3 Programming Principles You Must Not Neglect

Resistance training may seem incredibly complex to the uninitiated, but it’s actually pretty simple. It can all be boiled down to five fundamental elements: push, pull, knee, hip, and core. As long as you have a good assortment of each of these elements in your weekly routine, you're probably doing all right.

To do even better, though, there are three additional variables that we often forget about but that demand our careful consideration. They are (1) planes of motion, (2) "jointedness," and (3) "sidedness." In this post, I describe how best to manipulate these variables to create a complete and well-rounded program. Included is a sample week of training.

 

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1. All Three Planes of Motion

The human body moves in three planes of motion: sagittal (flexion/extension), frontal (abduction/adduction), and transverse (rotation). As such, it’s crucial to train in all three planes. You may think that if you’re doing your overhead presses, rows, squats, deadlifts, and sit-ups, you must be hitting all three planes. In fact, depending on exactly how you perform them, these could all be sagittal plane exercises.

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Be sure to include frontal and transverse plane exercises into your program. This is easy to do with pushing and pulling. Alternately perform exercises like bench press, dips, overhead press, pull-ups, and rows with your elbows tucked in at your sides (sagittal plane) and your elbows flared out (frontal or transverse plane, depending on the exercise). Also experiment with different grip widths and orientations (neutral, supinated, or pronated).

For knee and hip, single leg exercises are king. In fact, rear-foot elevated split squats and single leg stiff leg deadlifts are actually tri-planar movements. Like their bilateral counterparts, the actual movement occurs in the sagittal plane, but due to the inherent instability, movement is also resisted in the frontal and transverse planes.

For core stability, program anti-extension exercises like body saw planks and roll-outs, anti-lateral flexion exercises like side planks and landmine, and anti-rotation exercises like bird dogs and Pallof press.

2. Jointedness: Single vs. Multi

Multi-joint movements should always be favored over single-joint ones. Compared to single-joint exercises, multi-joint exercises like overhead presses, rows, squats, and deadlifts engage more muscles at once and have a better carryover to activities of daily living. That said, in the “functional” fitness community, there is an unnecessary stigma against single-joint exercise. This stigma has resulted in the disappearance of single-joint exercise from many programs entirely. The truth is, curls are not just for people who want massive arms.

Single-joint exercises can make you stronger in multi-joint ones. If your biceps always give out first on multi-joint pulling exercises, then a few sets of curls each week will go a long way towards improving your pull-ups and rows. If you have trouble locking out on multi-joint pushing movements, a few sets of skull crushers might get you over the hump.

Single-joint exercises can also prepare you for subsequent multi-joint ones. If you want to prime your core to keep you upright for squatting, do a set of front raises right before you squat. If you have difficulty keeping your knees from caving in on walking lunges, a set of clamshells right before you lunge will activate your hip abductors.

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As you can see, there is indeed a time and place for single-joint exercise. Your primary goal should always be to hit each of the big movements with a variety of multi-joint exercises. Once that’s taken care of, though, there’s no need to be afraid of some targeted single-joint work for bringing up a weaknesses or for "activation" purposes.

3. Sidedness: Unilateral vs. Bilateral

Bilateral training is for building pure strength and power. It allows for the use of seriously heavy loads, which is desirable for folks whose goals are as diverse as slimming down (fat loss) and bulking up (bodybuilders and powerlifters).

Unilateral training is for improving stability, balance, left-right asymmetries, and athletic performance (since in sports we’re rarely on two legs at the same time). It also elicits these adaptations with reduced spinal loads compared to bilateral training, thereby promoting longevity in the weight room.

Clearly, both unilateral and bilateral exercise should have prominent places in training. Because unilateral training is more time-consuming, a good timesaving strategy is to do a little bit of both every session. For example, you might program bilateral anterior chain exercises (knee and push) along with unilateral posterior chain exercises (hip and pull) on odd training days, and flip-flop on the evens.

Sample Training Week

Directions: Perform 2-3 rounds of each cluster of exercises (A through C), resting minimally between exercises and 2 minutes between rounds. Note the mix of single- and multi-joint exercises, unilateral and bilateral exercises, and all planes of motion. 

Day 1		Movement	Plane	Multi-/Single-Joint	Bi/Unilateral
1A.	Front raise	Push	Sagittal	Single-Joint	Bilateral
1B.	Goblet squat	Knee	Sagittal	Multi-Joint	Bilateral
1C.	Bird dog	Core	Transverse	--------------	Bilateral
2A.	1-leg stiff leg deadlift	Hip	All 3	Single-Joint	Unilateral
2B.	Face pull	Pull	Transverse	Multi-Joint	Bilateral
2C.	Roll-out	Core	Sagittal	--------------	Bilateral
Day 2
1A.	Bench press	Push	Transverse	Multi-joint	Bilateral
1B.	Clamshell	Core	Transverse	Single-Joint	Unilateral
1C.	Split squat	Knee	All 3	Multi-Joint	Unilateral
2A.	1-arm bent-over row	Pull	Sagittal	Multi-Joint	Unilateral
2B.	Swing	Hip	Sagittal	Multi-Joint	Bilateral
2C.	Side plank	Core	Frontal	--------------	Unilateral
Day 3
1A.	Pull-up	Pull	Frontal	Multi-joint	Bilateral
1B.	1-leg glute bridge	Hip	Sagittal	Single-Joint	Unilateral
1C.	Body saw plank	Core	Sagittal	--------------	Bilateral
2A.	1-arm overhead press	Push	Frontal	Multi-joint	Unilateral
2B.	Crawlout	Knee	Sagittal	Multi-Joint	Bilateral
2C.	Pallof press	Core	Transverse	--------------	Unilateral
Day 4
1A.	Physioball leg curl	Core	Sagittal	Multi-joint	Bilateral
1B.	Deadlift	Hip	Sagittal	Multi-Joint	Bilateral
1C.	Landmine rainbow	Core	Frontal	--------------	Bilateral
2A.	Curl	Pull	Sagittal	Single-Joint	Bilateral
2B.	Skull crusher	Push	Sagittal	Single-Joint	Bilateral
2C.	Reverse sled drag	Knee	Sagittal	Single-Joint	Unilateral