Fitness fads come and go, but one thing is constant. “Hard work is essential,” says Movement Expert Matt Waterton. But that doesn’t mean we have to deplete ourselves every single time we train.
The HIIT phenomenon often suggests this is the only training method of any benefit, the importance of movement quality and skill based exercise is often overlooked.
When it comes to comparing intensity workouts (F45, HIIT, Bootcamps) and Movement integrity workouts (Animal flow, yoga, Movnat, Vipr) It’s important to realise that both styles have important health benefits.
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Intensity
High Intensity training is often measured by time and load. If you’ve ever stopped by an F45 class or cross-fit class, you will notice classes are usually structured by a time limit (i.e. complete as many squats as possible in a 45 second time frame) or by set reps (complete 20 squats before moving on to the next exercise, but move as quickly as possible).
For some time, high intensity interval training has been highly regarded as the best way to lose fat and tone your body. But are there limits to the benefits of high intensity training? Is training at high intensity every session actually good for your body?
Is it providing a good balanced approach, or is it actually de-conditioning you and running your body down? Sometimes over focusing on burning calories can punish your body and have a reverse effect on your overall health and well being. Matt Waterton shares his major concerns below:
1. Many people are now overtraining HIIT sessions which can lead to reduced workout efficiency and excessive fatigue. When the body is constantly fatigued, the nervous system becomes sluggish and struggles to co-ordinate and maintain form in more complex movement patterns and exercises. This is when injuries can occur.
2. Take time to seek a fitness professional’s advice in a one on one setting, for more complex movement patterns and exercises. Remember that complex exercises like KB swings, deadlifts, olympic lifts etc are all skill based exercises. It takes time to learn and develop those skills, a HIIT circuit class at your gym, with 30 participants and 1 instructor is not the best place to learn.
3. Warm up properly and include movement preparation drills. Any workout, especially high intensity intervals, need a thorough warm up process that includes a steady progression of dynamic movements. Pay particular attention to mobilising hips, thoracic spine and shoulders.
4. HIIT often neglects the importance of eccentric loading and controlling your bodyweight or external resistance against gravity. For functional strength this is an important piece of the puzzle so it has to be added it in somewhere.
5. If you consistently train HIIT every day for weeks on end, you are going to burnout at some point. To avoid this add in deload days or even weeks, where you drop the training intensity level. You can achieve this by changing training style, session pace, rest periods, exercises, etc.
Integrity
Training styles like Yoga, Animal flow, Movnat, Gymnastics, Vipr classes, etc are all examples of movement integrity workouts.
The goal for each of these styles is to teach the body movement patterns and skill based exercises, that enhance the working relationship between the central nervous system and the rest of the body. There is a wide range of benefits including improving coordination, balance, strength, mobility and endurance.
We are seeing a rise in popularity of these movement based classes, there is a rapidly evolving community of experienced professionals that now consider themselves movement coaches rather than personal trainers.
Movement Integrity training is a slower pace to start with, but it is critical to establish a strong foundation before moving on to higher intensity workouts. For athletes looking to move toward integrity-based movements, Matt shares his best tips for getting started:
1. A great starting place for anyone looking to take a more holistic approach to movement, is to understand their own limitations with a functional movement assessment. It involves a full evaluation of your mobility, consideration of previous injuries and evaluating any structural and muscular imbalances you may have.
2. That information can then be used to build a movement based training program to address injuries, imbalances and areas of weakness, while simultaneously working toward your overall fitness goals.
3. We are only as strong as our weakest link, so don’t create a program that only plays to your strengths or “favourite side” if you are weaker in a certain pattern or on one side over the other, then work the weaker pattern/side more, don’t feed the imbalance.
Matt’s ‘Strength in Motion’ philosophy addresses four important categories:
1. Movement. What are your movement restrictions and what is causing them? How well do you move through three planes of motion?
2. Alignment, how is your posture both statically and throughout movement? How well can you maintain postural integrity in positions of weakness?
3. Technique, perfect practise makes perfect, every time you train its an opportunity to teach your body good habits, and new challenging movement patterns. As exercise form improves, so can load.
4. Strength & Conditioning. Now that your foundation is set due to good movement alignment/stability and technique, you can now push yourself to develop strength, speed, power, endurance and agility, challenging yourself in 3 planes of motion.
