How to Get Started With Movement-Based Strength Training

Here’s a quick recap from the previous article in this series:
Traditional, or bodybuilding-style, strength training programs focus more on isolating specific muscles to increase the muscle’s strength and size. Functional, or movement-based, strength training focuses on movement patterns like squatting, crawling, and pulling instead of specific muscles. It puts the focus on full-body strength and strengthening all the ways your body moves during normal daily tasks, hobbies, and more.

Adding Movement to Your Workouts

When I first start with a client or I’m running Full-Color Foundations, the focus is on the basic functional exercises. Before you start adding more movement, you need a solid grasp of those basic movements your body can do and how to do them safely.

Once you have those basics down, it’s time to start adding movement! The way I do this is by introducing the planes of motion, which describe how your body moves in space. There are three main ones:

1. The Sagittal Plane
2. The Frontal Plane
3. The Transverse Plane

There are many variations of the basic exercises that use these planes of motion, plus each plane has some of their own specific exercises!

Once exercises from each plane of motion are introduced, then we can roll right into adding more multiplanar exercises- ones that use more than one plane to complete. As your body gets stronger, we start pairing the basic exercises (so you can get hella strong) with the more complex movement-strength exercises (so you can get stronger in allll the directions) for holistic, real-life strength.

I know it sounds like a lot when I write it out in a small paragraph, but the outcome of this is being able to bend, crawl, lift, and twist with more confidence because you know your body will support you in all the weird ways your body wants to move. And as a benefit, you’re more likely to avoid injuries by infusing your workouts with movement!

If you’ve got the basics down and you’re looking for the next step, here’s a breakdown of the planes of motion:

The Sagittal Plane

This plane divides your body into left and right halves. Any time you (or a part of your body) is moving forward or back, you’re moving along the sagittal plane. Many of the common exercises, the ones that come to mind when you think of strength training, happen in the sagittal plane. Moving in the sagittal plane is the most stable and balanced for lifting weights.

Because most of the common exercises fall into this category, most of the workout plans you’ll find (whether they’re traditional or functional training) will be filled with sagittal plane exercises. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing- these exercises are super important to train! But if you’re looking for that holistic, real-life strength, you’ll want to prioritize workout programs that also include exercises in the other two planes of motion and multiplanar exercises.

Examples of sagittal plane exercises:

• All of the basic strength exercises: squats, deadlifts, presses, rows
• Push ups
• Lunges (static, forward, and reverse)
• Bicep curls
• Calf raises

Real-life examples of sagittal plane movement:

• Walking and jogging
• Bending forward to grab something
• Going up stairs
• Jumping

The Frontal Plane

This plane divides your body into front and back. Any time you move sideways, or laterally, you’re moving along the frontal plane. One of the biggest benefits of adding frontal plane movement to your workouts is joint stability. Moving sideways or putting lateral pressure on joints is a common ways people get injured, so training in this plane helps prevent those injuries from happening! These exercises aim to keep your joints strong, even when you’re moving in ways you usually don’t.

Examples of frontal plane exercises:

• Lateral (side) lunges
• Side planks
• Lateral raises
• Side stepping and shuffling
• Jumping jacks

Real-life examples of frontal plane movement:

• Reaching out to the side to grab something
• Walking around something or someone on the sidewalk
• Cartwheels
• Bending to the side

The Transverse Plane

This plane divides your body into top and bottom. Any time you rotate or bring your arms and legs around you, you’re moving in the transverse plane. Just like with the frontal plane, transverse plane exercises can help a lot with joint strength and stability. You likely have a time you can think back to when you twisted unexpectedly and tweaked something in your knee, lower back, or shoulder.

When you move in the transverse plane by twisting your torso, you’re giving your core a huge dose of the movement it needs to get stronger! A strong core is essential for all types of movement and keeping your body stable.

Examples of transverse plane exercises:

• Russian twists
• Chops
• Rotational ball throws
• Flys and reverse flys

Real-life examples of transverse plane movement:

• Opening your arms for a hug
• Twisting to reach something
• Turning around to walk the other way
• Swinging a bat or golf club
• Shaking your head “no”

One Exercise, Three Planes:

Like I talked about above, once my clients are familiar with the basic exercises (typically sagittal plane), I add variations to those exercises using the frontal and transverse planes of motion. Although there are many, here are two examples of variations that I will use to make sure my clients are getting stronger in all directions:

Example 1: Hop to Balance

I love hop-to-balance exercises; they’re great for building stability and balance!

Example 2: Kettlebell Swing

Kettlebell swings are one of my favorite exercises. It’s a great exercise to try once you’ve mastered a kettlebell deadlift that helps you strengthen and produce power through your glutes and hips. There are many different variations of a kettlebell swings

Multiplanar Exercises

Many exercises don’t fit into neat categories. Like I talked about above, our bodies move in many different ways, so sometimes the planes get mixed together. When an exercise crosses into more than one plane of motion, it’s called a multiplanar exercise. You can search for specific multiplanar exercises, but you can also add more movement to an existing exercise.

Examples of multiplanar exercises:

• Lunges with added upper body turn to the side- adding transverse movement to a usually sagittal plane lunge
• Turkish get ups – a ground-to-standing exercise that moves uses all three planes of motion
• Skaters with a twist – adding transverse movement to a usually frontal plane exercise

Real-life examples of multiplanar movement:

• Picking something heavy or oddly-shaped like your dog or a piece of furniture
• Vacuuming or sweeping a room and reaching under things
• Playing on the playground with your kids
• Active hobbies like team sports, rock climbing, or gardening

Moral of the story: most of the ways you move during your day are going to be multiplanar! If you tried to separate out each plane of motion, you’d look a little like a robot.

The Freedom of Motion Principle

When it comes to adding more movement into your workouts, understanding the Freedom of Motion Principle is important. This principle states that as the load (weight) goes up, the freedom of movement goes down. As the load goes down, you have more freedom to move.

More Movement = Less Weight

More Weight = Less Movement

I talked earlier about how sagittal plane exercises like squats and deadlifts are very stable- that’s why you see people do those exercises with hundreds of pounds. But once you start adding in different planes of motion, you’re putting your body in a less stable position, so it won’t be able to handle as much weight. If you try to do a multiplanar exercise with the same weight you’d use for a more stable, sagittal plane exercise, you risk injury.

How this applies to your workouts: keep in mind that if you’re doing exercises in different planes of motion, you’ll probably have to switch weights often and experiment with what feels right. If you want to test how much you can lift and try to push your limits, you’ll need to do that with the stable, sagittal plane exercises.

Using both in your workouts is important! You need those heavier, stable exercises to continue getting stronger, and your body also needs those movement exercises for well-rounded strength in all directions.

Add Movement-Based Strength Training to Your Workouts

Method 1: Basic + Movement Strength Superset

My favorite way to add more movement-based exercises into my workouts is to pair them with one of the basic, sagittal plane exercises. A superset is a pair of two exercises done together in a workout, which is a format that works well for this. I do 3-5 sets of these two exercises, resting after completing the pair. By pairing the basic and the movement exercises, I give my body the strength it needs from lifting heavier weights in a stable position and the movement benefits of using all three planes of motion.

Examples:

• bent over rows + lawnmower rows
  (sagittal plane + transverse plane exercises that strengthen the back)
• goblet squats + lateral step ups
  (sagittal plane + frontal plane exercises that strengthen legs)
• floor presses + side presses
  (sagittal plane + frontal plane exercises that strengthen shoulders and chest)
• dead bugs + Russian twists
  (sagittal plane + frontal plane exercises that strengthen the core)

Method 2: Movement Strength Finisher

Because movement-based exercises don’t use as much (or any) additional weight, they are a great option for the end of a workout. You’ve already lifted the heavier weights, and now you can get a dose of lighter-weight movement before cooling down.

The end of a workout is where I like to place multiplanar exercises like Turkish get ups or exercises that get my heart rate up like kettlebell swing variations. You can get creative and try different exercises at the end of your workout to see how they feel!

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The whole movement-based strength deal might seem pretty complicated, but it all starts with you adding one movement-based exercise into your workouts. You don’t have to go all in and change your whole plan, you just need a little bit! Choose one of the exercises linked in this article and try it out sometime this week.

Movement-based strength training is one of my specialties, and I’d love to help you with it! I am an Applied Human Health and Performance Specialist, certified by the Institute of Motion. If you can guess from their name, they’re all about helping people move their best. The certification I completed focuses on adding movement strength exercises into workouts.

My 12-week beyond-the-basics group program, Colorful Strength, is based on this! You’ll learn how to take your basic strength exercises and move them in all directions, use new equipment with confidence, and train for different goals like power, endurance, and stability alongside getting hella strong. You’ll build the kind of strength routine that lasts, one you feel excited to stick with month after month. With every rep, you’ll feel stronger in the moments that matter.

Learn more about Colorful Strength here.