Part 2 of 3

Rethinking Movement

This is your reference for today's session — the full map of nine movement patterns, and a short self-assessment for the three we are covering today.

Last time — Part 1

The reframe, warm-ups, and the first three patterns: Squat, Horizontal Pull and Vertical Push.

Rethinking movement

Today is about seeing strength training as more than just fitness or bodybuilding. It's about approaching strength training as movement under enough load to build the physical capacity that can support the demands of your life and work, not just survive them.

Most of the people I work with don't lack ability, motivation, or even information. These sessions are about synthesising the most useful and relevant information out there into a framework that respects our unique abilities while always being more dependable than motivation.

The framework lets us put data into a system that gives us useful signals back — so we can build on where we are, course-correcting as we go rather than reaching blindly and hoping for the best.

How today works
  1. Recapping the movement reframe
  2. The next three movement patterns — Hinge, Horizontal Push, Vertical Pull
  3. Introducing isolation exercises at the end of sessions
The framework
The nine movement patterns
Many people are only confident with two or three of these, while their life demands capacity in all of them. At the other extreme, traditional training that works body-part by body-part rather than by movement pattern can quickly become overwhelming — endless lists of exercises to choose from. Almost all of those exercises fall into the map below: a complete but simple picture of how the body moves under load. The exception is isolation, single-joint movements, which we introduce today. The three marked Today are the ones we're covering in this session.
1
Squat
The fundamental sit-to-stand pattern. The foundation of lower-body strength and joint health — and one of the most loaded patterns in daily life, whether or not you realise it.
2
Horizontal Pull
Pulling toward the body — rows and their variations. Underused rather than overworked: most people simply lack the strength to draw the shoulder blades back and control them well. Restoring that mobility and strength builds confidence, and balances the stronger pushing muscles.
3
Vertical Push
Pressing overhead. Overhead strength, and the shoulder mobility it depends on, are among the first things to fade through underuse — rarely trained, and often unnoticed as absent until reaching or lifting overhead feels harder than it should.
4
Hinge Today
Loading and extending at the hip. The pattern behind picking things up from the floor, and the cornerstone of posterior chain strength.
5
Horizontal Push Today
Pressing away from the body — press-ups, dumbbell and barbell presses, dips and their variations. The chest, shoulder and triceps strength most people have some exposure to, though rarely trained with structure.
6
Vertical Pull Today
Pulling from overhead — pull-ups, pulldowns and their progressions. Among the most neglected patterns, and one of the most satisfying to build: few things show real strength gain as plainly as a first full pull-up.
7
Lunge
Single-leg, one side at a time. The lunge adds lower-body volume and reaches ranges and angles the squat and hinge don't — including moving sideways, as in a lateral lunge.
8
Rotation
Turning through the trunk, and resisting turning under load. Rotation is simply another direction to get strong in — one most training ignores entirely.
9
Carry
Moving while loaded. Carrying loads the body in a way the other patterns don't — building grip and whole-body strength, and asking you to control weight that shifts and pulls unpredictably as you move. A simple pattern that reaches parts of the body the others can leave behind.
Beyond the patterns
Adding isolation work
The nine movement patterns give the highest return on time and energy spent by using multiple joints to move under load. However, they can be very fatiguing and may not be specific enough for the finer details relevant to our unique goals. Isolation — single-joint — exercises can be added at the end of a session once the main patterns are done. Pairing them as supersets saves time but is not essential, and we keep them balanced: a knee extension for every knee flexion, so nothing is built at the expense of its opposite.
Self-assessment
Your movement map
Fill in the Before row now. Come back to the After row at the end of the session.
Hinge
Before
After
Horizontal Push
Before
After
Vertical Pull
Before
After

Next session. Part 3 completes the framework with the Lunge, Rotation and Carry, along with alternatives and further personalisation.

B.BalancedOS
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We're building an app that takes the same method from today and puts it into a structure you can use independently — your movement patterns, your progressions, tracked over time. We're looking for our first test users, and we'd like to offer a free profile to everyone in today's session.
Free · Beta access
What's next
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In the meantime, the full nine patterns above are yours to refer back to.