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Frequently Asked Questions
What is MVMNT?
MVMNT is a core strength and conditioning program. We have designed our program to elicit as broad an adaptational response as possible. MVMNT is not a specialized fitness program but a deliberate attempt to optimize physical competence in each of ten recognized fitness domains. They are Cardiovascular and Respiratory endurance, Stamina, Strength, Flexibility, Power, Speed, Coordination, Agility, Balance, and Accuracy.
Is MVMNT effective?
In gyms and health clubs throughout the world the typical workout consists of isolation movements and extended aerobic sessions. The fitness community from trainers to blogs has the exercising public believing that lateral raises, curls, leg extensions, sit-ups and the like combined with 20-40 minute stints on the stationary bike or treadmill are going to lead to some kind of great fitness. Well, at The Movement Lab we work exclusively with compound movements and shorter high intensity cardiovascular sessions. For every extended workouts our athletes will do five or six at short workouts. Why? Because compound or functional movements and high intensity or anaerobic cardio is radically more effective at eliciting nearly any desired fitness result. Startlingly, this is not a matter of opinion but solid irrefutable scientific fact.
Is MVMNT for me?
Absolutely! Your needs and the Olympic athlete’s differ by degree not kind. Increased power, strength, cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, flexibility, stamina, coordination, agility, balance, and coordination are each important to the world’s best athletes and to our grandparents. The amazing truth is that the very same methods that elicit optimal response in the Olympic or professional athlete will optimize the same response in the elderly. Of course, we can’t load your grandmother with the same squatting weight that we’d assign an Olympic runner, but they both need to squat. In fact, squatting is essential to maintaining functional independence and improving fitness. Squatting is just one example of a movement that is universally valuable and essential yet rarely taught to any but the most advanced of athletes. This is a tragedy. Through thorough coaching and incremental load assignment MVMNT has been able to teach anyone who can care for themselves to perform safely and with maximum efficacy the same movements typically utilized by professional coaches in elite and exclusive environments.
What if I don’t want to be an athlete;
I just want to be healthy?
You’re in luck. We hear this often, but the truth is that fitness, wellness, and pathology (sickness) are measures of the same entity, your health. There are a multitude of measurable parameters that can be ordered from sick (pathological) to well (normal) to fit (better than normal). These include but are not limited to blood pressure, cholesterol, heart rate, body fat, muscle mass, flexibility, and strength. It seems as though all of the body functions that can go awry have states that are pathological, normal, and exceptional and
that elite athletes typically show these parameters in the exceptional range. The Movement Lab view is that fitness and health are the same thing.
What is the MVMNT Method?
The CrossFit method is to establish a hierarchy of effort
and concern that builds as follows:
Diet - lays the molecular foundations for fitness and health.
Metabolic Conditioning - builds capacity in each of three
metabolic pathways, beginning with aerobic, thenlactic acid, and then phosphocreatine pathways.
Gymnastics - establishes functional capacity for body control and range of motion.
Weightlifting and throwing - develop ability to control external objects and produce power.
Sport - applies fitness in competitive atmosphere with more randomized movements and skill mastery.
What are Some Examples of MVMNT Exercises?
Biking, running, and rowing in an endless variety of drills. The clean&jerk, snatch, squat, deadlift, push-press, bench-press, and power-clean. Jumping, medicine ball throws and catches, pull-ups, dips, push-ups, handstands, presses to handstand, pirouettes, kips, cartwheels, muscle-ups, sit-ups, scales, and holds. We make regular use of bikes, the track, rowing shells and ergometers, Olympic weight sets, rings, parallel bars, free exercise mat, horizontal bar, plyometrics boxes, medicine balls, and jump rope. There isn’t a strength and conditioning program anywhere that works with a greater diversity of tools, modalities, and drills.
What if I don’t have time for all of this?
It is a common sentiment to feel that because of the obligations of career and family that you don’t have the time to become as fit as you might like. Here’s the good news: world class, age group strength and conditioning is obtainable through an hour a day six days per week of training. It turns out that the intensity of training that optimizes physical conditioning is not sustainable past
forty-five minutes to an hour. Athletes that train for hours a day are developing skill or training for sports that include adaptations inconsistent with elite strength and conditioning. Past one hour, more is not better!
