How to START Movement Training

April 23, 2017 by VAHVA Fitness

Tips and advice on how to start training movement and mix everything together (strength training, mobility, movement and so on).

Movement training is a massive umbrella for all human movement. Everything is movement. Even a bicep curl is movement (elbow flexion).

Movement training is an unlimited approach to fitness: do what you want to do with everything in your arsenal. It's about not limiting yourself with arbitrary niches and not having a restricting approach to expressing your body.

Just because it's not typical for bodybuilders to do gymnastics, it doesn't mean gymnastics can't be useful for the development of a bodybuilder.

Different movement arts such as dance, martial arts, gymnastics, acrobatics, strength sports, athletics and general fitness all have something unique and useful to teach.

Movement training is about realizing that you can take useful and fun elements from everywhere and fit them into your training. This way the results can also be very interesting since you aren't limited by the exercise repertoire of your "sport". 

It's like Bruce Lee said: “Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own”.

Movement training is about doing what you want to do without having any limitations or restrictions in your approach.

For example, mobility training is necessary for long term success: you need mobility training to keep your muscles healthy, to maintain structural balance and to develop movement quality. If you want to reach your full potential, mobility training shouldn't be disregarded. 

You want to be functional and athletic? Big full body movements you see in sports, dance and martial arts develop spatial awareness, coordination, agility and body control better than anything. 

Many calisthenics and gymnastics exercises such as different pull up variations are some of the best ways to train the upper body.

Squats are an amazing lower body exercise for strength and power. Bodybuilding exercises like tricep extensions make sure your elbows stay strong and healthy.

How to Mix it All Together?

We believe that versatile training done right without neglecting any area of the body produces the best results. It's the approach that produces the best well-rounded results in strength, size, mobility and athleticism. 

To get started, you should begin from the easiest movements and gradually progress to harder ones. Easier movements are the bear walk, crab walk and different monkey walks. Although they are "easy", no one is ever too good to do them (professional level athletes still do bear walks).

In learning and succeeding with different movements, your strength and mobility play a major role in how well you will progress and how safely your joints (such as the wrists) can handle the movements.

For this purpose, you should at minimum have big compound exercises such as the push up, pull up and squats to develop the body.

How much and how often depends on your level of fitness and goals, but generally 3-6 times per week of strength training and movement training produces good results. In fitness, the more smart work you put in, the better results you will get.

Movement is such a big picture that it can be hard to mix everything together, especially since lots of content is scattered all around the web. This website and YouTube channel are full of free content, but it can be hard to compile it all together.

This is the reason why Movement 20XX was born (a lot of people were asking for advice regarding how to start movement training and mix everything together). 

Movement 20XX is our online course that has everything in one complete package. It has 40+ movements from animal movements, martial arts, dance and sports, but also very thorough strength & mobility workouts to ensure you develop a strong body and maintain good structural balance.

Strength and mobility work of Movement 20XX consists of different types of pressing exercises, pulling exercises and squats. There are also tons of mobility drills paired with the exercises. M-20XX even has tutorials and mobility for many impressive static strength skills.

Movement 20XX is the most well-rounded program out there combining both movement and strength training together. All the exercises are also designed to target a certain part of the body so that no area is neglected. There is also lots of unique content.

Train hard, stay safe.



samuli jyrkinen

About the author 

Samuli Jyrkinen

Samuli is the ninja behind the scenes (photography, videography, websites, program platforms and more). He has been training religiously for over a decade and has a firm grasp of physical and mental fitness. You will find our story here.

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  • Hi. It’s a silly question of course, but is it possible to have a body like the guys on the videos using this excersising techniq? I’m quite sporty already, but I want to look like the athlete and be flexible with a healthy joints.
    Cheers, Darius

    • Hi, it’s my body and the course has the exercises and mobility drills I have used to get to this point. You should improve your body composition, strength and mobility for sure. Training is only one of the factors of how you will look, but a very big one. Other factors include your diet, hard work, genetics and consistency.

  • Hi.
    I have been watching a few of your YouTube clips and am really very interested in using these movements to become more flexible and strong. I am not comfortable in doing these without a trainer/mentor to guide me through and help manually adjust the movements.
    Do you know of anyone who trains using these movements based in New Zealand? If you did it would be great if you could get me in touch.
    Love your work.
    Rusty

    • Hi Rusty. I don’t really know anyone from NZ. After getting an actual trainer, I would say Movement 20XX is the next best option (it has tutorial videos, structure and schedule)

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