Fitness is at the center of what we do.
To Tilla Fit, fitness isn’t optional.
It’s something that every person needs.
Over the past year, we shared 52 reasons WHY people need fitness.
Now we shift to the next question.
HOW do you start?
HOW do you stay consistent?
HOW do you build a lifestyle that lasts?
HOW do you get results?
Over the next 52 weeks, we’ll answer those questions.
Here is week 14 of 52 on HOW to approach fitness.
“Learn the Movement Categories”
Last week, we broke a great workout into four simple pieces:
Warm up. Strength. Cardio. Cool down.
Now let’s start building that strength portion.
The human body has more than 600 muscles, but thankfully, you don’t need 600 different exercises to train them.
Most of the movements we perform can be organized into a handful of basic categories:
Squat. Hinge. Press. Pull. Lunge. Cardio.
Think about how often these patterns show up outside the gym.
You squat down into a chair.
Hinge over to pick something off the ground.
Press something overhead.
Pull a door open.
Lunge down to the floor.
Walk, run, climb stairs, and move through the world.
Training these patterns doesn’t just build muscle.
It builds a body that’s prepared for life.
How Do We Use Them?
Instead of walking into the gym and randomly choosing exercises, look at your week through the lens of movement categories.
Did I squat?
Did I hinge?
Did I press?
Did I pull?
Did I lunge?
Did I train my cardiovascular system?
For someone training for general health, strength, muscle development, and longevity, you can aim to expose yourself to these major movement patterns roughly 2–3 times throughout the week.
Depending on the exercise and your experience, somewhere around 20–60 challenging repetitions of a movement pattern in a session can be a useful starting range.
That could look like:
3 sets of 10 Goblet Squats.
4 sets of 8 Deadlifts.
3 sets of 12 Dumbbell Presses.
3 sets of 10 Rows.
It doesn’t have to be complicated.
And some exercises will even cover multiple categories at once.
The goal isn’t to perfectly check every box during every workout.
The goal is to look across your entire week and create balance.
And We’re Building Something To Help
At Tilla Fit, we’re currently building a free Movement Library on YouTube.
We’re organizing movement demonstrations into these same categories so you can see exactly how different exercises are performed.
Don’t know what hinge movements you can choose from?
Go to the Hinge playlist.
Need another squat variation?
Open the Squat playlist.
Want to learn a new pressing movement?
We’ll have those too.
The library will continue growing so that eventually you’ll have a resource you can reference anytime you’re building your own workout.
This Week’s Challenge:
Look at your workouts from the past seven days.
Write down:
Squat
Hinge
Press
Pull
Lunge
Cardio
Then put a check beside every category you trained.
You’ll quickly see what you’re doing plenty of, and what might be missing.
Learn the basic ways your body moves. Train them consistently. Progress them over time. And build a body that’s prepared for whatever life asks of it.