Three Ways to Incorporate Natural Movement into your Workout

Fitness shouldn’t be about repeating the same handful of exercises every week and expecting results. That kind of fitness schedule is too compartmentalised to bring well-rounded results. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with training a specific part of your body in the gym, but bringing in natural movement will deliver a whole range of wider benefits.

At EVO, we believe that every movement you make should directly tie into your innate ability to move and adapt to any environment. Climbing, crawling, lifting, skipping, jumping, pulling, throwing… basically anything in the playground that used to be easy as a child, but you’d need a week’s worth of energy to muster up the strength to do now.

Functional fitness, as it’s known, extends to every part of your life. From squatting to reach the bottom shelf at the store to carrying home heavy bags of groceries, bringing natural movements into your training routine makes everyday movements effortless. You’ll build strength, health, confidence and reduce the chances of injury exercising.

Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it? Take a look at three ways you can shake up your training routine and explore and experiment with natural movement:

Squat low

Deep squats stretch and activate more muscle than a normal parallel squat. If you’re not used to squatting, have something you can hold to balance on to start with.

1. Stand with your feet slightly wider than your hips. Point your toes outward slightly and look straight ahead.
2. Place your arms straight out in front of you, parallel to the floor.
3. With your feet glued to the ground and your body tight, breathe in, bend your knees and send your hips back. Keep your spine neutral, your chest and shoulders high, and your knees in line with your feet.
4. Squat all the way down until your hip joint is lower than your knees.
5. Keeping your whole body tight, breathe out and drive through your heels and glutes to stand up again.

Lifting and carrying

Mindless reps and ‘feeling the burn’ are not the end goal here. The aim is to move efficiently and with perfect form, to avoid injury and refine natural movements to the highest level.

1. Grab a weight (work with one of our personal trainers to find a safe weight for your ability) and place it on the ground.
2. Stand in a strong square stance and bend over with your spine long and straight.
3. Extend your arms and firmly grip the weight.
4. Extend your legs and lift the weight from the floor.
5. Carry the weight at hip level, pushing your hips forward and leaning slightly backwards.
6. Rest and repeat.

Get up, stand up

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? It is – and it should be. Basically, see how many ways you can get up and down from the floor, without using your hands to support and aid you. It’s one of the easiest ways to incorporate natural movement into your training, especially if you’re on the mat or doing floor work.

By practising deliberate natural movement, you’re refining the movements the human body was designed to perform. The kind of movements our modern lifestyles have deemed somewhat unnecessary – but they’re not. Read more about how our unique training philosophy can help you train more powerfully, playfully and efficiently and get in touch for a free trial at one of our high-tech fitness studios.

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