The world of fitness and weight loss is a complicated, and
convoluted mess of lies, hype and heart break. When I research any type
of fitness topic I am bombarded with so much false information and half
truths that it makes the journey to an ideal weight far more stressful
than it needs to be! I was reading a book recently that I found a phrase
and three words in that changed my life!
The phrase, Functional
Body Movement blew my mind, but I realized that this is the very essence
of the greatest exercise trend to date, Cross Fit. Cross fit takes the
idea of body movement and makes it practical. I know when you see people
doing handstand push-ups, or pull-ups, it doesn't look functional, but
when you take a step back and look at it deeper you see what is
happening. Many years ago before the advent of machines and air
conditioning people had to do much of the work physically themselves.
They would push, pull, and lift things where they needed to be. These
are the three words that are going to change the way you exercise
forever!
If you take the time to center your workouts around these
three words, and the word lift interchanges with squats, but we will
get to that in a moment, you will have incredible gains, quickly! Let's
focus on each word specifically and explain how they work.
Pushing:
When you look at functional body movement this is the first and most
basic of that idea. When your buddy gets stuck in the mud, or the snow,
how do you get him out? You all pile in behind his vehicle, someone
drives and you use your whole body to push the vehicle out. This engages
almost every muscle group simultaneously, and provides a lot more bang
for your buck. So instead of doing just a bench press, you do push-ups,
which engages more muscle groups at once, or hand stand push-ups, or as
you see on cross fit rolling a giant sized tire down an alley, or hell
even pushing an old junk car down a road!!
Pulling:
Let's look at pulling, same idea as pushing, only the opposite. (That
was an incredibly obvious statement... moving on.. ) Same scenario,
vehicle is stuck, but this time it's in water.. So you and your friends,
get in front of the vehicle with a rope, and engage your entire body
pulling the vehicle out of the water! Again, this explodes your muscles
into action, and your gains are higher. This means you engage in
exercises like pull-ups, or standing rows, or again, pulling that same
old heap back up the road! Using your whole body instead of one isolated
muscle group!
Lifting or Squatting: I
imagine this one is pretty obvious but let me elaborate. Your putting
all your decorations away from a holiday, the boxes are heavy and they
have to be put up on a shelf. So using proper lifting techniques you
make it happen. This converts into functional body movement as dead
lifts, squats, lunges. Anything that engages the upper body and the legs
together!
These three simple words, incorporated into EVERY
workout will change your life! If you do sets of pulling exercises, then
pushing, and then squatting exercises. You will find you can accomplish
a full body work out every workout! These three words are how our
ancestors stayed as strong as they did, and you can use them to build
your overall strength and physique! Be sure to share my thoughts with
your friends, and please sign up for updates at my blog!
