Importance Of Multi-Directional Movement - Multi-Directional Movement Training Exercises

Описание: In this video we discuss the importance of multi-directional movement training, and how this training makes everyday movements easier. We go through several different exercises you can do in different directions or planes of motion.

Transcript/notes
Importance of multi-directional movement

We all know how important exercise is to improving and maintaining optimal health. Doing strength training, cardio, balance and coordination exercises and stretching exercises are keys to a great exercise program. But what often gets overlooked is multi-directional movements.

Squats, dead lifts, and chest press, along with running or walking for cardio are staples in most people’s workouts. And these are all great exercises that require the use of a lot of different muscles and multiple joint movements, so these should be a part of any good workout program. The only thing is is that all of these movements are done in either the forward direction, or the downward direction.

While most of the everyday movements we make are in these 2 directions, such as walking, or picking up stuff, our bodies were designed to be able to move in any direction. Such as when you twist to turn around and look behind you, or step to the side to avoid stepping on or in something, or when you back up to see something from a wider perspective.

We also need to have or at least maintain strength in these directions, such as when we are carrying something out to our side, or when we are picking something up to move it backwards.

Working your body, especially your arms and legs in multiple directions should be a consistent part of your workout schedule in order to make everyday life movements easier and to help develop better coordination, balance and neuromotor skills.

Lets start by looking at some lower body exercises starting with a reverse lunge.

Over time, if this exercise becomes easier, you can perform it while holding dumbbells, and for advanced athletes you can also perform an upper body movement at the bottom of the lunge by doing biceps curls, or by doing a side raise. And to go even further, you can do a single arm side raise to your open hip side, which will really engage your core to help stabilize you in this position.

What I will do with some clients is have them perform an upper body movement like a biceps curl and then take a step backwards, alternating which leg they are stepping back with to improve their movement.

There are many different lower body exercises you can perform in the backwards direction such as walking backwards outside, athletes can do backwards sprints, or even backwards box jumps.

For lower body side movements you can do a form of a lunge squat.

Over time, if this exercise becomes easier, you can perform it while holding a dumbbell in front of your chest, and for advanced athletes you can also perform an upper body movement by doing biceps curls and holding the weight up and performing the movement, or you can perform the lunge and squat or by doing a side raise and holding it, then performing the lunge and squat. And to go further, you can perform a single side raise to the opposite side and hold that while performing the lunge and squat as this can improve your balance and engage your core.

With some clients, I will have them perform an upper body movement like a front raise, hold that position and then take 5 steps to the right and 5 steps to the left to improve their lateral or side movement. There are many different lower body exercises you can perform in a sideways direction such as walking sideways outside, and athletes can do sideways sprints, side to side hops, or even sideways box jumps landing on 2 feet, or landing on one foot to improve your ability to balance yourself quickly.

For upper body sideways movements you can do side raises that I mentioned earlier to work your shoulders, biceps curls with your arms flared out to your sides, and to work your triceps you can bend over at the waist, flare your arms out with bent elbows and raise the weights out away from your body and up. You can also perform all of these exercises with a resistance band as you see here.

There are many other different upper body exercises you can perform in a sideways direction such as bent over side raises, lying triceps extensions and angled biceps curl with a resistance band or on a cable machine at the gym. Just get creative my friends and once your strength and balance improves you can challenge yourself, using lighter weights of course.

Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:20 Some of the keys to an exercise program
0:52 Movements forwards or up and down
1:06 Examples of multi-directional movements
1:43 Lower body reverse movements
2:52 Lower body side movements
4:06 Upper body side movements
4:47 Rotational movements