Movement thought leaders
Who are the people that have transformed how I view movement
Now that I’ve laid the foundation in my first three articles on how my thinking of human movement has been transformed since 2021, it’s time to start introducing you to the people that have influenced me and who I think, are thought leaders in terms of human movement. I’m going to share who they are, my thoughts on their approaches and where possible, my experience using their methods.
This isn’t every training method I’ve ever done, far, far from it. These are just the key people I explored from late 2021 through to now (mid 2024) with the lens of fixing long term movement issues.
One of a kind fitness (OKF)
It’s hard to understate the influence of Devon Brown’s methods and how they have transformed how my body moves and feels. His OKF methods have formed ~90% of my strength and conditioning work since early 2022, initially experimenting with the exercises shown on the OKF Instagram page, then not long after completing the OKF Foundations Course as well as having the pleasure of doing some 1:1 sessions with Devon.
Initially what drew me, was his approach to using some very creative exercises to create stability in the shoulders. At the time, I was suffering from significant impingement issues in my left shoulder from surfing nearly everyday and despite trying an extensive number of approaches to fix the issue, just one single exercise taught by Devon fixed it almost instantly. I personally know at least 5 other surfers that have had similar results……and that was just the start.
From there I’ve also been able to resolve chronic tightness in my left hip, psoas and QL and in all honestly, my spine, posture and overall athleticism feels maybe better than it ever has. I hope to share more details of each aspect in the future, but I credit a massive part of this success to Devon’s methods.
In short, the biggest lessons I’ve picked up from Devon and implement almost daily are:
Viewing all strength training in terms of how it relates to the way the body moves under real world natural movement conditions
Training the lower body to create internal rotation of the femur, length through the glutes under tension and lateral stability
Using breathing to create stability and length in the spine, and connecting between the upper and lower body without bracing the core
How the shoulder should sit naturally slightly up and forward for stability and freedom of movement
This is of course just a snippet as an intro, but please check out Devon’s work.
David Weck
David Weck is the inventor of the BOSU ball (as well several other innovative devices), but you’re more likely to know him for his take no prisoners approach to challenging the mainstream fitness industry, particularly challenging the notion that we need to brace our core. David is also one of the leading voices, possibly the first major voice, in using rope spinning as a method for recapturing our natural spinal movement. Here’s a quick video:
What caught my eye most about his teaching and something I now use myself a lot, is how he uses observation of real world movements, particularly from top athletes, and uses that to inform his trainnig methods. He’s not the only person that does this, but that’s where I picked it up first. Probably his biggest rallying cry is “Head Over Foot” as he touches on in this short video:
I haven’t done any specific courses of David’s, although have followed extensively his approach to rope spinning, experimented with his concepts of coiling the core, the ProPulses, Sole Steps and RMT clubs.
The lessons I learned from David and refer to the most are:
The head moving over the foot during movement (doesn’t mean we force our head over the foot)
The spinal engine in driving movement
The particular points of the foot at the 4th metatarsal that drive most of our movement
Functional Patterns
Functional Patterns is the brain child of Naudi Aguilar and is another person who pulls no punches when challenging the mainstream fitness approach of training. Challenging is a nice way of saying it, it’s quite often an outright attack on the mainstream approach.
One of the core tenants of Naudi’s approach is that if we can optimize the body to run and throw, we will take care of most other issues. Largely, I think this is true.
I completed his 10 week course late 2021 / early 2022 and definitely saw some improvements in how my body felt and moved. It was particularly interesting training the body to focus almost entirely (once a foundation was laid) on bipedal movements, e.g. planting the left leg forward and driving through the right side of the upper body. Here’s a brief video where you can see a sample of their movement training:
The main lessons that I picked up from Naudi are:
Don’t stretch, rather use myofascial release (foam rolling) and train the body to hold itself in its natural position to create stability
Bipedal movement is king
Functional Patterns has some very impressive testimonials with some really incredible before and after videos, I won’t deny that. Where I personally struggled with FP is that I had to work and think very hard to “hold” my posture and spine in the right place, with intricate contractions throughout the body to get myself in the right position. It didn’t feel natural and to me, is not what I see in the way my own children hold their own posture in place. In contrast Devon Brown’s OKF approach (that I started shortly after FP) simply uses breathing to create length, stability and good posture in the spine. To me this feels more natural, intuitive and effective.
The Art of Move podcast
The Art of Move podcast has featured all three of the above mentioned thought leaders, some of them more than once. While they stopped recording in early 2024, I would highly encourage you to go back and listen to their shows to get a flavour not only for those mentioned on this page, but generally discussing training the body based on real world movement.
GOATA
While I have not used GOATA for more than just some exploration based on their free content, I know many people have used them for their approaches, tied to how they observe biomechanics in high level athletes. GOATA stands for Greatest of All Time Athlete. It’s worth checking out and considering.
Ageless Spine
A simple book, but Ageless Spine by Kathleen Porter presents a very interesting argument on how the skeleton should naturally hold the body in place and not the muscles, which I’m in agreement with. I’m not in agreement with all of the exercises suggested in the book, but it presents a nice alternative to optimizing the body and our movement.
Knees Over Toes…..did not work for me
The Knees Over Toes Guy, or Ben Patrick has an incredibly impressive story. He was written off as a slow, un-athletic, poor basketball player with bad knee injuries and now he can dunk from a deep squatted position. It’s impressive and for several months I get very much into his methods, I even bought my Dad one of his books and yes, he has helped thousands of people recapture pain free movement. That’s a huge contribution to the greater good and I commend him for it.
Although for me, it did not fix my movement issues or my chronic pain (hip, back, QL etc) and kept me stuck in the cycle of strength train, stretch, train, stretch etc.
He talks about combining strength and mobility, or strength through length, but if I watch this video below, these exercises bare almost no resemblance to how the body moves in real world natural conditions. If you want to know why this is an issue read this article.
Are there benefits, yes. Although if my body almost never moves like this under load, why should I train like this?
Training my body in the way it is truly meant to move, has fixed more issues than anything else has in over a decade, including mobility.
I felt the need to mention him here given how popular his videos and exercises have become.
As always, please disagree with me if you have differing points of view so we can debate and discuss the fundamental truths of human movement.