"We often seek power when really we have poor efficiency. If you’re not efficient in the way you move, becoming stronger really doesn’t get you more horsepower because your wheels are spinning."
- Gray Cook
¨The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order¨
-Arthur North Whitehead
Primitive Movement Training for strength and beyond
Practicing primitive movement patterns is one of the best strength training approach that almost any one can do with a high return investment. These primeval movements reset the CNS (Central Neuromuscular System) allowing your body to restore the body’s basic movement patterns and function increasing your stability, balance, mobility, propiocepcion and reflexive strength. Your reflexive strength is your body’s ability to reflexively react to movement right before it happens. The faster your reflexes are the stronger and more resilient your body becomes. These movements also offer the benefit of giving you a faster recovery from your training and a major improvement in your sports performance. This training approach is in fact part of my own training system. Besides training with multiple tools, I utilized ground based patterns rooted on early human developmental movements, quadrupedal movements based on the evolution of species, and ground based bodyweight -training drills from multiple disciplines to improve communication between the brain and the body for proper motor control.
Practicing primitive movement patterns is one of the best strength training approach that almost any one can do with a high return investment. These primeval movements reset the CNS (Central Neuromuscular System) allowing your body to restore the body’s basic movement patterns and function increasing your stability, balance, mobility, propiocepcion and reflexive strength. Your reflexive strength is your body’s ability to reflexively react to movement right before it happens. The faster your reflexes are the stronger and more resilient your body becomes. These movements also offer the benefit of giving you a faster recovery from your training and a major improvement in your sports performance. This training approach is in fact part of my own training system. Besides training with multiple tools, I utilized ground based patterns rooted on early human developmental movements, quadrupedal movements based on the evolution of species, and ground based bodyweight -training drills from multiple disciplines to improve communication between the brain and the body for proper motor control.
Here is a brief video demo of what I am taking about:
Crawling
Crawling is the foundation of your gate pattern. It integrates all your sensory systems (vestibular system, propioceptive system and visual system) allowing the brain to communicate more efficiently between the right and left hemisphere to generate motor control. It innervates the muscles of your core and it gets the limbs working in conjunction with the hips and pelvis. Crawling also improves posture, opposite limbs coordination, mobility, and propiocepcion. It improves neural connections in the brain, encourages new nerve cell growth and improves propiocepcion.
Baby crawling can be use as a warm up to reset your body before your training and its progressions can be integrated in your training regimen.
How to baby crawl from Tim Anderson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGIQ4szkb4cCrawling Progressions:
Rolling
Rolling is our first introduction to locomotion. Rolling tasks occur about diagonal axes and is defined as moving from supine to prone or from prone to supine position and involves some aspect of axial rotation.
Rolling has a number of benefits and it can be used as both to illuminate rotational movement pattern dysfunctions, such as weight shifting in the lower body, coordinated movements of the head, neck, and upper body, due to stiffness in the muscles, lack of stability in the core muscles and muscular weakness.
Rolling is initiated by the head connecting the neck with the vestibular system. The muscles of the abdominals and the back are attached to the vestibular system. Therefore rolling teaches the vestibular system and core muscles to work as one single unit. It stretches your spine, and it connects your upper and lower body keeping it reflexively sharp. It stretches the muscles of the ribs and midsection, and the front of opposite hip in a diagonal pattern making the upper body and lower body move and function in an extended range of motion.
Rolling and -its progressions of knowing how to roll right- is critical for the prevention of injuries when rolling away from danger (like when falling forward from a bike).
Baby Rolling for Better Posture by Steve Maxwell:
Rocking:
Rocking provides the foundations for balance because it stimulates the vestibular system. Besides being soothing, it alleviates pain, stiffness, and soreness. It stores vitality, promotes good posture, improves mobility, and reflexive strength activating the sensory system to communicate the brain with the body.
Quadruped Rocking Tutorial for beginners:
Programing:
There is not a right or wrong way to create a program that might work for you as these are natural movements that resets the CNS for better motor control. Sometimes I do these primitive movements and variations in my training system along with other training modalities using kettlebells, mace clubs, clubbells, dumbbells and barbells. I also do these movements as part of my warm up, and other times as a light endurance workout on active recovery days. I believe that the older we get the more often we need to get on the floor moving up and down working on mobilizing the body. That said, doing these prime ground based movement patterns and implementing all sorts of intensities and variations is a must to re-set the sensory system and to wake up dormant muscles so you can work your way up to own a body that is healthy, mobile, functional, resilient and strong as it looks.
