You’ll want to incorporate the primal movement patterns into your workouts when working out at the gym or at home.
Primal movement patterns is a concept developed by Paul Chek (founder of the CHEK Institute) and named Primal Pattern movement training.
Primal movement patterns are simply movements you would do daily, such as getting into your car, bending over to pick things up, putting something back into the cupboard, walking up the stairs or carrying your child.
If you want to get the most out of your body and regular exercise routines, train your whole body as a unit instead of training each muscle individually. Training the entire body is more efficient and athletic and will help you to keep functioning optimally throughout your lifetime.
There are seven primal movement patterns for optimal human functioning:
The squat is where you have both feet on the ground, forming your base of support. Then you bend at the hips and knees while keeping your chest up and maintaining a straight back. An example of a squat is getting in and out of a seated position. I use this example as a technique when coaching clients into a squat.
The squat uses the leg and core muscles to keep you upright.
Squat exercises
A lunge is a single leg movement that requires one leg to move forward or backward. In contrast, the other leg remains in a stationary position. For example, the lunge pattern is used when walking upstairs.
The lunge uses the leg and core muscles to keep you upright. It also challenges your balance and flexibility.
Lunge exercises
A pulling movement requires you to pull weight or resistance towards your body or pull your body towards an object vertically or horizontally. An example of a vertical pull is a pull-up, and a horizontal pull would be a row.
The pull movement uses your back and shoulder muscles and the biceps.
Pull exercises
A pushing movement is the opposite of a pulling motion. You are pushing a weight away from the body or moving your body away from an object. The pushing motion is made either vertically or horizontally. An example of a pushing movement is a dumbbell bench or overhead press and a push-up.
The push movement uses the chest and shoulder muscles and the triceps.
Push exercises
The bending movement is initiated by hinging from the hips with your torso moving forward. We use this move when picking things up off the ground. We naturally pick light things up with a rounded back posture. But heavier items, we utilise our hips, glutes and leg muscles while maintaining a straight back, minimising injury risk.
Bend exercises
Our body moves in three different planes of motion:
From my experience, most of the exercises that people do at the gym only involve the first two planes of motion. To make exercises more functional, you need to incorporate some rotation or twisting movements. These movements help to improve hip mobility and core strength.
There are also two types of twisting or rotational movements: rotation and anti-rotation. Rotation movements are twisting exercises such as a Russian twist. An anti-rotation movement is when your body is aligned, but there is a resistance attempting to pull your body out of position.
Twist exercises
Walking, running or sprinting is called a gait. They are all movements to propel the body forward. If you incorporate all of the other six primal movements in your training and workouts, you will enjoy doing a gait and other dynamic movements with a lot more ease and less injury risk.
Gait exercises
Want to create a functional workout routine that trains the body as a unit?
Want a workout routine that is time-efficient, effective and will get you results in no time?
Ok, let’s get started. Just follow the steps below to create your own workout routine. I have also included an example workout routine for you to see and follow below.
Warm-up
5 to 10 minutes of walking
1 minute of star jumps
Workout
Goblet squat - 3 sets x 10 repetitions (reps)
Walking lunge - 3 x 10 steps each leg
Pull-ups or inverted row - 3 x 10
Push-ups - 3 x 10
Kettlebell or dumbbell deadlift - 3 x 10
Russian twist - 3 x 10
Skip rope - 3 x 30 seconds