The five moves you should be doing in some capacity each and every day to make sure your body is always greasing the cogs of performance while eliminating injury.
Regardless of how old you are or what you do these key movement patterns should be in your everyday workouts. You perform or use these movements in everyday life, weather its on-the-job tasks, in sports, during pleasurable activities or via household fix-it tasks. And if you’re a desk jockey, you probably don’t get much exercise so your muscles and joints get stiff and do not get activated throughout the day. Fortunately, these five body movements will improve your balance, stability, strength and posture.
If you're doing upper body / lower body splits incorporate these moves as part of a giant set. The results will give you a well-rounded proportional body that will not only look better but be more functional. The cardio for the giant set will also boost your cardiovascular strength & burn body fat, skip the treadmill that day you won’t need it!!
If you really want to work that Money maker muscle, then substitute with your split a set of Turkish get-ups (thee single best exercise known to mankind) it’s the only exercise that I know of that works 33 main & synergists muscles in one move; 5 each arm with 15-25% of your body weight.
Presses or push-up
Exercises: push-ups, bench presses, dip, standing kettlebell press, clean and press.
Muscles: chest, deltoids, triceps, transversus abdominals, erector spinae
Why: Pushups develop postural support and upper-body strength to aid in your daily life as you push and reach.
Pulls or rows
Exercises: bent over dumbbell row single or dual arm, single arm kettlebell row, Lat pulldowns or sled pull or push.
Muscles: erector spinae, latissimus dorsi, biceps, deltoids
Why: Rows develop postural support and improve upper body strength in your back and shoulders to help you perform pulling or carrying movements
Squat
Exercises: goblet squat, barbell squats, trap bar dead lift, jump squat
Muscles: quadriceps, hamstring’s, gluteals, erector spinae,
Why: The squat is a compound movement that uses multiple groups to improve balance and stability. You’ll create strong and flexible hips to sit and stand while also building your core. You’ll target your gluts and quadriceps muscles which will build a solid base foundation for all body movements.
Lunge
Exercises: jumping leg lunges, dumbbell, walking lunges, Kettlebell lunges
Muscles: quadriceps, hamstring’s, gluteals
Why: Like squats lunges are compound movements that increase functional strength, balance, stability, core and posture.
Rotation
Exercises: Standing medicine ball twist, Russian twists, cable rotations
Muscles: external and internal obliques, rectus abdominals,
Why: Think of your core muscles as the sturdy central link connecting your upper and lower body. Whether you're swinging a golf club, hitting a baseball, or mopping the floors, these motions originate in your core. No matter where the motion starts it ripples upward and downwards connecting the chain, thus if your core is weak it will affect your movements in your legs and or arms. Get the most out of these moves:
1. Change up your resistance
To get the most from each rep, challenge your muscles. So, if you can complete 15 repetitions easily, then the weight is too light. On the flip side, if you can’t perform an exercise through its full range of motion, and find yourself cheating on form, then the weight is too heavy. The correct weights will feel challenging by your last few repetitions but won’t force you to sacrifice form.
2. Change up your versions
Exercise routines have expiration dates because they begin to lose their effectiveness. As a rule of thumb never use the same routine or exercise variation for more than 4 weeks.
3. Relentlessly warm-up
Warm-ups are not wasted time, because a good one will allow you to perform at a higher intensity, which means greater results. The point of a warm up is to increase your muscle temperature. This increases blood flow, muscle contraction and reduces muscle resistance. Your warm up should last 5-10 minutes.
4. Use strict form
The two biggest reasons you fail your form is that you aren’t concentrating on the exercise or you’re trying to lift weight that is too heavy. As one of our Founding Fathers of functional Fitness Gray Cook was quoted “Don’t add strength to Dysfunction”. Lifting with improper form almost always results in injury. Take the time to achieve proper form, by doing so you’ll avoid injury and will reap the full benefit from each exercise.
5. Vary your tempo
Time under tension is the key to building muscle, don’t worry so much about the number of reps concentrate on the eccentric move and you’ll improve your one repetition maximum and build muscle if that is your goal.
