All movements we make in both gym and daily life are broken down into the 7 movements below.
It is very important that we contain all the 7 movements into our training programs because we should train all the major groups of muscles in our body and avoid to make unbalanced.
If you train one more than the others, your body will be unbalanced and occurs injuries.
So, it is important to know what the movements are and what exercises to train them.
- Push
- Twist
- Pull
- Squat
- Hinge
- Lunge
- Gait
1. Push
You move your body away from the object or move the object away from your body. There are 2 kinds of push. Horizontal push and vertical push.
Horizontal push is a movement you push horizontally such as push-ups, bench press and etc.
On the other hand horizontal push is a movement that you push vertically such as shoulder press and etc. for example, boxing straight punch is a horizontal push movement and upper-cut is a vertical push movement.
So, push-ups might be a good exercise to improve straight punch, and shoulder press is a good choice to increase upper-cut power because they are similar movements.
2. Twist
It is a movement that crosses the front of the body. There are 2 variations of twist movement.Rotation and anti-rotation.
Rotation movement is a movement that actually twists while anti-rotation is a movement that endures not to twist.
Wood-chop is a rotation movement and pallof-press is an anti-rotation movement.
3. Pull
Pull is a movement that moves your body towards the object or moves the object towards your body. There are 2 variations for pull movement which are horizontal pull and vertical pull.
Pull-ups/chin-ups are the best vertical pull exercises. Seated row and bend-over row are good examples of horizontal pull exercises.
4. Squat
Squat movement is that both feet are on the floor, knees are bent and the body is lowered
Obviously squat is the best squat movement.
5. Hinge
it is a movement to bend the hip and bow. Deadlift is the best example.
6. Lunge
it is a movement that one leg steps forward and bends. It is important for sports and requires balance. Examples are lunge, Bulgaria squat and etc.
7. Gait
it looks similar to lunge however, it contains the element of “moving”.That is walking and running are examples.
Farmers carry is an example.
All movements, exercises, or sports movements will be broken down into those seven movements even if the movements are very complicated.
If you have a weakness in movements, you have to break the movements down into those seven movements and analyze each movement and solve the problems.
For example, the squat is obviously a squat movement however, it contains hinge movement as well because when you squat up you also put your torso upright which is a hinge movement. Additionally, you need to pull the bar to stabilize. Moreover, you need to do anti-rotation to not shake or shift your body.
Squat sounds like a simple movement however it has so many elements. It will be easy to solve problems if you can break the movements down.
Another reason why you need to do all the movements is that you need to be balanced. If you do push movements way more than pull movements, for example, your shoulders will be hunched and will cause shoulder injuries and/or neck pain etc….
You need to put all movements in your training programs. One of the basic training principles is “balance”. We have to train all fitness components.