I’ll never forget the first time I seriously picked up a dumbbell.
It was the summer of 1997, and I was standing inside of my family’s garage, staring at my mother’s plastic weight set. The school year had just ended, and I was determined to never let what happened to me just a few months earlier ever happen again: I was cut from the school basketball team.
While I had played baseball for most of my life up until that point, I fell in love with this new sport a couple of years earlier—inspired by Michael Jordan and the nineties Chicago Bulls—and decided that I would like to play competitively.
Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t good enough for my school’s fifth grade team, and after making it through the first round of cuts was told to “keep practicing” and “try again” the coming year.
While my jump-shot and dribbling skills were already on par with most of the kids who made the team, I realized that what kept me back was that I hadn’t quite yet lost all of my “baby weight,” and I was definitely slower and less athletic than many of my classmates.
On top of that, I was starting a new middle school in the fall—all boys; and more competitive in terms of sports—and so, I would need to radically improve on all fronts if I were ever to stand a chance.
I decided to skip camp that summer, and instead spent the next 3 months, day after day, cycling back and forth between the basketball court and my garage. That fall, my effort paid off: I ended up making the team the next school year (and every subsequent year until I graduated high school, as a matter of fact).
What I didn’t know back then, however, was that what I experienced that summer, in that garage with my mom’s plastic weight set, would set the tone for me going forward and improve my life in ways far beyond the realm of sports.
And no matter your current age, genetic makeup, or athletic abilities, strength training can do the same for you.
While most of our public health guidelines have overemphasized aerobic exercise to promote cardiorespiratory fitness, reduce body fat, and extend our lifespans, strength training can not only further each one of these goals as well but, if done intelligently and consistently, also radically transform body composition, prevent the onset of functional deterioration (senescence), fend off osteoporosis, and preempt age-related muscle loss (sarcopenia).
Furthermore, a sustained strength training practice can also improve our muscles’ abilities to utilize sugar effectively (insulin sensitivity) and assist in the prevention and management of Type II diabetes, supercharge the metabolism and aid in the decrease of life-threatening visceral fat, reduce resting blood pressure, decrease triglyceride levels, and increase protective HDL cholesterol.
And the best part of all of this is that contrary to what our current social media-driven fitness culture promotes, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends just 2 weekly bouts of full-body resistance training in order to reap these rewards and more.
In other words, you don’t have to spend hours at the gym daily training like a bodybuilder in order to build muscle, burn body fat, and improve your overall health and fitness level. In fact, blasting away at your muscles with numerous sets and repetitions of isolation exercises can be counterproductive to feeling and moving better, as well as extremely inefficient in regard to spurring on the physiological effects listed above.
One of the saddest things I witnessed working in the corporate wellness field for over a decade was consistently watching the same people spend hours in the gym on a weekly basis and get nowhere in terms of their goals.
Because they never took the time to investigate the types of exercise patterns that truly catalyze physiological changes in the average human being, many of them wasted days, months, and years performing exercises that at best didn’t help them improve but at least didn’t harm them, and at worst were not only ineffective but also furthered their bodies’ deterioration.
One of my main goals with clients as well as with this platform is to help folks help themselves. Therefore, the first thing one needs to understand about exercise—and especially strength training—is that in order for it to be effective, it must be grounded in human evolution.
The main difference between people who understand this concept and those that don’t, is that the one’s that do, train movement patterns instead of isolating muscle groups. All the benefits listed above associated with just two weekly strength sessions are contingent upon the exerciser performing compound movements that utilize multiple muscle groups simultaneously.
So, instead of tricep pushdowns, leg extensions, and glute kickbacks—think pushups, squats, and deadlifts. The first group of exercises isolate just one muscle group each and don’t facilitate the physiological responses needed for bodily transformation. The second group of exercises, however, work the entire body from head-to-toe as they simulate real-world movements and, therefore, stimulate a plethora of hormonal and musculoskeletal changes within our bodies, conferring better health and fitness over time—even as we age.
When I design a workout template for myself or any of my clients, I make sure they include six essential movement patterns: Our ancestors evolved performing these essential movements daily in order to survive; and any successful training program should include a combination of each of them in order to combat the degenerative effects of our modern sedentary lifestyles.
The Six Essential Movements
The Hip Hinge: Anytime you bend over to pick anything up from the floor or put something down, you’re probably engaging in some variation of this fundamental movement. This motion mainly targets the “posterior chain,” or the backside of our bodies, and the main muscle groups involved are the abdomen and low back, glutes, and hamstrings. Training the hip hinge regularly will activate and strengthen these muscle groups, helping to combat low back pain and improve posture, balance, and flexibility.
The Squat: Humans have been squatting since… well… forever. It’s how we hung out before chairs were invented and how we used the bathroom before toilets were around. Watch any toddler for an extended period of time and you’ll find that they squat naturally and often, with ease. Studies confirm that hunter-gather populations still in existence squat for extended periods of time, several times per day. It isn’t until you reach advanced societies like ours that you see the diminishment of this essential human activity with age, leading to a loss of flexibility and strength in all of the associated muscle groups: the midsection, back, quadriceps and hip flexors, glutes, hamstrings, calves, and feet. Reacquaint yourself with your evolutionary roots and improve your strength and mobility by incorporating squat variations into your workouts regularly.
The Lunge: Think of a lunge as a moving, unilateral squat. Anytime you find yourself kneeling or getting up off the floor—which, unfortunately, probably isn’t all that much—you’re practicing some variation of this movement. Lunges can be performed in various directions and angles and they improve strength, flexibility, balance, and proprioception in the hips, knees, and feet. This exercise is a great way to work on any imbalances in the lower half of our bodies and they can safeguard us from many of the injuries that currently plague modern society.
The Push: Any time you push something away from your body or push your body away from something, you’re practicing this crucial movement pattern and strengthening all of the various muscles in the chest, shoulders, upper back, arms, and midsection. This movement can be practiced both horizontally and vertically and should be incorporated at least once per week in any effective resistance training program.
The Pull: Whenever you pull something toward your body or pull your body toward a fixed object, you’re practicing this vital movement. Like the push pattern above, this exercise can be performed both horizontally and vertically and it stresses all of the major muscle groups in the upper body, specifically the latissimus dorsi, rhomboids, trapezius, shoulders, biceps, and midsection. I recommend putting more emphasis on horizontal pulling than vertical pulling—especially if you are new to strength training—as the former tends to improve posture and safeguard shoulder health, while the latter can exacerbate many pre-existing imbalances and lead to injury if trained without the prerequisite mobility in the upper back and shoulders.
The Carry: This is probably one of the most effective, functional, and yet underrated exercises in existence. Think about it: we carry things every single day—bags, kids, pets, laundry baskets, briefcases, groceries. And with the exception of the squat, I can’t think of a more natural and evolutionarily essential movement pattern. Simply carrying a load in one or both hands, standing upright with your shoulders back and midsection braced, and walking slowly while maintaining maximal tension, will develop real-world strength, balance, stability, and proprioception throughout your entire body. Carries can be practiced with various loads, implements, and arm positions, and I recommend doing them for time, not distance, as this will ensure you focus on maintaining the correct posture and tension throughout the entirety of each set. If you are someone who suffers from a weak core and low back pain, I highly recommend incorporating the single-arm variations (like the one below) into your exercise routine at least once per week.
Putting it all together: Twice per week, perform two to three sets of a pushing movement; a pulling movement; a lower-body hinging movement; a squatting or lunging movement; and a carrying movement; focusing on getting stronger on each within a range of six to fifteen repetitions. If you are new to strength training, I recommend getting started with a professional coach in your area, who can assess your current level of fitness and get you started with a routine suited to your personal requirements, along with teach you proper technique on each of the various exercises, as well as how they should be sequenced for maximum performance and safety.
(If you live in Miami, Fl., and would like to train with me, simply shoot me a message.)