How to design your movement practice. FSM Method. ELD 45.

ELD 45. How to Programme & Movement Selection: Desired Adaptations. Flow, Strength, Mobility.

So by now there’s a chance that if your reading this you’ve seen some of the “random” movements incorporated into my training. It would be easy to think its odd or ask the question “what muscle does that even work?” Which is exactly how I thought during my bodybuilding days and still has implications on my training selection, but it’s a background thought.

The lense that I now encourage my clients and myself to view movement selection through is: What adaptations should I aim to provide my body with?

From here we can dissect our current situation and design a training programme that uses the Flow, Strength, Mobility (FSM) method for all round athleticism, while also gaining strength, muscle and long term health benefits.

Our bodies don’t fall apart as much as we’ve been taught. Age = decreased movement diversity = physical degradation. “It’s all downhill from 30.” Fuck right off.

So what is FSM?

• If our goal is to play, increase / maintain coordination, rhythm, all round athleticism and access to the “flow state”, it falls into the “Flow” category.

• If our goal is to gain strength and muscle in general or in a specific movement (eg. Pull Up), it falls under the “Strength” category.

• If our goal is to decrease pain, increase ranges of motion, increase flexibility and create long term joint, muscle, tendon and body health via creating strength and resilience in injury typical movements, It falls into the “Mobility” category. If your looking for a well rounded movement practice I do offer coaching in person and online that dive deeper into these concepts.
  

Through understanding these concepts to categories movement we can ask ourselves what adaptations we desire / want to prioritise. The key element to each one is the compounding effect of time. The more time we spend in each category, the more fruits we will harvest.

The best way to ensure that we spend time in each of the categories each day / session.

So the session may look like:

Flow - 10-30 as the warm up.

Strength - 20-60 as the focal point of the session.

Mobility - 10-30 as the addressing of individual pain points.

Creating a movement / training session that incorporates all 3 elements creates a long term compounding positive impact on our body without sacrificing health and longevity. I say this as when I purely focused on bodybuilding and strength it lead to many areas of discomfort and underlying issues.

Designing a week of training incorporating all 3 elements could look many ways. With Strength being the most taxing and requires more rest / recovery time between sessions of similar movements.

Understanding that the concepts of Flow and Mobility can be utilised each and every day and require minimal rest / recovery time (especially flow). Which also changes the interpretation of a “rest” day. 20 minutes of Flow is in fact more beneficial to recovery than taking a day “off”.

Now to unpack specific movement selection, we can make a list following these prompts.

• Movements we want to unlock: … eg. Handstand, Push Ups, Pull Ups.

• Areas of our body that hurt and limit our day to day experience, previous injuries: … eg. Lower Back, Left Wrist.

Example of programming:

I want to unlock the handstand.

I want to have less lower back pain.

I want less wrist pain.

Day programme:

1. Flow: 10 minutes of rope flow warming up the body and priming us for movements to come, mind body connection.

2. Mobility: 5 minutes of specific wrist mobility and preparation (addressing wrist injury and handstand prep)

3. Mobility: Core activation and preparation for handstands. eg. Active Passive Hanging.

4. Strength: 4 strength based movements that will lead to increased strength in handstand and build towards unlocking the movement. eg. HS wall hold. Hollow body hold. Plate Press. Protraction / Retraction.

5. Mobility/Flow: Playful warm down, eg. dancing, rope flow, juggling. 1-3 movements that address my specific pain points or aid the goal of handstands.

Incorporating these 3 movement aspects we create a playful, goal orientated energising movement practice that YES builds muscle and strength, but holds health and longevity at the heart.

How do we want to adapt? Really diving into this, do we want a still uncoordinated body? Or do we want to maintain our athleticism and coordination? Do we want to be able to do more with our life? Or slowly decrease our capabilities?

Our training and movement selection directly impacts these questions.

If you’re keen for more specific information I offer in person and online coaching, ready to level up? DM me to learn more.

Appreciate your time and hope you learned something,

Much love,

-Hunter