Good morning, friends!

(Psst – there are only three spots left in my upcoming January Results online boot camp! I am SO excited to start on January 4th, and if you’re motivated to set and tackle some fitness and health goals, I’d love to work with you in it. If you’d like more info to see if it’d be a good fit for you, shoot me an email: yourtrainerpaige@gmail.com)

I hope you had a lovely Christmas and weekend. We spent Christmas at home in Colorado, which ended up being SO much fun. I actually scheduled my regular Thursday morning clients on Christmas Eve, and then got in a great workout with my friend and training partner, in which we spent some time doing chin ups and pistol squats!

Guys! I’m getting SO much better at pistol squats. I even plan to practice them when I’m in FL- more on that in a minute.

The night of Christmas Eve, Shane and I hosted a party for our framily – our friends that are now family – and who also don’t have any family here in Colorado. And it was such a blast. There was ample food, drinks, and laughs, and we spent the night playing games and laughing.

Then on Christmas Day, Shane and I stayed in our jammies all day, ate leftovers, drank a bloody mary, and played Mortal Kombat all day. It was so nice to be home in our new house this Christmas.

And now I’m here in Florida with my family!

It’s been in the 80’s, and it looks like it’s going to stay that way for a few days, so I’m hoping to soak up some beach time. And I was also able to do some major program writing for clients on the 3.75 hour flight down.

Speaking of writing training programs, today I want to touch on training the movement vs. training the muscle.

Training the Movement vs. Training the Muscle

Squat

Hinge

Push

Pull

Rotate

These are the basic movements of the human body. We squat to lift something up in the air, hinge to pick something up off of the ground, push things away from us, and pull things toward us – or ourselves toward something. We rotate – or resist rotation with our core when twisting or resisting twist while doing a different movement.

Naturally, it makes sense to train these movements in the gym. In fact, training the movement is my preferred method (but not always what I do) of building training plans.

The majority of my clients have goals to gain strength, lose body fat, and increase or maintain lean muscle mass. While tempo, rest, volume, load, and several other factors all come into play in designing a program, using these foundational movements – and their varieties (horizontal pull vs. vertical pull, single arm pull vs. bilateral pull, etc.) is a great way to hit every single muscle group – and focus on the main goals at hand.

Not only does this allow us to focus on strength gain and fat loss, but it also sets us up to move, jump, play, and live in the way we’re supposed to. As long as the proper ratio is included in each workout, we’re setting ourselves up for a comprehensive, balanced plan.

For example, right now, I have a squat day, a deadlift day (hinge,) and a pull up day. We build the workouts around those movements, and then plan around those workouts.

Now, you’ve likely heard others who have programs with workouts like “arm day,” “leg day,” “shoulder day,” etc. While this is NOT my preferred method of training design, there is a time and place for this type of training. (Although, I do write “upper body days” and “lower body days” in certain circumstances.)

For instance, if you’re a body builder or bikini competitor, you’re likely trying to build a serious amount of muscle mass – and you likely have a very strict and regimented diet that involves meticulous counting of macronutrients or calories. In this instance, training the muscle is typically preferred.

As I mentioned before, most (not all, but most) of my clients come to me wanting to lose body fat, gain strength, and integrate a training and nutrition plan into their lifestyle. Most of them aren’t looking to add inches to their biceps or quads. (NOT judging here if that’s your thing – and if it is, we’ll tackle it.)

Now, while I prefer to write a train-the-movement-style training plan, I often also write hybrid plans. Quite a few of the women I work with are also interested in gaining muscle definition – and some size – in their glutes. In fact, at the risk of tooting my own horn, I have helped many a client build some serious glutes when they thought having a booty wasn’t in their dna. Other clients want more defined shoulders, so we’ll do a hybrid approach for that.

Moral of the story: make sure you know what your goals are, and what the best approach is for going about those goals, and what all needs to be entailed before starting a program. I’ve had many women who come to me after doing a cookie cutter training program and not getting results. It’s not necessarily because the program weren’t good; they just weren’t good for their goals and lifestyle.