It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, so a video of free-flowing movement ( what it can and should be) may be worth 10,000 words.

That could be truth or extrapolated mathematics.

I won’t have much commentary on the video below from Diewey Nielson.

All that I will add is that this is what my warm-ups have evolved into.  Sure, I still recommend activating known weak areas and also mobilizing known restricted areas, but ground based movement like this may do more for re-educating our bodies on what baby-like movement feels like.

I look at ground based movements like this almost as a dynamic yoga, with far more transfer into your everyday movement.

Some years back, I was blown away by how challenging these movements really are.  5-10 minutes of this and you’re sore in weird places in the days following.  After viewing myself on video playback, I also realized that what my mind thought I was doing, was not what my body was doing.  I looked stiff, out of sequence and in some instances, un-athletic.

For any of you that thinks this type of training is “soft” or “un-extreme”, I would tell you that I used to feel the same way.  I used to think that workouts meant big weights, iron, chalk and balls to the wall effort.

I still believe that it is important to pick up heavy things, but I have a distaste in my mouth for the extreme these days.  A lot of us should be starting from ground zero with moves shown in the video shown below, not huffing and puffing over a loaded barbell or swinging like a chimp from a pull up bar.

I suggest that all of you learn a few of these moves and find a way to work them into your warm-ups and your workouts.

 

Cheers to the ground based flow…

Kyle