Four Fundamental Movements

The four fundamental movement patterns that you need to know about are the squat, the hip hinge, pushing and pulling, and midline stability. Those four fundamental movements in various combinations comprise everything that we do here in CrossFit.

So, the first and the most fundamental one that I like to talk about is the squat. Basically, we’re going to stay with a nice, big, tall chest and tight abs. We’re going to bend at the hips and at the knees at the same time, counterbalancing our hands. We’re going to do various combinations of the squat, either doing a back squat, front squat, overhead squat, goblet squat, you name it, we’ve got it.

After that, we’re going to talk about the hip hinge. Hip hinging is just changing the angle here at the hips while keeping the knees soft but not bent. The movements that use the hip hinge are the deadlift, cleans, snatches, kettlebell swings, and lots of others. That’s the most powerful movement that we do is using the biggest muscles available to us, the glues and the hamstrings, all that posterior chain, comprises the hip hinge.

The third fundamental movement that we’re going to talk about is pushing and pulling. So, a lateral push would be a push up, bench press, right? Uses tricep and pecs quite a lot, right? A lateral pull would be a row, bent over rows, or rowing on the erg, okay? Pushing overhead is going to be any sort of press, jerk, push-press, any variation of shoulder to overhead movement. And a pull from overhead, that’s pretty obvious, those are pull ups, chin ups, and those variations.

The fourth fundamental movement is not as obvious, that’s going to be our midline stability. That’s something that we do all day, every day. That keeps our spine from falling over, gives us that good posture, and we use midline stability in all of the other three types of movements. In fact, we are always conscious of our midline, protecting our lower back and those spinal erectors, keeping our lumbar curve correct, embracing our entire midline helps us drive more power through our feet, more power into our hands from core to extremity. That’s what we’re talking about. So, we train them in everything we do, but specifically variations of the sit up. Sit ups, V-ups, toes to bar, knee raises, all those kinds of twists and turns, all of that requires midline stability.

So, CrossFit isn’t just about sexy beach abs, although we’re going to get you those too. We’re going to be squatting. We’re going to be hinging, pushing and pulling, and we’re going to be definitely getting our midline stable.

Come join us for a class, whether you’re an experienced CrossFitter or you haven’t done any working out in forever, we’ve got something for you. You can always learn something new, help yourself get into better shape. So, look forward to more of these posts in the future. Let me know, just post in the comments what you’d like to hear me talk about. Thanks so much. Have a good one.