When I first started lifting weights in a gym I based my programme on muscle groups. I researched what muscles group there are, which of them would work together and selected exercises appropriate for my fitness level. While there isn’t anything wrong with this, there is a better way to approach how you structure your workouts. Understanding basic movement patterns can be a powerful tool in designing, progressing and altering your routine on the spot.
What are the basic movement patterns?
Movement patterns are classified by either the direction of an exercise or the joints involved.
Movement patterns based on the direction of an exercise are fairly straightforward to understand. For example, pull-ups are a vertical pull – you are pulling your body weight up in a vertical pattern.
Another category of movement patterns is determined by the primary joint involved in a movement. For instance, deadlifts are a hip dominant exercise.
When two joints are involved in a movement, the one that is experiencing more relative force will determine the movement pattern. For example, during a squat, both the hip and the knee joint are involved. However, your knee joint will experience more pressure in relation to its maximum capacity than the hip joint.
Knee Dominant
Knee dominant movement patterns require the movement of a knee joint (flexion, extension). Examples of knee dominant exercises include lunges, step-ups, leg press and squats.
While these types of exercises are referred to as knee dominant your hip joint is obviously involved as well. Depending on your mobility and body type your knee joint will experience force differently. For example, the further forward your knee moves the more force will be placed upon it.
Knee dominant exercises help to strengthen muscles around your knees which is important to avoid joint pain. Make sure to include both bilateral (squat variations) and unilateral (lunges, step-ups, split squats) knee dominant exercises in your programme.
Hip dominant/hip hinge
During hip dominant movement patterns, your hip joint plays the primary role. Examples of hip dominant exercises include deadlifts, hip thrusts, Romanian deadlifts, good mornings, glute bridges, kettlebell swing.
Hip hinge, where your hips move back with little or no movement in your knees, falls under a hip dominant pattern. While all hip hinge movements are hip dominant, not all hip dominant exercises are hip hinge. For example, the kettlebell swing is both a hip dominant and hip hinge pattern, while glute bridges are just a hip dominant pattern.
Hip dominant exercises primarily target your posterior chain muscles. Those muscles are extremely important for good posture. It’s good to include a variety of hip dominant exercises including vertical (deadlift variations), horizontal (hip thrusts variations) and unilateral (single-leg variations) into your programme.
Horizontal push/vertical push
The horizontal push movement pattern means moving the weight away from your torso horizontally. Examples of horizontal push include push-ups, bench press, chest press machine, cable chest press and single-arm variations.
Vertical push means moving the weight up vertically in relation to your torso or in a similar direction. Vertical push exercises include any variation of shoulder/overhead press exercises. Depending on the exercise and equipment you use you will be moving the weight either straight about your head (standing barbell overhead press, seated dumbbell press) or slightly in front of you (landmine press, cable press).
If you have poor shoulder mobility it’s important to be careful with some overhead press exercises, especially with a barbell. Using landmine or cable variation is a more joint-friendly option until you build up strength and mobility.
Vertical/horizontal pull
The horizontal pull movement pattern involves moving the weight towards your torso horizontally from straight out in front of your body. Examples of horizontal pull exercises are seated rows, body rows, bent-over rows and single-arm variations.
Vertical pull involves moving the weight vertically in relation to your body or at least in that direction. Examples of vertical pull pattern include chin-ups/pull-ups variations, assisted pull-ups/chin-ups, lat pulldown variations.
Including both vertical and horizontal pulling exercises in your programme is very important. A weak posterior chain is often the cause of numerous muscle imbalances and joint pains caused by those imbalances.
Other movement patterns
The above basic movement patterns are either lower or upper body based and when performed using free weights will target your core muscles. However, there is a group of movement patterns that is specific to your core muscles.
These include rotation and diagonal (wall ball throw), anti-rotation (pallof press), anti-flexion (deadlifts), anti-extension (planks), anti-lateral flexion (side planks). Training specific core functions is very important for a healthy body and improved athletic performance.
The reasons to train using movement patterns
1. Will help you develop a balanced body
While resistance training is an excellent tool for improving muscle imbalances, it can sometimes be a cause. You might be consistently training a certain movement pattern more than another without even realising it. This will result in an imbalance in the long term.
Understanding basic movement patterns and ensuring you include an equal number of all of them will help achieve balanced muscular and strength development.
2.Will help you understand exercises better
Often you can see people performing deadlifts while moving their knees forward. Understanding the difference between movement patterns, in particular, knee dominant versus hip dominant, can be helpful to ensure you are doing an exercise properly and using appropriate joints and muscles.
Similarly, training your core based on its function and movement patterns will help you learn how to brace and stabilize your trunk.
3. Will translate into daily life
Training the movement and not just the muscle is paramount for functional training. In daily life we are often lifting things off the floor, stepping up/down, putting things on high shelves, bending down and so on. This can be especially relevant if you are working in a physical job.
Functional training and focusing on movement patterns in your training will help you build a robust body that is able to perform all those movements in daily life without getting injured.
4. Will help you understand how to structure your workouts
Basic movement patterns can be a brilliant template for any workout. For example, when you train legs you can simply do hip thrusts (hip dominant), split squats (knee dominant) and Romanian Deadlift (hip hinge) and you’ve got yourself a foundation for a good session.
You can then add some core, e.g. side plant (anti-lateral flexion) and some isolation work (side leg raises) and you’ve got a great workout. Basic movement patterns + a few isolation exercises + core exercise is an easy way to structure a balanced session.
5. Will make it easier to come up with alternatives
Coming to a busy gym can be challenging when you have a workout planned yet all the equipment you need is occupied. If you understand movement patterns it can be easier to come up with alternatives.
For example, you don’t have access to the lat pulldown machine. Lat pulldown is a vertical pull movement pattern. You can achieve the same movement pattern by using any variation of a cable machine, assisted chin-ups using a bar or TRX, resistance bands, assisted pull-up machine. Understanding movement patterns will make it easier to understand exercises and their alternatives.
6. Will help you build efficient workouts
Basing your workouts on muscle groups can sometimes be challenging especially if you are less experienced. It’s very easy to end up with a high number of exercises some of which can be very similar and don’t really need to be done in the same session (e.g. lunges and split squats). Basing your routine on movement patterns can help you save time in the gym while getting a balanced workout.
The takeaway
Improving the way you move is a very important goal when it comes to weight training. Often, however, it can be overlooked if the focus shifts too much towards building specific muscles rather than training your body as a whole. Using basic movement patterns as a baseline for structuring your programme is a great way to design efficient workouts that will help you build functional strength, mobility and achieve balanced muscle development.