Movement/ Motor Training

Learn about the latest functional training exercises and programs for all ages and levels. Stability balls, balance training, bands, suspension training, kettlebells and lots more.

Imagine for a moment that there are no individual muscles. No simple groups to target. What if all we had to work with were our various joints and the movements that they are capable of? Letting go of our traditional muscle-based approach to strength training and understanding how the body actually moves are the first steps to integrating a planar training approach to program design.

The central nervous system (CNS) coordinates the muscles in concert to produce specific movements. It does this by using something called motor engrams. These are movement programs that we have developed for all general actions. Familiar movements build detail onto these programs, creating highly developed and refined motor engrams. These well-practiced programs run smoothly at many different speeds and can be executed successfully in changing environments (i.e. off balance, rushed, or form an unusual position).
Unfamiliar movements have incomplete or rough engrams. These programs are a work in progress and can often go awry. We have to slow down and be very cognitive about the action in order to control it properly and we tend to be much less successful. These unpracticed actions often feel “uncoordinated” and in the event that a situation demands that we run an unfamiliar program at higher speed, the chances of failure of injury increase dramatically.

Training using a movement or planar approach results in a complete workout that not only will involve every muscle group around the major joints (the goal of those looking for aesthetics), but will also work though every motor plane, giving balanced training that will help to improve many of our traditionally rough movement patterns, increase overall function and reduce the chance of injury. Integrating more complex and coordinative multi-planar movements into the program will build further on this new foundation to stimulate the CNS to create and refine motor engrams that will then be applied to sport and life.