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Primitive Initiative™- The Movement for movement!

March 18, 2015 By Garrett

In my near two decade fitness career I have had the pleasure of working with many clients of varying ages, abilities, dysfunctions, and goals.   In that time span I have worked with many Collegiate Athletes, budding youth athletes, obese and overweight populations, post-rehab/surgical clients, elderly populations, medical populations, the generally healthy, and even an Olympic athlete.  With this wide spectrum of clients I began to find one common problem within each demographic: the lack of movement within their training programs.

I am sure that it is not a surprise for some of these groups, but it may come as a surprise for other groups.  In my experience modern life has made us less and less likely to move.  As the human race has evolved we have developed lifestyles of efficiency.  Unfortunately this efficiency of life has made us inefficient operators of our bodies.

When we are brought into this world we are a blank slate, ready to absorb as much as we possibly can.  Everything we learn is through experimentation and exploration.  It is trial and error.  The more error there is the quicker we learn.  It is an amazing time in our lives.  Everything is a new experience.  We learn to smile, laugh, talk, crawl, walk, and run.  We learn to interact with others.  We learn to interact with and manipulate objects.  We learn to play.  Our play is wide and vast, almost limitless.

At some point in our lives we take one of two tracks.  We either become sedentary or we become specialized.  We may choose to play video games and watch tv instead of going outside and running around playing.  We may choose to play organized sports.  If we do play sports we start to specialize very early.  Many sports have become year round with the school season sport, AAU sport, Travel leagues, and sport specific training.  Our wide and vast movement patterns that we once had begun to disappear.

As we grow even older we go to college and take jobs that have us bound to a desk, hunched over a computer.  If we have the time and motivation to go to the gym, we pick select exercises that are inefficient and may cover only a very few of the movement patterns that are woefully missing from our lives.

Due to this slippery slope of non-movement, as we age we are unable to perform certain tasks efficiently.  Picking things up off the ground, reaching for a seat belt, getting up off the floor all become arduous tasks.  Our joints begin to get immobile, sore, swollen and broken down.  Sudden movements become risks of severe injury.  If an injury occurs it will take nearly two to three times as it once did to recover fully from it, if at all.  Chances are there will always be a limitation from the injury which ultimately will cause a compensation pattern. This will put undue stress upon another system or joint until there is another injury.  Once this injury cycle is entered into it is hard to escape.  Quality of function and ultimately quality of life is severely diminished.

It has been said that exercise is the only singular thing that reduces the risk of every known disease and illness and prolongs life.  I submit that movement is the only singular thing that will enhance and extend functional capacity, reduce injury, and increase quality of life.  My aim is to add movement back into fitness and into people’s lives.

Because of this I have created the Primitive Initiative®(notice the that I trademarked it!  That’s how strongly I believe this is the direction that the field should be and is going). The Primitive Initiative® is a movement oriented training model based on 14 fundamental movement patterns arranged in a specific sequence to maximize results.  It combines biomechanical training with energy system sequencing to provide real life fitness for real life movements.  Whether you call it athleticism, mobility or functionality, Primitive Initiative® enables the human body to operate in all planes of motion, in all positions of center of gravity, at all levels of intensity, in varying bases of support with efficiency and proficiency.  The Primitive Initiative® aims to add real human movement patterns back into fitness and exercise.  This is the movement for movement, and I am excited to share this technique with you over the next several blogs!

 

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Filed Under: assessments, certification, functional assessments, functional movement, fundamental movement patterns, human movement, movement, nutrition, periodization, personal training, running, sports performance, strength and conditioning, Uncategorized, vacation fitness, weight loss Tagged With: beginnings, functional assessment, functional movement, fundamental movement patterns, health and fitness professional, human movement, movement, nutrition, origins, periodization, personal training, program design, running

Having fun on vacation and not letting it derail your goals

March 4, 2015 By Garrett

I don’t know about you, but the winter season has just plain worn me down!  Fortunately, my wife and I were invited to our amazing friend’s destination wedding in Mexico this past week.  We would have gone to their wedding even if it was in the Antarctica, but we certainly weren’t going to pass up a chance to sit in beautiful weather there at the peak of the cold here (if it makes you feel better we came back just in time for the big snow storm).

 

A vacation, much like a holiday, can certainly derail our lifestyle.  Be it the travel itself, being out of routine, having less healthy options available, and not to mention all of the fun that can and should be had while on vacation.  There is fine line between enjoying a vacation and completely going overboard.  As I have said before, life is to be enjoyed, just not to the point where it is damaging to our health, function or attitude. Here’s how we had fun, but did not completely derail (and trust me…..we had some fun!)

 

  1. Move- Every morning we got up and walked.  We were dead set on getting the almighty 10,000 steps in.  Walking is great on vacation because you get to explore the local culture, wildlife, terrain and scenery.  We also brought along some suspension straps and threw them in the door frame in the room and did a good bodyweight workout.  I tend to periodize my programs to peak before I go on vacation so that I can take a break, but doing a light workout and walking always helps me stay on track
  2. Eat- On vacation it’s very easy to eat….and eat…and eat! We went to an all-inclusive resort, so there were buffets abound!  IT is very easy to over eat and not eat well.  What we did was we looked at breakfast as our healthy start to the day.  The omelet bar, fresh fruit, water and coffee were the prevalent choices.  Lunch was a little looser, but we still made an effort to fill up on fresh fruit, veggies, and salads.  Snacks were sold at the gift shop but were healthy options like yogurt and hummus.  This allowed dinner to be the meal where we could eat whatever we wanted.  Surprisingly enough we stuck with good protein and veggies for the majority of the time.
  3. Sleep- Sleep is so important, even on vacation. It is very easy to get carried away at night with all of the festivities and then wake up early to stake your claim on a beach chair.  It could have been a combination of us being flat out tired, used to earlier bedtimes, or just being “fuddie-duddies” but we chose to not stay out late and party it up (don’t worry, we partied it up plenty….just didn’t stay out too late).  The three nights we were there we were the first to leave the group and go back to our room.  This allowed us to be able to get up the next day and feel refreshed.
  4. Hydration- Being out in the sun, sweating all day and the occasional (or frequent) alcoholic beverage is a recipe for dehydration. We drank a ton of water to help keep the balance.  We took water bottles to the beach, drank water at our meals, and made sure we chugged water before we went to bed and right when we awoke.
  5. Breaks from the sun- It’s very easy to forget that your body is not used to being in the sun. It’s also very easy to not feel your skin burning the first day.  We made sure that we were lathered up with the good old SPF, but we also took several breaks from the sun.  We would go out for our walk in the morning and then grab breakfast and head back to the room for a break.  We then go out to the beach for a bit, go grab lunch and then head back to the room.  Then we would go out to a pool for a little while and then head back to the room to get washed for dinner and the evening festivities.  This routine kept us both from burning!
  6. Enjoy the view and relax- Hey, its vacation. It’s a time to relax and reset.  It’s a time to enjoy and explore.  We definitely made sure that we made time to relax.  We both needed a bit of resetting from our daily lives and work schedule.  The weather was great, the company was great, and it was a great escape!
Some things we saw on our walks
Some things we saw on our walk
Taking a break from the sun
Taking a break from the sun
Brought the gym with us
Brought the gym with us
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Filed Under: periodization, personal training, strength and conditioning, Uncategorized, vacation fitness, weight loss Tagged With: diet, health and fitness professional, nutrition, personal training, vacation fitness

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By: Rashid Azar

Latest Blog Posts

  • Healthy Lifestyle vs. Busy Lifestyle
  • Primitive Initiative™- Climbing Progressions
  • Primitive Initiative™ Jumping Progressions
  • Primitive Initiative™- Crouching Progressions
  • Primitive Initiative™- Getting Up Progressions

Latest Blog Posts

  • Healthy Lifestyle vs. Busy Lifestyle
  • Primitive Initiative™- Climbing Progressions
  • Primitive Initiative™ Jumping Progressions
  • Primitive Initiative™- Crouching Progressions
  • Primitive Initiative™- Getting Up Progressions

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