If you ask most trainers what are the primary human movements, they’ll tell you its squat, push, pull, hinge, and carry.
I used to believe that too.
And I put these movements first and foremost in my training for years.
Until I was riddled with pain and nearly forced to quit my passion; jiu jitsu.
It wasn’t until I discovered that the human body was designed to rotate, and that its main function is to move forward through space by walking and running.
Once I started prioritizing the actual primary human movement patterns of walking, running, and throwing, my pain subsided, my physique and posture improved, and my performance on the mat returned to levels I felt in my early 20s.
With the results so obvious and profound, I began to explore these patterns more deeply, and to study our evolutionary needs as a species.
One of my absolute favorite books, Sapiens, explains how humans made a pivotal choice when we stood up on two legs.
It enabled us to see further, allowing us to see food and potential threats at greater distances, as well as to communicate with other sapiens further away.
Ultimately, this allowed for the survival of our species, but we also sacrificed some things, mainly the wide birth canal that primates on four legs posses.
A wider birth canal lets the baby develop for longer within the womb and still pass with relative ease. These babies come into the world much more able to survive without needing prolonged nurturing from the mother, like human babies do.
So it was a trade off. Stand and see, or stay on all fours and have an easier birthing process. Nature made the choice for us.
With walking upright as our new means of locomotion, our bodies adapted, including our muscles, tissues, bones, and joints.
I now train with a focus on improving these natural adaptations.
However, there was one thing we continued to share with many primates. It was how we slept, rested, and socialized – on the ground.
For hundreds of thousands of years, humans returned to the ground each day. There were no chairs. There were no beds.
Osteopath and author, Philip Beach, talks about the primal archetypal resting postures and how they naturally tune the body, resetting it for mobility, suppleness, and longevity.
Very few of us today in western society return to the ground to rest.
The archetypal postures are a topic I’ll save for another day, but the shin box is one of them that delivers significant benefits for all humans, especially grapplers.
However, the one thing you have to do every time you get on the ground is to eventually GET UP.
Even to this day, if you sleep in a bed, you have to get up.
That’s why I call the Get Up the overlooked primary human movement.
We have been forced to do it for the entire length of our species’ history, and continue to do it daily.
It’s essential to our survival.
Getting up is also programed from birth.
If you look at how babies develop, they build their neurological strength and coordination by interacting with the ground.
They lift their heads, roll over, and eventually learn to crawl.
This crawling turns into kneeling, squatting, and eventually standing.
The process of getting up is what builds their motor control to be able to move.
Many physical therapists use these primal patterns to rehab the body and brain.
“Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization” is a rehab system that stimulates motor control centers in the brain to restore and stabilize locomotor function to how our bodies were supposed to move.
The idea is to get you back to moving like you did when you were developing in the first 2 years of life.
According to DNS, “Every mobility issue, tight muscle, or stuck joint is really an underlying stability issue.”
You can regain this stability through primal movements like crawling, rolling, and getting up.
If you look at the months 7-13 in the picture below you will see the Turkish Get Up, especially in months 7, 8, 11, 12 and 13.
The Get Up is genetically and evolutionarily programed in us, and its purpose is to create stability, motor control, and a base for functional movement.
That’s why I believe the Get Up is the overlooked human movement pattern that should be given just as much attention as the others.
Doing Get Ups every day is like tuning an instrument before playing, or oiling and maintaining your car. It keeps things running properly and extends the lifetime.
Use bodyweight get ups for maintenance.
Add weighted get ups for performance.
Ideally, use both, just don’t overlook the Get Up.
