Natural Movement and Contralateral Reciprocation: A Perfect Harmony

When we talk about natural human movement, one of the most fascinating and essential concepts is contralateral reciprocation. This is the biomechanical process where opposite limbs (e.g., right arm and left leg) move in sync during activities like walking and running. It’s a fundamental aspect of how our bodies are designed to move, playing a key role in balance, coordination, and efficiency.

What Is Contralateral Reciprocation?

Contralateral reciprocation refers to the natural, coordinated movement of opposite sides of the body during locomotion. For example, when you take a step with your left leg, your right arm swings forward. This movement pattern is not random; it’s an integrated response that our nervous system has developed over millions of years of evolution.

This coordination allows us to move more efficiently and maintain balance. As one leg swings forward, the opposite arm counterbalances it, reducing the amount of twisting or rotating forces on the spine. This not only makes our movement smoother but also conserves energy, enabling us to walk or run for longer periods without tiring as quickly.

The Biological Basis:

Contralateral movement is deeply rooted in our nervous system. The brain and spinal cord are designed to coordinate these opposite limb movements through a network of neurons and reflexes. When one limb moves, signals are automatically sent to the opposite side of the body to engage the corresponding muscles.

This cross-body communication is what makes activities like walking and running feel natural and effortless. It’s also why these movements are prioritized in our workouts, as they are deeply embedded in our motor patterns.

The Importance of Contralateral Reciprocation in Daily Life:

In everyday life, contralateral reciprocation is essential for efficient and effective movement. It helps us maintain balance when walking on uneven surfaces, navigate obstacles, and even perform complex tasks that require full-body coordination.

Training and reinforcing contralateral movement patterns can enhance athletic performance, improve posture, and reduce the risk of injury. Exercises that emphasize cross-body movements can help fine-tune these natural patterns, ensuring that our bodies move as they are designed to.

Benefits of Embracing Natural Movement

By focusing on and enhancing contralateral reciprocation, we can achieve numerous benefits:

– **Improved Coordination:** Reinforcing these natural movement patterns sharpens overall coordination and motor skills, making everyday tasks easier and more efficient.

  

– **Better Balance:** Contralateral movements help distribute weight more evenly across the body, reducing the risk of falls and improving stability.

  

– **Enhanced Athletic Performance:** Athletes who train with an emphasis on contralateral movement patterns often experience better performance in activities that require full-body coordination, such as running.

– **Injury Prevention:** Proper contralateral movement reduces strain on the spine and joints, decreasing the likelihood of overuse injuries.

Contralateral reciprocation is a powerful reminder of the elegance and efficiency of natural human movement. By understanding and embracing this fundamental aspect of our biology, we can move through the world with greater ease, balance, and grace. Whether you’re walking, running, or training, paying attention to the harmony between your limbs can unlock the full potential of your body’s natural movement capabilities.

Your Fundamental Movement

Our exercises load the patterns of the gait cycle. Which means the mechanics of the exercises carry over to the mechanics of walking and running. This is important because as humans we walk daily, it’s one of our most frequently used movements so our goal is to get your body strong in that fundamental context; which will carry over to other aspects of function.

Bipedal contralateral movement is what developed our muscles and why they function the way they do. Modern times have made it difficult to keep our muscles functioning the way they were designed because we use the wrong lifting patterns when we exercise, we’re sedentary… and then we SIT on an exercise bike for “exercise”, we stretch the wrong way resulting in flaccid muscle tissue. All of these variables effect the way your body functions in real life.

In our gym we train your body to move the way your body naturally moves in life outside the gym. Simple looking, but not so easy to perform (correctly) when your body has been out of touch with these foundational movements. It takes time and repetition to reconnect your muscles and get them working optimally.

Contact us to set up an introductory session to assess your current movement patterns and why they’re causing your body problems. Learn to solve those problems with exercise that simultaneously builds strength and mobility, while addressing dysfunctional mechanics and correcting your functions back to optimal so your body can move well and perform without pain.

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!

Personalized Personal Training

How it started; how it’s going.

Started with numerous issues, most notably was scapular dysfunction that contributed to pain in the upper traps.

The first exercise is conditioning the muscles of the shoulder girdle & thoracic spine to integrate instead of putting all the demand on the traps.

The second exercise is reinforcing the corrective mechanics and putting those muscle connections to work during movement.

The result is a better connected body that can disperse force through the kinetic chain and balance the workload for the muscles.

As we continue to clean up dysfunctional movement patterns, moving correctly will train the body to operate efficiently and handle the demands of the real world without pain and injury.

Functional Strength Training

In most gyms you’ll see lifters moving weights up and down, but that leads to compression on your joints and spine.

In our gym, we prioritize lifting weights through a horizontal force to train the muscles to contract the way they do in the real world.

Weight lifting that you see in most gyms builds muscle through vertical forces, BUT your muscles don’t work like that.

Your muscles function through multiple forces and need to be capable of dispersing force horizontally and vertically to help your body move well through all planes of motion.

So before you pound out rep after rep of barbell squats or bench presses, recognize that your body doesn’t actually move like that on a regular basis.

To learn some functional alternatives check out the Functional Patterns Training System to set your body up for the world it lives in.

Come meet our team, we’re the only trainers in San Antonio who are FP Certified Human Biomechanics Specialists, ready to help you address your dysfunctions and move better!

What To Expect In Our Gym

In our gym, you won’t see an exercise demonstrated and then be expected to execute it while our trainers stand around and count reps.

Instead, what you’ll find is trainers who show you how the exercise should look, coach you through the technique, and then ask you where you’re feeling it to make sure you’re doing it correctly.

If you’ve been hurt by trainers in the past, come and see us, not all trainers are created equal. Our team is made up of Functional Patterns practitioners that are taught cutting edge techniques to get your body out of pain for good, and moving better to enjoy an active lifestyle!

Move Correctly

Nothing happens independently with movement, everything works synergistically to move correctly.

If you’re misaligned in one part of your body while you’re moving, another part of your body will compensate and contract the wrong muscle, or the right muscle the wrong way- causing imbalance, leading to pain and injury down the line.

This is why it’s important to manage your form during every rep if you want to sustain/enhance your fitness and ability to function down the line.

This is what our objective is when training you. Getting your body to learn what it needs to do in order to function and move well.

Sometimes this is simple but not easy because your body and brain have been working a specific way for years. Sometimes that way is what causes imbalances that lead to overuse, injury, or chronic pain.

Once we uncover what we need your body to do, we teach exercises that reinforce that objective until the nervous system learns it and the function has been programmed/reprogrammed into your neuromuscular system. This reinforcement helps make changes that last.

We watch your from during every rep because one set of an exercise done wrong, AKA- done the way your body has always done it and thinks it’s right, doesn’t create the change your body needs to be reprogrammed. This is where our trainers come in, to pester and annoy you until you get the rep done right, multiple times. (We really don’t mean to annoy you, but sometimes the right work can be monotonous until your brain and body grasp the concept). We’re just here to help 🙂

If you’ve been trying to rehab your body with no improvement then you might not know what you need. We’ll help you pinpoint the missing pieces and improve the way your body moves!

Functional Fitness Part 1

Functional training can mean different things to different people. In our gym, it means exercising to coincide and enhance your body’s natural movements- like walking, running, lifting objects, standing, and navigating daily demands without pains or injuries limiting your function.

Humans innate biology designed us to stand, walk, run, and throw. These functions shaped our muscles and the way our muscles work. This is why our trainers prioritize exercises that match these types of movements. The outcome is a well connected, strong, and mobile body that can withstand the demands of the real world, because real life enforces these mechanics consistently. As opposed to movements like crawling (not a regular function after we learn to walk), burpees (beating your body up to burn calories from overeating), step aerobics (repetitive strain on your knee joints), spin classes (conditioning your hips to be stuck in flexion, like sitting all day) , or powerlifting (not the same demand as lifting an object because the barbell limits your range of motion).

If you like disconnecting your legs from your upper body during spin class, overdoing HIIT classes to punish your body from overeating, using your lumbar spine as a lever during powerlifting, or just like acting like an animal and crawling around the floor- then you do you. BUT if you’re only doing these types of things because you’ve been told they’re healthy or they’re going to help you, then stop and reconsider how your body actually functions (standing, walking, running, throwing) and if these types of exercises are reinforcing these functions or causing dysfunction.

Stay tuned for our next post as we elaborate further on these different modalities.

Evolutionary Muscles

Throwing is an integral function that shaped human’s innate musculature.

The same way we developed muscles from running to survive, we developed muscles from throwing spears to kill prey and feed ourselves.

For example, the chest muscles developed from throwing and not pushups or bench presses, the same way the glutes developed from running and not squats and leg presses.

Evolutionary characteristics played a defining role in what are muscles look like and how they function. Training is best for the human body when the exercises respect the blueprint of how our muscles work to move us.

This allows exercise to translate outside of the training room into sports, performance, and everyday function.

Learn how you can benefit from exercising in respect to your natural function, with our team of Functional Patterns Biomechanics Specialists.

The Kinetic Chain

MUSCLE INTEGRATION MAKES UP EFFICIENT MOVEMENT. THIS IS BECAUSE ALL OF OUR MUSCLES ARE LINKED THROUGH THE KINETIC CHAIN. IN OTHER WORDS, WHAT HAPPENS IN ONE AREA OF THE BODY HAS A DIRECT OR INDIRECT EFFECT ELSEWHERE.

THE POWER OF THE KINETIC CHAIN CAN MAKE MOVEMENT THERAPEUTIC BECAUSE IF YOU HAVE KNEE PAIN, THE PAIN COULD BE CAUSED BY WEAK GLUTES. SO BY STRENGTHENING THE GLUTES, YOU RESOLVE YOUR KNEE PAIN.

IMAGINE YOUR KINETIC CHAIN LIKE A ROW TEAM, WHEN ALL YOUR TEAMMATES ARE ROWING AND DOING THEIR PART, THE BOAT MOVES WITH LESS EFFORT. BUT WHEN ONE OF THE ROWERS ISN’T DOING THEIR JOB, IT PUTS MORE RESPONSIBILITY ON THE OTHER MEMBERS OF THE TEAM. THE TEAM GETS TIRED FASTER, BECAUSE EACH MEMBER GETS OVER WORKED,

WHEN LINKS ARE WEAK AND NOT DOING THEIR JOB (LIKE THE ROW TEAM ANALOGY), MOTOR COMPENSATIONS DRIVE YOUR MOVEMENTS. WHEN YOU DON’T MOVE WITH OPTIMAL MECHANICS YOU RISK INJURY AND REPETITIVE  DYSFUNCTIONAL MECHANICS LEAD TO PAIN.

IT’S IMPORTANT TO GET YOUR KINETIC CHAIN LINKED UP AND FUNCTIONING LIKE A ROW TEAM THATS IN SYNCH. WHEN YOU EXERCISE IN A WAY THAT ADDRESSES THE WHOLE SYSTEM AND THE WAY IT INTERCONNECTS, YOU BUILD MUSCLE FOR THE WAY YOUR BODY IS GOING TO USE IT IN REAL WORLD CONDITIONS.