Functional Exercise and Natural Human Movement

When it comes to fitness, one of the most effective approaches to building strength, mobility, and resilience is functional exercise. Unlike traditional training that focuses on isolating muscles, functional exercise mimics the natural movements of daily life and ancestral human activity. Movements like walking, running, throwing, and lifting objects reflect our evolutionary design and ensure that our bodies perform optimally. Two fundamental aspects of this approach are the gait cycle and contralateral reciprocation, both of which are rooted in our natural biomechanics.

Functional exercise emphasizes training movements rather than muscles. It focuses on multi-joint, multi-plane motions that mirror the activities we perform in our daily lives. The benefits include improved coordination, balance, and strength while reducing the risk of injury.

This type of training is rooted in the premise that human movement evolved to navigate complex, natural environments. To understand its significance, let’s delve into two key elements that contribute to functional motion: the gait cycle and contralateral reciprocation.

The gait cycle refers to the sequence of movements that occur during walking or running. It’s a rhythmic, repetitive process that involves:

1. Foot Strike: The foot contacts the ground, initiating the cycle.

2. Midstance: The body balances over the supporting leg.

3. Push-Off: The foot pushes off, propelling the body forward.

4. Swing Phase: The opposite leg swings forward to repeat the process.

Functional exercises that align with the gait cycle build strength, stability, and mobility in the necessary muscles, while enhancing joint health and motor control in what you do naturally everyday.

This intent behind exercising, supports efficient movement patterns and protects against imbalances caused by sedentary lifestyles or improper training.

Contralateral reciprocation refers to the natural coordination of opposite limbs. For example, when you walk, your right leg swings forward as your left arm moves in tandem, creating balance and momentum. This cross-pattern movement is essential for efficient energy transfer and stability.

Functional exercises that incorporate contralateral patterns activate deep core muscles, improve coordination, and simulate real-world tasks. By training these patterns, you prepare your body to handle dynamic movements like running, climbing stairs, or even balancing while carrying groceries.

Why Train Natural Movements?

Modern life often limits our physical activity to repetitive, linear motions (e.g., sitting, typing, driving). Over time, this can lead to muscular imbalances, poor posture, and joint stiffness. Functional exercise rooted in natural movement helps to:

• Improve overall athleticism and resilience.

• Enhance mobility and joint stability.

• Prevent injuries by reinforcing balanced movement patterns.

• Foster a connection between mind and body for better proprioception (body awareness).

How to Incorporate Functional Exercises into Your Routine

1. Focus on Multi-Plane Movements: Incorporate exercises that move through all planes of motion (sagittal, frontal, and transverse).

2. Prioritize Core Stability: Exercises like planks and proper rotational movements build a strong foundation for all movement.

3. Train Unilaterally: Single-leg or single-arm exercises replicate real-world tasks and correct imbalances.

Functional exercise compliments natural human movement by aligning fitness goals with how our bodies were designed to move. Training with an emphasis on the gait cycle and contralateral reciprocation not only boosts strength and stability but also enhances your ability to navigate daily life with ease.

So, next time you step into the gym, think beyond isolated biceps curls or stationary machines. Instead, embrace exercises that flow with your body’s innate rhythms and help you move through life as nature intended.

The Biology of Movement: How Bipedalism Shapes Our Lives

Human movement is deeply rooted in our biology, particularly in our evolution as bipedal creatures. Walking on two legs—bipedalism—is a defining characteristic of humans, setting us apart from our primate ancestors and other animals. But what does this mean for our movement, and how does it impact our overall health?

Bipedalism evolved millions of years ago, offering early humans several advantages. By walking upright, our ancestors could cover long distances more efficiently, conserve energy, and free up their hands for tool use, carrying objects, and gesturing—key factors in our development as a species.

This shift also changed our skeletal structure, leading to the development of a unique spine curvature, a broader pelvis, and stronger leg muscles. These adaptations have made us incredibly efficient walkers and runners, capable of sustained physical activity that other species find challenging.

Despite our evolutionary advantages, modern lifestyles often clash with our biology. Our bodies are designed for movement, yet many of us spend hours each day sitting, which can lead to health issues like back pain, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. Bipedalism is meant to keep us active, not sedentary.

Regular movement—whether walking, or more intense exercise—helps counteract the negative effects of a sedentary lifestyle. It engages the muscles and joints designed for movement, promoting better posture, balance, and overall physical health.

Embracing our bipedal nature has numerous health benefits. Moving regularly helps maintain a healthy weight, supports cardiovascular health, and strengthens bones and muscles. It also improves circulation, delivering oxygen and nutrients more efficiently throughout the body.

Beyond the physical, movement also positively impacts mental health. Physical activity reduces stress, anxiety, and depression, boosting mood and cognitive function. It’s a natural way to align with our biology and keep our minds sharp.

In essence, our biology as bipedal beings is a reminder that we are built to move. Whether it’s walking, running, or simply standing more throughout the day, embracing our natural movement patterns is crucial for maintaining our health and well-being.

So, listen to your body and move in ways that reflect your natural movement. Your biology is hardwired for it.

The Evolutionary Benefits of Running: How Our Muscles Are Built for It

Running is more than just a modern fitness trend; it’s deeply rooted in our evolutionary history. Our muscles, bones, and cardiovascular system have evolved specifically to support this high-endurance activity. Here’s why running is not only beneficial but also a natural part of who we are as humans.

Evolutionary Background: Born to Run

1. **Human Anatomy and Endurance**: Our bodies are uniquely designed for long-distance running. Unlike most animals, humans can run long distances thanks to our upright posture, long legs, and efficient cooling system (sweating). These traits helped early humans hunt and scavenge over vast terrains.

2. **Muscle Development**: The muscles in our legs, hips, and core are optimized for running. The large gluteal muscles (glutes) stabilize our hips, while the long tendons in our legs act as springs, storing and releasing energy with each stride. These adaptations make running an energy-efficient way to travel long distances.

3. **Cardiovascular Efficiency**: Running requires a well-developed cardiovascular system, and our hearts and lungs are up to the task. The ability to sustain moderate to high levels of physical exertion over extended periods likely played a role in our ancestors’ survival, allowing them to outrun prey or persist until the prey was too exhausted to continue.

•Physical Benefits: Tapping into Our Natural Potential

1. **Improved Muscular Strength and Endurance**: Running regularly taps into the full potential of our muscle groups, particularly in the lower body. This not only strengthens the muscles but also increases their endurance, enabling them to perform efficiently for longer periods.

2. **Bone Density and Health**: The repetitive impact of running stimulates bone growth and density, a trait that has been critical for our survival in the wild. By running, you maintain and even enhance this natural bone strength, reducing the risk of osteoporosis and fractures.

3. **Efficient Fat Burning**: As an evolutionary advantage, running promotes fat burning by utilizing it as a primary energy source during prolonged activity. This process helped our ancestors survive in times of food scarcity and continues to be a highly effective way to manage weight today.

•Mental and Psychological Benefits: Built-In Rewards

1. **Natural Stress Relief**: The “runner’s high,” characterized by a release of endorphins, is an evolutionary reward system that encourages continued activity. This natural high helped our ancestors stay motivated during long hunts and now serves as an excellent way to combat modern-day stress.

2. **Enhanced Focus and Cognitive Function**: Running improves brain function by increasing blood flow and oxygen supply to the brain. This evolutionary trait likely developed to help early humans stay alert and focused during endurance tasks, and it continues to benefit cognitive health today.

3. **Improved Mood and Mental Resilience**: The regular practice of running boosts mental resilience, a trait that was essential for survival in challenging environments. Today, this translates into better emotional regulation and a stronger ability to cope with life’s challenges.

Conclusion: Embrace Your Evolutionary Heritage

Running is not just a workout—it’s an activity deeply embedded in our evolutionary history. Our muscles, bones, and cardiovascular system have evolved specifically to make us excellent endurance runners. By running, you’re not only staying fit but also tapping into the very essence of what makes us human. Embrace this natural ability and experience the profound physical and mental benefits that come from moving the way our bodies were designed to move.

How Our Muscles Evolved from Walking: The Foundation of Human Movement (Part 2)

Walking is more than just a daily activity; it’s a fundamental movement that shaped the evolution of our muscles and overall physiology. Our ability to walk upright on two legs, known as bipedalism, is one of the defining characteristics of being human. This evolutionary milestone not only set us apart from other species but also influenced the development of our muscular system in profound ways.

•The Evolution of Bipedalism

Millions of years ago, our ancestors transitioned from moving on all fours to walking on two legs. This shift was driven by various factors, including the need to cover long distances efficiently, free up the hands for tool use, and adapt to changing environments. As we began to walk upright, our bodies underwent significant changes to support this new mode of locomotion.

•Key Muscles Developed from Walking

1. **Gluteal Muscles (Glutes)**: The gluteal muscles, particularly the gluteus maximus, are among the most prominent muscles developed through walking. These muscles are responsible for stabilizing the pelvis and powering our stride. Over time, they evolved to become larger and stronger, enabling us to walk and run efficiently.

2. **Leg Muscles**: Walking helped develop the muscles of the legs, including the quadriceps, hamstrings, and calves. These muscles work together to propel us forward with each step. The strength and endurance of these muscles were crucial for early humans who needed to travel long distances in search of food and resources.

3. **Core Muscles**: The core muscles, including the abdominals, obliques, and lower back muscles, play a vital role in maintaining balance and stability during walking. As our ancestors began to walk upright, these muscles became more developed to support the spine and prevent injury.

4. **Foot and Ankle Muscles**: Walking also influenced the evolution of the muscles in our feet and ankles. The arches of our feet, supported by various muscles and tendons, act as natural shock absorbers, while the muscles of the ankles provide stability and mobility. This adaptation allowed humans to walk on diverse terrains, from rocky landscapes to soft grasslands.

•The Impact on Human Evolution

The evolution of our muscles from walking not only made us more efficient walkers but also laid the foundation for other forms of movement, such as running and climbing. These adaptations provided a survival advantage, enabling our ancestors to hunt, gather, and migrate across vast areas.

In modern times, walking remains a fundamental exercise that continues to engage and strengthen these evolutionary muscles. Regular walking promotes cardiovascular health, improves posture, and enhances overall mobility—benefits that are deeply rooted in our evolutionary past.

Our muscles evolved to support walking, a movement that has been central to human survival and success. From the powerful glutes to the supportive core, the muscles developed through walking are a testament to our evolutionary journey. By walking regularly, we not only maintain the health of these muscles but also honor the legacy of movement that has shaped who we are today. So, the next time you take a walk, remember that you’re engaging in an activity that’s been essential to human evolution for millions of years.

Good Form on a Bad Exercise

You can’t get your body to do what it can’t do… unless you teach your muscles how to do it.

If your body doesn’t have the contractile potential to move a certain way (correctly & efficiently) then it will compensate and use other muscles to achieve a certain function or range of motion, resulting in dysfunctional & suboptimal movement patterns.

From the simplest of exercises to the more advanced sports scenarios, we believe this is the leading cause of injuries and chronic pain. From dysfunctional movement on the tennis court to repetitive movement patterns done incorrectly and lead to wear and tear on your body over time.

The precision required to reprogram your mechanics and prevent dysfunction is more than any “functional” group class or pain management program provides. It’s requires more than fatiguing a group of muscles, but coordinating your brains connection with how your muscles function (or don’t) to move your structure.

The next time you’re exercising, consider how you’re moving and if that movement is reinforcing the posture you’re already stuck in, or if it’s developing new muscles to build a resilient structure. Hint; it goes deeper than just having good form on a bad exercise.

This is why our training dives deeper into the pattern of the exercise and the way you’re performing the exercise. Exercise patterns that go against your natural movement patterns send the wrong message to your muscles and how they need to work. Learning to strengthen your body for the way it moves will result in a structure that’s not limited to certain ranges of motion, because every muscle tissue is potentiated when exercise aligns with your biological blueprint.

Hurting After Exercise Is Not Normal

It’s one of those days, you just finished a grueling workout at the gym and your joints are aching, your lower back is stiff, and your tendonitis is flared up.  Your workout buddies deal with the same aches and pains so you write it off as normal, just part of getting old, and what it takes to stay in shape.

We’re here to tell you that it is not normal, getting old doesn’t have to feel painful, and if you really were “in shape” your body wouldn’t be in a state of chronic aches and pains. Although all the above is commonly experienced by the majority of gym goers, it’s not supposed to be that way. In fact when you move correctly and your muscles contract properly you experience a state of wellbeing.

Imagine this; you just finished an intentional workout, your body is feeling light and springy, you feel a pump all over your body like your muscles are getting stronger, yet you feel like you just stretched out your entire body, your spine feels decompressed, and your shoulder and knees don’t hurt.

This is what your body should feel like after exercising, and it can once you learn how to use your muscles to move correctly. This is what our trainers teach; we don’t count reps, we make sure every rep counts. We train you to intentionally move your body against your default mechanics to override dysfunctional patterns and optimize your movement.

One thing is for sure, our training is not like what you see in the mainstream (maybe that’s why so many people are in pain) or like anything you’ve felt before. Come in and learn what you need to be feeling to fix your body, with our beginner friendly introductory session!

Exercise Less?!

Exercise can be bad when we go through the motions of our default movement patterns. We just pack on more muscle imbalance that causes a subconscious stress on our mental and physical state, affecting our physiology. Then we cope with drugs, alcohol, food, sex, whatever dopamine fix we need to temporarily feel better. We enter the cycle of trying to outwork our coping behavior and beating our body up in the process, but we can only do that for so long until we feel “old” because our habits caught up with us.

Taking a few steps back to heal our body with intentional movement might not feel or look like society’s idea of exercise but it starts to retrain our brain and body to function better, promoting muscle mass that is symmetrical and “balanced” to help us respond to stress better. Then when our muscles are in balance we’re consciously and subconsciously able to handle stress more efficiently- physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, etc. and then we don’t feel the need to cope. Then it comes time to break out of the habits that we developed from coping that we no longer need.

This behavior change is painful and uncomfortable but time well spent and can start seeing changes in weeks for little things, months for some bigger things, and sometimes years for habits we’ve built over our entire lives. This is the change that helps our physical health- from muscle strength, weight loss/ weight maintenance, hormone balance- which in turn helps our mental health like anxiety, mood, depression, and the ability to not have to cope the way we used to. And when we do need to cope we are able to be more aware of what we’re doing and why, and maybe not even coping the same way we did in the past because our stress response is improving.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t exercise, as most doctors and so called fitness experts will tell you that you need to eat less and move more to stay healthy. But if you move wrong and use your muscles in a state of imbalance then all of the above cataclysm of events happen- and that’s not healthy. You need to understand more about your body in order to make sure you behave in a way that promotes health. When you’re over exercising and under eating for so long, your body’s hormones get thrown out of whack and it makes it a lot harder to lose weight and body fat. You end up spinning your wheels trying to lose weight or build muscle but you’re fighting an uphill battle, up  a water slide. When you learn to fix your muscle imbalances when you “exercise” instead of just going through the motions of various movements, you’ll be able to address the subconscious stress on your body- aligning your posture and your hormones. This equates to a healthier body inside and, most importantly, outside of the gym!

Contact our gym to learn how our team can help you start and sustain your journey to a healthier you!

Hows That Working For You?

When you work hard in the gym, you expect the exercises you do to carry over to the real world. In the form of strength, flexibility, stamina, energy, health, and overall fitness.

For the genetically gifted ones it does, but what about the average folks who do what they’re supposed to do and still fall short? Why are they busting their butts every day at the gym but still can’t lose weight, still have joints that hurt, still not feeling strong or mobile? To answer those questions you have to ask what they’re doing. Are they really doing the right things or just doing what everyone else is doing and expecting to get lucky with their results. Or are they doing what worked for an athlete that was already born with overall better muscles, minimal body fat, and naturally fit?

If you’re already born that way, this post isn’t for you- you can keep doing what you’re doing and succeed in spite of what might be wrong for others. If you’ve tried everything but still can’t make progress then read on.

Our trainers work to address principles of health and fitness that often get overlooked, not given any thought at all, or are sometimes too hard at first to want to learn. The fact is every body is unique and what works for one person might have to be taught completely different to another body. Another little valued fact is that every body has a similar blueprint for how muscles are designed to function. If you don’t follow this blueprint then it’s hard to make progress that is sustainable. If you do follow it (with slight modifications for your individual needs) then you’re able to achieve the strength, flexibility, and fitness that you’re working toward. You need to work smarter not harder.

If you’ve been chasing after health and fitness for years or even decades, look in the mirror and ask yourself… “how’s this working out for me?” You can’t keep doing the same thing (exercises, eating habits, sleep, recovery, etc.) and expecting different results.

Something is NOT always better than nothing

Something is not always better than nothing. Usually it’s the other way around, the mindset that something is better than nothing. Jogging for a few minutes is better than not moving at all, but not if jogging causes your knees or your back to hurt.

Our trainers are of the mindset that something is not better than nothing, if something causes pain or adversity. Instead we teach you something that is better for your body and your needs. This ensures that you continue to make progress and you can sustain your fitness as you age. Because what’s the point of doing something if it wrecks your body and you aren’t able to do it for long.

Pushing past joint pain because you need to jog in order to lose weight for an upcoming wedding or because you keep gaining weight, isn’t healthy. It would be healthier to do something with your diet and eating habits and lose weight by addressing those. Then you can use exercise as a way to strengthen your body by moving correctly instead of rushing through a workout because you feel the need to punish your body for being overweight. Punishment during a workout often means pain after the workout.

If this sounds like you then you need to consider why you exercise. Do you want to lose weight, do you want to be strong, do you want your muscles to work so you don’t have pain? All of the above are possible but your path to achieve them needs to be intentional and holistic. Meaning you shouldn’t feel like you need to outwork a bad diet, food should be fuel used to give you energy for your day or a workout. It shouldn’t be used to cope from stress or overeaten regularly. Exercise should be used as a tool to build a strong and stable body progressively overtime and not a means to an end.

Diet and exercise work together to help your health and fitness. Rushing through a half-assed workout isn’t how your body was meant to be trained. The mindset that something is better than nothing isn’t a healthy one because it promotes a half-assed result. Spinning you in circles, not losing weight but not gaining extra weight from an unhealthy, unsustainable cycle. Lose the haphazard “something is better than nothing” motto because it’s limiting your potential.

Have You Thought About The Way You Move?

Routine tasks that you move your body through without much thought like bending down to pick something up can be wiring in bad mechanics.

Notice how the vertebrae bulge out when she firsts bends down, then when we correct the pelvis position her muscles contract around the vertebrae and protect them.

This shows how your body can just go through the motions however it thinks is correct, but your form might not be what you think it is. Fast forward and repetitive movements like this or exercises done wrong repeatedly will eventually lead to injury and cause “idiopathic” aches and pains.

This is why our training sessions do more than physical work because the brain is intricately involved in controlling your physical movement. We teach you to be mindful of how you’re moving in order to correct and reprogram sustainable function.