to hinge effectively at the hip is a key requirement of most athletic movements. For example, producing vertical or horizontal force in the form of jumping requires a countermovement, actively loading the posterior chain through eccentric contraction prior to the concentric motion.

3. Lunge

• Lunging is a vital movement pattern that has transfer into walking, running, climbing stairs and picking things up from the floor. Lunging requires trunk stability and mobility through the hips, specifically in flexion. Developing our lunging pattern can also be highly effective for building proprioception and balance by having a less stable base of support.

4. Push

• Pushing requires development of the muscles surrounding the shoulder joint, which includes larger muscles such as the pectoral & deltoid muscle groups (used to develop strength and power of movement), in addition to the smaller rotator cuff muscles (used to stabilise the shoulder joint in its socket). Pushing is needed both in everyday life for common activities such as opening doors and moving objects, as well as have significant importance to many sports (boxing, basketball, baseball are some examples). The push up is the most basic but fundamental pushing movement allowing development of the shoulder girdle in addition to trunk stability.

5. Pull

• Pulling is equally important as pushing and should take up an even greater portion of a training program due to the common issue of upper cross syndrome whereby people have become anterior dominant through bad posture and only training in the pushing motion. It is important to focus on greater volume and slower controlled pulling movements to prepare the posterior muscles for the endurance challenge of maintaining good posture throughout the entirety of life. The pull up is the king bodyweight exercise we should be aiming to reach for both male and female populations.

6. Run

• Running is a development of walking and is something we were tuned to be able to do as humans. Looking at our ancestors and back to tribes and Neanderthals running was our special weapon, being able to outrun most animals covering up to 20 miles a day comfortably. Since the development of technology and services we are becoming less and less active spending more of our time sitting than on our feet moving. Being able to run requires full body coordination, trunk stability and strength in our lower limbs.

7. Crawl

• Crawling Is the first form of movement we learn as humans, the ability to move from one location to another using all four limbs in contact with the ground. Crawling requires both trunk and shoulder stability. In terms of integrating crawling into our training we should be thinking along the lines of all forms of animal locomotion which will teach our body to move through positions requiring different forms of mobility and stability. Some common animal locomotion movements include: bear crawl, duck walk, frog jumps, monkey jumps.

8. Rotate

• Unfortunately even those of us who take time to train our bodies and become fitter and stronger often forget that the human body was designed to move through multiple planes and axes. Rotation is essential for producing power, almost all sports require the body to be able to rotate, even when squatting or doing a push up to generate power we must actively rotate our joints in their socket to produce force. When squatting we require external rotation at the hip to drive the knee out and prevent valgus fault (knee collapse) from occurring. Whilst it is essential that we learn to rotate to produce powerful movement it is also important that we include anti-rotation as a component of our training to develop trunk stability for actions such as sprinting and change of direction.

You don't need to go to the gym to accomplish these movements, they can be done anywhere with progressions for all of the movements achieved by altering body position and reducing stability. You should be aiming to incorporate all of these movements throughout your day/into your training program. A healthy body is one that moves often, challenging itself into new positions. Be Creative! In early phases of human development the brain would constantly be pushing the body to find new ways to move in order to accomplish whatever tasks lay ahead. Watch out for next weeks blog where we will look at how to integrate these movements into a program.