Essential Exercises: Introduction

There are some exercises that just no human should ignore...

From the most elite athletes to the most deconditioned elderly women, all humans possess basic capabilities ingrained in their anatomy. We do not have arms and legs so that we can sit at a computer all day and slide around a piece of plastic. Unfortunately, this is the way many people today choose to utilize their bodily functions. Slowly but surely people all over the world are trading in their natural born right to run, jump, lift, throw, and climb for the opportunity to lug around 100 excess pounds of body fat, weaken their bones and joints, clog their arteries, and end up in a wheelchair for the last 20 years of their life. Excluding unavoidable circumstances such as deformity, disease, and various medical conditions; these unfortunate outcomes of a sedentary lifestyle are 100% avoidable for the average person. The human body was designed to carry out the functions that were important for early man to survive, and for the most part, the body hasn't changed. An entire training method, Methode Naturelle, was conceived based on this principle that all humans possess natural abilities that haven't changed since early man. Check out this video displaying some of these movements performed by today's leader of the method, Erwan Le Corre:

Erwan shows us what the human body is meant to do. Erwan also shows us abilities that most people lose after childhood. And most importantly, Erwan shows us the abilities that we should all strive to maintain and get back if we have already lost them.

In a following series of articles titled Essential Exercises I am going to discuss exercises that reflect basic human function and that no human, athlete or average person, should train without.

Happy training,
Chris Moran. CSCS.