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Good morning. Welcome back! I’m not sure which of us is welcoming the other back, since I was the one who took last week off. Three days of skiing and a tweaked knee (don’t worry, it’s healing!) wiped me out, so I elected to fully take last week off from MTI.

Like myself into the hot tub on the last night of our trip, let’s dive in! 🛀 

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Resistance Training 102: How to get the ball rolling

This week, we’re back with Part 2 in your Resistance Training Starter Guide!

In the last post, we went over strength vs. hypertrophy, how to train to elicit each, the frequency and intensity with which to actually get started, and how to take advantage of your “newbie gains.”

This week, let’s cover movement patterns; compound vs. isolation exercises; form & injury prevention; a four-week progression to loading; and most importantly, consistency.

The Seven Deadly Sins Movements

There are several (some say seven) basic movement patterns around which you can build your entire strength training program. These movements in large part encompass every way in which we can move our bodies. Thus, training them all will keep us functional and well-rounded, ensuring we aren’t neglecting or over-emphasizing any certain muscle groups. The ones I like to cite are as follows:

• Upper body pushing (horizontal and vertical)

• Upper body pulling (horizontal and vertical)

• Lower body pushing/squatting

• Lower body hinging/pulling

• Lower body lunging

• Carrying

• Rotating

The last two or three are a bit less universal but still pretty important to mix into your training. 

Remember that on any exercises that involve your limbs (i.e. most of them), it’s beneficial to train with both limbs at the same time as well as training single-arm and single-leg exercises, one at a time. This helps address imbalances and improves core strength, stability, and posture. Most of the movements and obstacles we encounter in real life are asymmetrical forces anyway.

This article would get really long(er) if I gave every possible example of exercises that address the above. You can research some if you want more examples. I want this to be more of a mental framework for you—a checklist of sorts. Each workout (if full body workouts are your thing) or at least each week or so, run through this checklist to make sure you addressed every movement pattern with your training.

Getting in an upper push/pull, lower push/pull/lunge, and some carrying (like a kettlebell farmer’s carry) and rotational work (like Russians twists or Pallof Press) on a regular basis is your best bet for developing overall strength and hypertrophy.

Compound vs. Isolation movements

No, isolation movements are not the home workouts we did during COVID. The difference between these two is most easily found in asking yourself, “Is this a multi-joint or single-joint exercise?” Compare a squat, where multiple (hip, knee, ankle, etc.) joints are all moving to a leg extension or calf raise, where only one joint moves at a time. 

Why is knowing the difference important? Compound movements get you the most bang for your buck. They address many muscle groups in one exercise as opposed to working just one or two muscles at a time. If you’re pressed for time—which, let’s be real, most of us are—then composing your workout primarily of compound movements will help you get the most juice from your squeeze (okay metaphor king).

If you’d like to do both, it’s advised that you do compound exercises first in your workout, as they’re more physiologically and neurologically taxing. You can load them the heaviest, and you also want to be fresh and have good form. You can then perform single-joint exercises later in your workout when the weights are lighter, you can handle the fatigue, and you can focus on any specific muscles you especially want to target.

• For example, if you are doing an upper body day but also want to grow your chest and biceps more, your exercise order could be: bench press, pull-downs, incline machine press, seated rows, and then chest flies and bicep curls at the end.

Form and injury prevention

To be honest, good form is best learned and improved with professional supervision. A coach or trainer can help you greatly, even in just a session or two. If you don’t have access to one, however, you can teach yourself! Watch videos, read tutorials and cues, and even film yourself or look in a gym mirror to see how your form looks. We have so much technology accessible to us that can assist with developing proper form. 

Do NOT, and I repeat, do NOT load heavy until your form is good. While it’s not the end of the world, many people exercise with poor movement patterns and quickly load on weight in awkward, biomechanically disadvantaged positions that make them more prone to injury or other issues. 

• Take your time to get the form of every exercise right before loading it heavily. It might be uncomfortable at first as you have to get your body into new ranges of motion it isn’t used to. That’s okay!

• Build that mobility slowly until it is comfortable so you can then load those positions and trust that you’re strong and stable in them.

And one more thing, DON’T sacrifice range of motion. Muscles grow and function best when they are worked through their full range of motion. This means you should feel a stretch at the end range of most exercises. It’s easier to lift heavier weights when you limit your range of motion and do half-reps. But it’s not worth it. Move your body how it’s intended and save the half reps for advanced lifters working toward very specific goals with specific reasons.

The Ramp-up

Speaking of taking your time, don’t dive right in and go ham. A 4–8 week period of slowly ramping up intensity and volume is a much safer way to approach starting a resistance training program. It’s tempting to dive right in and give it all you’ve got, but that’s a recipe for injury or soreness that lasts a week and disincentivises you from returning to the gym. 

If you take a full month or two to learn movement patterns, move in full ranges of motion, and slowly load each movement, you will have built an incredible foundation in a relatively short timeframe. 

This isn’t a phase; you want to be able to lift for life. The more muscle, strength, and power you build today, the more you’ll have decades from now. And that will make an incredible difference in your quality of life. 

Consistency

Thus, the most important aspect of all of this is consistency. None of it matters much if you give up after three weeks and never touch a weight again. I’d rather you lift once or twice per week for the next 40 years than five times a week for three months and burn out. You’ll be much better off with the former. 

Take it slow, progressively overload (IMPORTANT!) over time, and enjoy the process. Make exercise part of your personal hygiene, like brushing your teeth and taking your meds. It does more to improve your healthspan and lifespan than even both of those!

That’s all for now. And that was me trying to be succinct. Thanks for sticking it out, and I hope you learned a lot! If you want to dive deeper, you can see previous editions of Move to Improve or email me for resources. There are podcast series that last for hour and hours and are better able to dive into details, specifics, and nuances beyond what I can provide in a short weekly newsletter.

✅ Take Action

Every newsletter's Take Action section will invite you to take small steps to improve your health. Recognizing that we all have different capabilities, I'll offer three different levels of action you can choose to take.

Level 1: If you’re just starting, watch some videos on proper form for the basic movements (Functional Bodybuilding has tons) and ramp up volume and intensity over 4-8 weeks.

Level 2: Try to work each of the seven movement patterns into this (and every) week.

Level 3: Incorporate both compound and isolation movements, as well as double-limb and single-limb, exercises into your routine.

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✍️ Drew's Picks:

• Honestly, don’t have anything new for ya this week! If you see a cool resource, article, tool, etc., send it my way so I can share with the class!

Stay tuned for next week! As a little preview, our Gain Train will be making a stop at Manifestation Station. Get pumped! 🚂 💪 

Keep moving,

Drew

The content in Move to Improve is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. It is always a good idea to consult with a trusted health professional before making any major lifestyle changes that could have a significant impact on your health. This is not a medical resource, and any opinions and articles are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional. Please think critically and take what I say with a grain of salt (aka don’t sue me).