At Meso Fit Boca, we take systematic approaches to things like movement prep to allow us to see progress from workout to workout. The following multi-plane movement preparation and workouts are just examples of how our programming can take you to the next level. The variations below allow you to use these movements as is, or peppered into your current program.

Remembering the planes is easy. If you imagine standing in a hallway where your shoulders almost touch the walls, the movements possible in that hallway happen in the sagittal plane. The coronal plane is best described as any movement possible with walls directly in front and behind you. And the transverse plane is where rotation occurs.

At Meso Fit Boca, we differentiate movements from the spine from movements of the extremities. The joints best suited for flexion, extension, and rotation, are the shoulder and hips, and they should create the majority of movement. That doesn’t mean that movement from the spine is against some unwritten law of physics. Plenty of people move from the spine and never have an injury. We just believe that for longevity, creating maximum power takes a stable spine.

We use Multi Plane Movement Prep before engaging in anything strenuous. This simple series of movements moves you through slow steady stretches and transitions that prepare you for the multi-plane movements below. First, work on moving into each pose after 5 full, deep breaths. Take your time.

Multi Plane Movement Prep:

Multi-Plane Workout:

Sagittal Lunge W/Side Reach- 3 Sets

Coronal-Plane Lunge W/Reach- 3 Sets

Transverse-Plane Lunge W/Reach- 3 Sets

Shuffles- 3 sets

Sagittal Jumps- 3 Sets

Single Leg Sagittal Jumps- 3 Sets

(Should any of these multi-joint exercises create excessive compensatory movement, regress to non-loaded versions)

Progressions:

Multi-Plane Lunge

Single Leg Deadlift W/Side Shifts

Box Jump to Step-down to Reverse Lunge (both sides) to Burpee to Side Lunge (both sides) to Transverse Lunge (both sides)

3 sets each

If the brain is the ultimate authority on how we move, then it stands to reason it will protectively tighten muscles to keep the body from joint actions it deems unsafe. But how the brain incorporates movement and what its preferences are aren’t always clear. But if compensated movement isn’t brought into the collective consciousness, how much can we expect to change?

Fascia can be thought of as fiber optic cable feeding information to the brain, and there are areas it seems to listen to very intently. The core is one of those places.

Training should focus more on the forces that destabilize than asking bodies slowed by the brain to speed back up. But we need more than fastidious interventions to fix dings in the body’s collective chain. At Meso Fit Boca, we consider the ripples dings leave behind that affect the entire system. 

When the core is weak, the spine is vulnerable. We train the core to brace and react to destabilizing force. Bucket Theory considers the relationship between the ribcage and pelvis extremely important to training. Since both the ribcage and pelvis resemble buckets, one inverted (rib cage) stacked atop another (pelvis), we need to consider the contents of these buckets to understand why the brain goes to such great lengths to protect them. People sleep fetal because it protects the contents of these buckets, and slouching may be a protective method in the absence of core strength.

Strong core’s keep the ribs and pelvis stacked and aligned while the extremities perform reach movements. The brain green-lights all movement when the buckets align, stabilize, and create a solid torso. The core is a reflex. Drawing in, pulling the belly button toward the spine, or any other miscue pertaining to ‘setting’ the core prior to moving is incorrect. The core needs to react, not prepare. No one has dictated which joint action should be stronger; or whether the mirror opposite joint actions should be of equal strength. But from the brain’s perspective there are only two joint actions of note, reach and withdrawal, and the brain uses the core to manage both.

To reach high-hanging fruit requires length, but also the power to withdraw reach quickly should reach become perilous. The core functions as intermediary between ribcage and pelvis while the extremities move away from the spine or midline.     

Bucket Theory looks at how the body creates and manages forces the world enacts on us. If torso stability is compromised, spinal rotation replaces the joint actions more suited to create movement. This creates shearing forces in vertebral disks and leads to eventual degeneration. Until silly putty is repurposed as a suitable disk replacement, we should work hard to keep the spine stable and let the extremities do their job.

Reach exposes. Withdrawal protects.

So it stands to reason withdrawal should be the focus of strength training. At Meso Fit Boca, our Signature Series of exercises elicits an adductive response, and therefore, a core response from all our exercises. We believe if the core isn’t involved in every exercise, it can hardly be incorporated into collective movements like walking outside of training.

It’s important to note that balance comes from the brain, not muscles. The inner ear protects us from falling forward with an errant alert system that reels you back the instant you lean forward. This is an important system to manipulate in training because prone position (plank and push-up) loads the core and forces it to brace the spine. But these bracing positions do not tax the obliques as effectively as they could. We need to add a rotational component to prone position to incorporate the obliques.  

Looking at fiber direction, the obliques are ideally positioned to prevent torso rotation. There is also sufficient evidence to support the idea the obliques are uniquely connected to the opposing adductor muscles (See Anterior And Posterior Slings). This begs us to consider diagonal patterns as the ideal patterns to strengthen.

Undoubtedly, one diagonal pattern is weaker than the other. To assess this, get into push-up position and try to place all your weight into the right hand and left foot and lift the opposing sides off the floor. If you instantly loose balance, there’s instability in the pattern. Now try the other side. This is one of the reasons to advocate using the non-dominant hand as much as possible outside the gym. Strengthening the weaker diagonal pattern takes precedence over all else if the system is to progress.

Diagonal Pattern Holds:

Very important things happen when considering abduction an exploratory joint action like moving your foot along ice to test it. If the ice cracks and splits, the body needs to withdraw the foot quickly. The protective action of adduction should be as powerful and fast as possible, even spring like. This was evolution’s brilliant adaptation to earth’s terrain that grants the body unlimited reach with powerful withdrawal so we can retreat should the earth fight back. This is why adduction is inherently stronger than abduction.   

More amazingly, every time you adduct, the core fires. This powerful coupling adds credence to the idea that adduction should remain a lasting, powerful, force or the brain will shrink your world. Yes, length is important, but if length gained is at the expense of the ability to reign it back, length becomes arduous.

Present the torso as a single, solid structure, and the hip and shoulder joints can manage any destabilizing force. Present the world an improperly trained core, one pretensed (set) before movement, and the brain’s ability to manage and properly distribute force is compromised. So the brain scratches all the activities that require a strong torso, including bucket list items.  

The Bucket Workout:

Diagonal Pattern Holds

Deadbugs

Supine Rear Laterals

Prone Pullovers

Prone Rear Laterals

Oblique means slanted, neither parallel nor at a right angle. It’s also defined as not straightforward, devious, and underhanded.

The internal and external obliques usually evade our crunched attempts at core training unless the spine is twisted off center to force these powerful torso stabilizers to fire.

So why is it so hard to include these muscles into exercise unless we side plank ourselves to death, which has yet to prove its efficacy in creating more stable torsos? We’ll explore why these core muscles might be the key to restoring power while stabilizing your spine.

The biggest problem in creating stronger cores is how to get the strength we gain on the floor, where the spine is the most stable, into standing, because the two rarely connect. We’ve had some luck using ½ kneel and full kneel stance, but not to the point where the core is strongest in standing.

A significant implication of current theory is that the brain cannot translate the isolationist approach to exercise into the whole body movements it needs to perform daily. We need to get on the same page as the brain that doesn’t have a representation of a bicep stored in its neural net, only the movements it contributes to.

Shifts in thinking haven’t necessarily changed the way people train, as a matter of fact, so much training is still rooted in old bodybuilding theory of isolating parts hoping the whole will be greater.

But haven’t crossfit and other whole body movement theories shown up and are producing results?

Good question.

What four things do all Olympians, professional athletes, and other freaks of movement do best?

They flex, extend, control rotation, and change direction better than anyone. The best player on any field does this better than their counterparts who have to defend against an onslaught of movement we need to see in slow motion to really appreciate.

This will continue to be the greatest folly of a seated, predominantly flexed, population. Lack of full extension causes rotation from where it causes the most damage. This is why tight hip flexors and protracted shoulders are implicated in the question mark posture so many assume as they age. 

So applying giant, sweeping, power movements to flexed populations sounds risky at best, despite everyone knowing someone who dated someone’s cousin who said their brother knows a coworker who lost 8,000 pounds doing (insert fad here).

To arrive at a more sound application of current theory, we all sit at a crossroads. Turn left toward old theories repackaged under different logos; or plow right toward the application of a more sound theory of what moves us.

Slings are chains of muscles, fascia, and ligaments. For example:

The Anterior Oblique Sling is the coupling of the external and internal oblique connecting with the contralateral adductor muscles via the adductor-abdominal fascia.  

The Posterior Oblique Sling is the coupling of the latissimus dorsi, glute maximus, and the interconnecting thoracolumbar-abdominal fascia.

The RAMP Method at Meso Fit Boca incorporates the brain, core, and fascia, into exercise. The Lunge Into Row and Supine Rear Lateral below are just two examples of exercises that address real life issues. Clients report unrestricted movement that allows them greater exploration. We provide clients with strength that’s applicable anywhere in life, not just the gym. Our method restores parts of the body downgraded by trauma, excessive use, or injury. We then use our exercises to re-pattern the brain to move in accordance with sound theory.

 Supine Rear Lateral Begin

 Supine Rear Lateral End

 

If you’re like millions of Americans, you struggle with weight. How much is ideal, where it gathers, and how to get rid of it top most people’s list of health concerns. At Meso Fit Boca, we have answers.

First, let’s discuss metabolism; that wonder word that has us playa-hating the ones who can eat anything and pay no consequences. But blaming metabolism is like blaming radar for why you keep getting speeding tickets. Metabolism is merely a measurement of how quickly your body converts fuel into energy. But just like exercise, metabolism’s are subject to evolutionary responses and starvation may lead to hoarding fat and burning muscle. 

Let’s assume that burning more calories than you take in doesn’t always equate to fat loss. This theory is called calories-in vs. calories-out, and is the basis for diets that restrict food intake.  

We inherit our metabolism from generations of humans that gained weight when food was plentiful, then lost it when food wasn’t. We might better understand weight gain as a natural consequence of calorie restriction, not the failure of the dieter.

The human metabolism comes from a dizzying lineage of cave-people trying to survive perilous seasons full of predators and other hungry cave-people. Once we were able to store food and protect it, people formed communities. Before refrigeration, people ate what was fresh that day and they shopped daily in markets whose financial solvency depended on delivering the freshest food. We regale at the health benefits of olive oil but fail to realize that the oil they’re referring to was made daily from olive pits littering the countryside, not the oil in your cabinet with a questionable sell by date. 

Today we have completely lost touch with that visceral connection to food where smell, touch, and sight, determined what was safe to taste. Today, food companies manipulate these senses leading people to believe everything should taste good, which usually translates to lulling the brain with salty, sugary, fatty foods.

We adopt a scientific approach to weight loss and give the body exactly what it needs every day; because if we don’t pay the body back for the things it has to do every day, hour, minute, and second, the brain hoards calories. So follow a few simple evolutionary and biological rules:

 1.     Eat enough.

Diets should provide the body what it needs to create nutritionally sound foundations to build upon. These are the nutrients your body receives through foods, not supplements. The last thing anyone needs is the brain to see weight loss as a threat.

Homeostasis is the brains ability to keep all systems functioning normally. Weight losses and gains are stresses to the brain hell-bent on avoiding starvation. This might account for initial weight losses followed by plateaus that usually cause a return to “normal” or even binge eating. 

It takes the proper fuel to run efficient metabolisms and the body reverts quickly, so the key is consistent nutrient loading throughout the day. This allows the body to keep up with our persistent pace. Missing meals is stressful to an expectant body. We can’t push cars farther than we fueled them, but the body easily burns muscle for nutrients if restricted too harshly, and metabolisms slow with muscle loss.   

To guard against this we need 2 big doses of nutrient-rich vegetable smoothies at key times, morning and night, with 2 to 3 smaller nutrient dense meals between. We also need to account for every loss and gain through metrics that tell us what course adjustments will keep the body moving forward.

If you’re accustomed to eating huge bowls of greens (collard, mustard, spinach, and kale), herbs, turmeric, celery, cucumber, black-eyed peas, lima beans, and wheatgrass, carry on. For those who relish the thought, blend them into a smoothie adding whatever fruit tempers the powerful flavors you might not be used to.  

2.     Move enough.

When muscles tighten, they get locked out of movement. The body cannot coordinate and therefore cannot burn the calories needed to promote fat loss. This causes the accepted notion that more is better, when in fact, more just wears down a worn down system. It either breaks or trudges along goalless. 

Bodies riddled with imbalances need recovery, balance, and stability before attempting to progress. This takes constant check-ups for dashboard warnings that the system turned toward a dead end.   

3.     Before moving, make sure more of you moves.

In dog-parks and playgrounds, kids and puppies run to exhaustion, stop, rest, then run to exhaustion until all their stored energy is depleted. Our cardio training should mimic this as often as possible, but is only valuable to balanced, adequately fueled, and fully recovered bodies.

To keep the scales tipped toward burning fat as fuel instead of muscle, we have to fight harder the keep the muscle that wastes away with inactivity and age. This is why strength training may be more effective at burning fat than cardio. More muscle means more calories are burned at rest because muscle is extremely metabolically active.

Losing weight doesn’t have to be frustrating. Don’t wait another second spinning your wheels trying to figure out what works. Meso Fit Boca takes the guesswork out with programs that achieve sustainable results fast.

 

 

 

 

 

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