Movements vs. Muscles

Exercise seems to be one of those things where you can easily get lost trying to keep up with new trends and "scientific" breakthroughs. I have been asked numerous times what the best exercises is to isolate your glutes, or develop the lower chest.  Usually my first response is "why would you want to isolate your glutes?"  Muscles are designed to work as units, not an isolated collection of parts. If one area is lagging it is usually due to poor movement skills or lack of balance in your training. Isolating the muscle is usaully not going to be the best fix.

Now I am not saying there is no place for working a muscle in isolation, I just believe that place is much smaller than the majority of exercisers seem to think. It seems that every magazine has a routine for "the perfect butt" or "bigger arms in two weeks!" and other such catchy titles.  It is easy to start believing you need special exercises for just about everything. But I firmly believe that unless you have some very special needs- like rehabilitation or advanced body building- sticking to some very basic movements will provide you with every thing you need, both performance wise and physique wise. Its like Grey Cook says: "Simply speaking, if you train the muscles you may not completely develop the movement, but if you train the movement the muscles will develop appropriately". For those who do not know who Grey Cook is he is a strength and conditioning consultant for the NFL, physical therapist extordanier, and the guy who helped make "functional exercise" effective. If you are a trainer or serious athlete I highly recommend his book Movement, available through dragondoor.com.

So, what are the main movements we should focus on? According to Dan John (another person I highly recommend listing to) Movement can be divided into four main category's, and a few sub categories. The main categories are:
1. Hinging: This includes exercises like the dead lift, clean, swing, snatch, or any thing that requires us to hinge from the hips.
2. Squatting: Barbell back and front squats, kettlebell front and goblet squats, squat jumps, or any exercises where there is equal degree of flexion between the knees and the hips.
3. Pressing: Bench press, military press, push ups, or any exercise where you push away from the body.
4. Pulling: Rows, pull ups, chin ups, bat wings, pull downs, or any thing that requires you to pull too the body.

There are  many more exercises that fall into these categories, these are just the ones I use most. About 80% to 100% of the programs I have my client on are made up of these categories. It is very rare that I isolate a muscle, though I will not deny that in some circumstances it is appropriate.  I have been working out like this for a long time and have seen some great results.

Today's work out:
1. Turkish get ups, continuous for 5 miutes, switching side every rep w/ 53 lb. kettlebell

2a. Kettlebell windmills w/ 53 lbs, 4 sets of 6 on each side
  b. Kettlebell goblet squats w/ 53 lbs, 4 sets of 6

3. 10 push up + 10 left hand and 10 right hand kettlebell swings w/ 53 lbs, 6 sets with 60 second rests