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Are You Training All 10 Foundational Movement Patterns at AFAC Gym?

Woman doing a lunge at the gym while lifting a weight plate above her head

When you go to the gym, you might feel overwhelmed by the complex exercises you see other gym members performing.

Have you ever looked around and thought, “Am I doing all the exercises I should be doing? What if I’m missing something important?”

While the sheer number of exercises seems endless, if you look closely, you’ll notice that almost all exercises fall into 10 basic movement patterns. Once you become familiar with these fundamental movement patterns, you can make sure your training program is well-rounded.

Regardless of the latest fancy move people are showing you at the gym, there’s no substitute for mastering the basics of exercise. This blog will walk you through the 10 foundational movement patterns and how you can ensure they show up in your program at AFAC’s gym in Thornton, Colorado.

What Are the Foundational Movement Patterns at the Gym?

All humans move in pretty much the same way. Foundational movement patterns – also known as “fundamental” and “functional” movement patterns – are movements we all perform multiple times daily as we go through our regular routines. These patterns also occur in countless strength training exercises at the gym. Many movements in real life – and some at the gym – combine two or more foundational movement patterns. Once you learn the patterns, you can use them to get results at the gym and reduce injury risks when you’re training.

The 10 foundational movement patterns are:

  1. Squat
  2. Hinge
  3. Lunge
  4. Horizonal Push
  5. Horizonal Pull
  6. Vertical Push
  7. Vertical Pull
  8. Carry
  9. Core and rotation
  10. Cyclical

If you want to be strong and healthy, you should train all these foundational patterns regularly. Not only will they set you up for long-term success in lifting weights at the gym, but also in real life. You’ll avoid injury, prevent or reduce aches and pains, and reach your fitness goals!

Let’s break these 10 movement patterns down.

(1) Squat

We’ll start with the squat because it’s a foundational movement pattern many of us learn before we can even walk. How many times have you seen babies in the classic squat position as they pick up a toy, play with it in their hands, and stand to show it to you?

Squatting involves the hips, knees, and ankles bending together, allowing your center of gravity to lower toward the ground. The main muscles involved in the squat are the glutes and quadriceps, but your hamstrings, adductors, core, and back also play a role.

In a more real-life application, training with squats improves your ability to get up from a seated position.

Squatting is also one of the most common exercises in resistance training. Almost everyone has some version of a squat in their strength training program. While squatting to full depth is perceived as the holy grail of functionality, not everyone is able to or needs to accomplish this goal.

The true value of a squat is gaining the stability, mobility, and coordination needed to complete whatever squat variation works best for you and your fitness level.

Squat exercises can be paired with a wide variety of resistance tools, ranges of motion, and intent. The front-loaded goblet squat is considered a great starting point for beginners and remains an excellent exercise for more seasoned lifters, too.

Here are some of the best squat exercises:

  • Bodyweight squat
  • Classic dumbbell squat
  • Dumbbell goblet squat
  • Dumbbell front squat
  • Barbell front squat
  • Barbell back squat
  • Box squat
  • Landmine goblet squat
  • Overhead squat
  • Bulgarian split squat

(2) Hinge

The hip hinge is one of the most important foundational movement patterns when it comes to protecting your lower back from chronic pain and injury. Unfortunately, many people lose their ability to hinge at the hips as they age.

Hinging is also one of the most essential movement patters for lifting weights and playing sports. From Olympic deadlifting to picking up a small child, the hinge movement plays a key role in spinal safety when bending the body to perform tasks.

The deadlift is the most well-known hip hinge exercise, but there are several other exercises that fall under the hip hinge umbrella. So, if you don’t deadlift because you’re afraid of injury, it’s important to add other types of hip hinge workouts into your program.

Why are hip hinges so important? Because we all bend over a lot, every day. When you master and strengthen your hip hinge, you’ll avoid back pain, back injuries, chronic flare-ups, lower back tightness, and limited mobility and flexibility.

The primary muscles used in a hip hinge are the hamstrings and glutes. The back and core muscles also stabilize the spine during a hip hinge. If the hip hinge is loaded, the traps, abdominals, forearms, and hands are also heavily involved in the exercise. During a deadlift, the quadriceps contribute to the initiation of the lift.

But most people don’t need to rely on deadlifts as their only hip hinge training. The best hinge exercises include:

If you’re not able to perform a deadlift with a barbell on the floor with good spine mechanics, don’t feel bad! Some people simply do not have the body structure to perform that lift. There are many other hip hinge exercises you can include in your program, so there’s no need to force your body to do something that might hurt you in the long (or short) run.

(3) Lunge

If you’re like many lifters, you’re not a fan of lunge variations. That’s usually because lunges are a unilateral exercise, so you can’t lift as much weight as with bilateral exercises. Also, lunges are difficult. If you have weak muscles or poor form, lunges will let you know that right away.

But remember that even with single-leg work like lunges, it’s impossible to isolate one side from the other. Both legs will always have to work to maintain balance.

Lunges are effective exercises that show you weak areas, sticking points, and painful patterns in your movement. Lunge variations also can be adjusted for size and strength gains.

In your daily life, you use lunges when you walk up stairs or climb a mountain (something many of us do in the Thornton area!) Practicing your lunges also will help you maintain function as you age.

If you’re new to lunging, you may not want to jump right into a forward-walking lunge, as this is a more advanced move that can lead to knee pain, quad pulls, and a sore lower back. Start with a split stance lunge like a split squat, instead, and work your way up to dynamic lunging variations.

Here are some lunging variations to try at the gym. These can be performed with or without holding weights such as dumbbells or kettlebells.

  • Split squats
  • Back foot elevated split squats
  • Front foot elevated split squats
  • Reverse lunges
  • Forward lunges
  • Side lunges
  • Single-leg deadlifts
  • Step ups
  • Walking lunges

(4) Horizontal Push

A push exercise is any movement where you push a load away from you, or push your own bodyweight away. With horizontal push exercises, your arms move perpendicular to your body (i.e., directly in front of you). Horizontal push movements engage your chest, shoulder, and tricep muscles.

In your daily life, push movements help you open and close doors, push grocery carts and strollers, move furniture out of the way, and stand up when you’re lying face down.

In the gym, horizontal pushing exercises like the barbell bench press are a metric for measuring upper-body strength and are great chest-builders for those wanting upper-body gains.

There are many horizontal push variations, such as:

  • Push-ups
  • Barbell bench press
  • Dumbbell bench press
  • Standing dumbbell press
  • Single-arm dumbbell press
  • Landmine press
  • Machine chest press
  • Standing chest press
  • Cable chest press
  • Floor press
  • Svend press
  • Press-ups
  • Kneeling single-arm press
  • Incline press
  • Dips

(5) Horizontal Pull

A horizonal pull is any movement where you pull a load toward you or pull your own bodyweight.

Horizontal pull exercises promote shoulder health and good posture in everyday life. This can help prevent a rounded-shoulder, hunched posture that many of us experience after heavy use of handheld devices and laptops. You also use the pull pattern every time you pick up a trash bag out of the trash can.

Depending on your grip and elbow position, horizontal pull exercises recruit the trapezius, rhomboid,  biceps, rear delts, teres major and minor, latissimus dorsi muscles, and several other muscles in the mid-back.

Variations of horizontal pull exercises include:

  • Rowing
  • Bent-over rows
  • Cable row exercises like seated cable rows
  • Single-arm rows
  • Pendlay rows
  • Inverted rows
  • T-bar rows
  • Pull-ups

(6) Vertical Push

Vertical push exercises are those that involve an upward pressing motion using the muscles of the upper body. The vertical push is a difficult movement pattern that requires overhead strength and stability as well as shoulder health.

In addition to giving you more powerful shoulders for all your gym workouts, vertical pushing supports everyday movements like lifting objects overhead. Vertical push exercises also build muscles to reinforce the rotator cuffs, one of the most injury-prone joints in the body.

Pushing overhead mainly draws upon the deltoid muscles as the prime mover. A vertical push will also involve the rhomboids, traps, and serratus anterior.

Many people don’t have overly mobile or stable shoulders, so it’s best to start with beginner vertical push exercises and work your way up from there. Vertical push variations include:

  • Machine overhead press
  • Cable overhead press
  • Dumbbell overhead press
  • Barbell overhead press
  • Dumbbell Z-press
  • Push press

(7) Vertical Pull

A vertical pull exercise is any movement where you’re pulling something in a vertical path from overhead. In the gym, vertical pulls are usually done with your arms extended overhead as you pull weights down toward your torso using your shoulder and elbow joints.

Vertical pull exercises primarily work the large muscles in your back – your lats and traps – so if you want to build a stronger back, you should be regularly doing vertical pull moves. They also can strengthen smaller muscles like your posterior delts, rhomboids, biceps, and hand grip. And, similar to vertical push exercises, vertical pulls provide you with a ton of shoulder health benefits.

Outside your gym workouts, vertical pulls can help you with activities like climbing a ladder, pulling yourself up to clean your gutters, rock climbing, and playing with your kids on the monkey bars.

Some of the best vertical pull exercises include:

  • Neutral lat pulldown
  • Single-arm cable pulldown
  • Alternating neutral lat pulldown
  • Prone lat pulldown
  • Barbell seated lat pulldown
  • Kneeling cable pulldown
  • Pullups and chinups

(8) Carry

The carry movement pattern is all about moving your body through space with stability and control. During training, carry exercises begin without any weights to perfect the basic walking pattern. Once you’ve achieved that, you can progress to loaded carries and more complex exercises like sprint work, pushes, and drags.

Carries challenge virtually every muscle in the body – all the extremities plus the core muscles.

Some of the best carry and locomotion exercises are:

  • Farmer’s carry
  • Unilateral farmer’s carry
  • Front-loaded farmer’s carry
  • Front rack barbell carry
  • Back squat weighted carry
  • Mixed grip carry
  • Overhead carry
  • Trap bar carry
  • Plate pinch carry
  • Waiter’s walk
  • Sled pushing and sled pulling
  • Zercher carry
  • Bear hug carry
  • Rucking

(9) Core and Rotation

Core movements involve a complex series of muscles in the torso (everything below the arms and above the legs). These muscles stabilize the spine during your body’s static and dynamic movements. Rotation movements use core muscles and also recruit the hips and shoulders at times.

You use your core during most daily activities, whether you’re stabilizing yourself to carry heavy loads, doing yard work, or vacuuming your floor. Your ability to twist and rotate your core is another movement pattern you use in daily life, such as when you shovel snow, hit a golf ball, or reach across your body to grab something.

The best core and rotation exercises you can do at the gym include:

(10) Cyclical

The final movement pattern on our list is cyclical. This movement occurs in a continuous loop, and you use cyclical movements to relocate from one place to another. Think walking, running, and biking.

Training this pattern will improve your cardiovascular health. It will also support your ability to move comfortably and independently for the rest of your life.

Cyclical, or locomotion, exercises include but are not limited to:

Build a Solid Foundation at AFAC Gym

A well-designed full-body workout at the gym should incorporate each of the 10 foundational movement patterns at least once during the workout. Or, you can incorporate the 10 foundational movements during a workout split schedule where you devote certain days of the week to specific body parts or movements. It all depends on your preferences and schedule. Overall, you should aim to strength train all major muscle groups 2-3 times per week.

We know this is a lot to consider when planning your strength training program. That’s why AFAC gym has an experienced team of personal trainers on staff to assist you with designing a foundational movement exercise cadence to match your ability level and fitness goals.

As the best gym in Thornton, Colorado, AFAC’s huge selection of strength training and cardio equipment will provide everything you need to include foundational movements in your workouts. Our full lineup of group classes also teaches a complete range of functional movements to enhance your performance inside and outside the gym. These are some of the many ways that AFAC gym is committed to supporting the health and wellbeing of our members and ensuring they see the results they’re working toward.

If you’re not a member of AFAC gym but would like more information, please stop by and speak to our team. For more information and assistance, you can also contact our gym owner, Susan, at 720-849-0245 or susan@adventurefitness.club.

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