Build Your Dream Home

The process of getting stronger is very much like constructing a home. Despite the fact that all homes (and all bodies), will have a very unique “final product,” the way they are constructed is relatively similar. 

What is the most important part of any home?

To start, you need a very strong foundation!

This simply comes from being consistent for a period of time in your training routine. Once we have established that foundation, we can then move onto building out the framework of your dream home…your body. 

So if our foundation is “consistency”, then the tools for the job are inevitably going to be the exercises and movement patterns that we focus on, and their derivatives. 

There are 6 foundational movement patterns, each with a critical role in building a strong, balanced, functional, and of course, aesthetic body: pushing, pulling, lunging, squatting, hinging, and carrying. 

Think of these movement patterns like “drilling, sawing, hammering, screwing, measuring, and painting”. While we are building our dream “home”, we will undoubtedly have to repeatedly utilize the tools utilized for those activities again, and again…and again…until we are at the final result. 

For some reason, when it comes to working out, people tend to get “bored” of the mastery of the movement patterns that will optimize muscular strength and hypertrophy, and want to use different “tools” all of the time, when the need for different tools is earned over time and only when absolutely necessary. 

For the vast majority of the population, fancy, advanced tactics are never needed. 

Keeping it real, most of us are given the genetic blueprint for a “raised ranch” not a $5 million mansion.

There is such a thing as having “too many tools” in the toolbox, especially when it comes to training. 

What if you needed to saw some wood for the frame of your home, but you were “bored” of sawing? 

Would you grab a chisel and start trying to break apart the wood that way? 

Or what about if you needed to paint, but the repetitive brush strokes were boring to you? Would you grab a level, dip it in the paint can, and start rubbing it on the wall?

Of course not! These inefficient actions are very similar to the fancy moves that you see on instagram that get you nowhere fast, in real life.

The bottom line is, there are times when you are “sawing”, when you need a mitre saw, or a jog saw, but you are still sawing.

There are many different types of hammers. Many different types of drills.

But the core action remains the same. 

While I can agree that it is important to have variety in training, if you are the type to get easily bored, I would hope that this has caused you to reflect on the fact that to obtain the desired result, we must focus on the foundational movement patterns to get us there. 

It is a little silly to be “tired of lunges” if you are doing reverse lunges, standard lunges, lateral lunges, and seesaw lunges in your program. While the reverse lunge done repeatedly would truly be all so many of you would need, here are four lunge variations to help with boredom, and to use when the time is right. 

Instead of being tired of a movement pattern, or “bored” with it, I encourage you to approach your training with excitement, and embrace these movement patterns as the key to building a healthier, stronger body that you can be proud of. 

The new you knows that in order to build that dream home, we must do what needs to be done, in order to have that final result that you are working so hard to achieve.

The new you will take pride in progression, and will aim to increase the intensity of exercise slowly over time, extracting every last little bit of value that each working set provides.

The new you will never be bored again, for the prospect of building a dream home, and a dream body? Well, that is pretty damn exciting. 

So what are we waiting for? 

Grab a saw and get to work!