BACK TO BASICS
“Basic” you hear it and cringe. Images of Uggs, North Face, and pumpkin spice lattes are conjured in your mind.
But what I am trying to say here is “basic” has gotten a bad reputation. And while I value uniqueness, boldness, and a rebellious spirit, when it comes to strength training here at Ladies Who Lift we are firm believers in the basics.
There is so much information out there on what to do and how to do it that it can make your head spin. And when sitting down to write yourself a strength training workout, it can get really easy to overcomplicate the process and worry that to get your desired results you should be doing stuff like this, or this, or even...this.
Is it impressive? Eh...I will let you be the judge of that.
Is it necessary to get strong, healthy, and in shape? Absolutely not.
So this post, we are celebrating the power of basic and how it can be used to not only reach your strength training goals but move beyond them!
baseline not basic
When you think about your body and your workouts, know that while there are hundreds of different exercises, there are really only a few basic movements the human body is capable of doing during an exercise.
-Horizontal Push/Pull
-Vertical Push/Pull
-Knee Dominant
-Hip Dominant
And if you want to get a little fancy…
-stability/antirotation
-power
-agility
This is important to know for 3 main reasons
Any strength training program should be comprised of exercises from all of the above movement patterns (at Ladies Who Lift we think of the fancy ones as icing to a far more important basic “cake”)
Even if you are splitting your workouts up by body part, you should be combining these patterns to build a well rounded and enjoyable strength training program.
It helps prevent injuries! Say you want to work on your back, so you add in all the pulling movements under the sun. You forgot about pushing. Before you know it you have yourself some unbalanced shoulders and an injury! For every push-a pull. For every flexion- an extension.
The most basic movements that live under, and most obviously define each category are the following:
Knee dominant-squat
Hip Dominant-deadlift
Horizontal Push-Chest Press
Horizontal Pull-Bent over row
Vertical Push-Shoulder press
Vertical Pull-pull up-or pull down
There are TONS of other movements under these categories- but these are the ones Ladies Who Lift believes you should perfect before moving on to other variations. Both your body and your mind will be able to make sense of every other movement thrown at it because of the basic baseline you have given it. The rules you know and apply to each one will transfer over into all of your strength training. Although we’re not mathematicians over here, we are pretty sure they teach you addition and subtraction before advanced calc!
Does basic work?
YES. Just because something is a baseline movement, or a basic movement pattern, it does not make it any less challenging, and it will not deliver any lesser results. You do not need to do a crazy strength training workout with unnameable movements to get to where you want to be.
Even if you kept the above mentioned movements as your workout program (let’s say doing it twice a week for 3 weeks) you would get stronger, healthier, and see and feel change in your body. And after those 3 weeks? You could periodically change your frequency, load, tempo, volume, or other variables to continuously challenge yourself, your body, and keep results going.
beyond basic
So why do other exercises even exist!?
Because we are human! We crave change. We want to know what comes next when we get good at something. We want to be challenged! We want to combine things and see what happens! We want to be pushed outside of our comfort zone so we can continue to grow and thrive! We get bored!
I support this fully, and as someone who follows 4 week programs built of mostly very basic exercises- I get it! But know that every movement beyond these are only progressions or variations OF THE BASIC. Did you click on the links to those crazy videos? Knee dominant movements, and pushes- maybe with a little added power (and a little too much ego).
But hey, variety is the spice of life, and to keep yourself involved, excited, and motivated, variation can and should be added. But know that one day these movements will feel “basic” to you too. And in no way does that mean that they have “stopped working.”
SOOO… LET’S GET BASIC!
I present to you the Ladies Who Lift pick your own adventure workout, titled: “basic to not so basic, but also grown from the basics” total body strength training workout!
HOW TO: Pick 1-2 movements in category. Do 3 sets of each movement, using your existing knowledge of rep ranges to pick your reps for each.
