When I turned 35, my focus shifted.
Up until then, most of my training revolved around performance.
Strength, output, numbers.
But after years of chronic pain, persistent low back issues, and feeling increasingly vulnerable to injury, I realized something had to change.
At 37, a debilitating back injury forced that change. I was bedridden for two months.
Physically broken, mentally slipping.
That experience forced me to re-evaluate nearly everything I thought I knew about training.
Instead of chasing performance, I committed to understanding resilience at its root. Over the past few years, including recently completing a 12-week biomechanics certification, I’ve focused on identifying what truly keeps joints healthy and movement sustainable.
That’s what I write about each week.
This week I’m sharing movement patterns that are commonly weak and undertrained, yet essential for long-term resilience.
1. Lateral Flexion
Side bending is often overlooked, but it’s a major contributor to spinal health.
The spine is designed to flex, extend, rotate, and laterally flex. Yet many conventional programs emphasize bracing and stiffness, limiting spinal motion to avoid risk.
Bracing has its place, but a resilient spine is strong and mobile in all planes.
Many people with low back pain struggle with pain-free lateral flexion. Improving controlled side bending can restore capacity and reduce unnecessary tension.
If you want a spine that lasts, you must train it in all directions.
2. Hip Abduction & Adduction
Most people understand the importance of hip internal and external rotation.
Far fewer appreciate abduction (moving the leg away from midline) and adduction (toward midline).
Weakness here shows up quickly, especially in isometric holds. And deficits in the lateral plane often contribute to groin strains, hip pain, and even low back problems.
High-value movements include:
-
Copenhagen Plank – builds adductor strength and groin resilience
-
Side Plank variations – strengthens abductors while reinforcing lateral core stability
-
Cossack Squats – integrates mobility and strength across both planes
If you want durable hips, you must own the lateral plane.
3. Spinal Rotation
It’s 2026 and many programs still center around squat, push, pull, and hinge.
Those matter, but humans are rotational beings.
Rotation is fundamental to athletic performance, yet many athletes don’t train it or are highly asymmetric. They often are awkward, out of sequence, or neurologically underdeveloped in rotating toward one or both sides.
You can improve this easily with even just 6 weeks of fundamental club swinging.
The key is to start light and progress slowly. Rotational capacity must be earned.
Once mastered, this fundamental human movement pattern will have a profound effect on your performance, resilience, and longevity.
4. Genuine Hip Extension
Many athletes believe they’re training hip extension, but often, they’re extending through the lumbar spine instead.
True hip extension means the femur moves behind the pelvis, driven primarily by the glute. When relative motion at the pelvis is limited, the lower back compensates to produce fake hip extension.
Prolonged sitting contributes, but so do breathing mechanics, posture, and how we manage gravity and ground reaction forces.
Stretching the hip flexors alone rarely solves this.
To achieve genuine hip extension, you need the bones of the hip, specifically the pelvis, femur, and sacrum to rotate on each other relatively, not as a single unit.
Instead:
-
Use positional breathing to decompress the posterior pelvis
-
Restore relative motion
-
Then pattern true hip extension with movements like the Kickstand Hinge
Strength without proper mechanics just reinforces compensation.
5. Thoracic Extension
Many athletes are limited in thoracic extension — the mid-back region between neck and lumbar spine.
This area is heavily influenced by posture, breathing patterns, and outdated cues like “pinch your shoulder blades” during every pulling movement.
If the thoracic spine can’t extend, force transfers poorly through the shoulders and lower back.
Start with breathing drills like this to decompress the upper back.
Then integrate that new motion into exercises like rotational presses and rows, and Turkish Sit-Ups, which will force you to extend through the t-spine to properly finish the movement.
Bonus: Anti-Flexion
Most core training emphasizes flexion, extension, and anti-rotation.
But anti-flexion, or resisting being pulled into a rounded position, is crucial in grappling.
Think about guard passing: someone tries to pull your knees and elbows apart. Your ability to resist that separation is anti-flexion strength.
This requires not just the rectus abdominis, but also the obliques and transverse abdominis working together.
One of my favorite tools for training this quality is the heavy club pullover.
Final Thoughts
If you want long-term resilience, you must train the movements most people ignore.
Not just strength, not just mobility, but multi-planar, integrated capacity.`
Lateral flexion. Adduction and abduction. Rotation. True hip extension. Thoracic extension. Anti-flexion.
Ask yourself, which ones of these am I missing?
Then get to work because the weak link breaks the chain.
WHENEVER YOU’RE READY, THERE ARE 3 WAYS I CAN HELP YOU:
1. Start improving your BJJ durability and performance with Foundations of Rotational Strength.
2. Fortify your body for BJJ with this free course on BJJ Resilience.
3. Join the free weekly newsletter here.
4. Apply for personal online coaching here.
