Certain types of workouts, particularly those that incorporate primal or functional movements, can allow you to build mobility and strength without promoting more pain.
Exercising while your body is in pain is especially challenging, whether it be due to an old injury flaring up, chronic inflammation, or recently hurting yourself. Below, experts explain why working with your body’s natural movements while exercising can alleviate some aches and pains and help prevent injuries that would keep you from staying active.
Understanding Primal Movement
Primal movements are ones that improve balance, coordination, strength, and mobility, says certified strength and conditioning specialist and high-performance coach Jarrod Nobbe. These are movements that humans do naturally and have done throughout history — for example, walking, running, and jumping.
“Primal movement utilizes all the ranges of motion that we typically see in a workout routine — squat, push, pull, hinge, bracing, and rotation — often linking multiple types of exercise together to create a flow to challenge your body and increase strength,” Nobbe tells DailyOM.
Interested in learning more? Check out Primal Movement for Aches and Pains
How Primal Movements May Promote Pain-Free Living
According to board-certified orthopedic spine and neck surgeon Rahul Shah, MD, primal movements like walking, running, jumping, crawling, climbing, lifting, carrying, throwing, and catching involve squatting, bending, lunging, pushing, and pulling. Because of this, primal movements can promote flexibility, improve your overall physical fitness, and may help alleviate some aches and pains.
Primal movements (which some people refer to as functional movements) can also help improve your quality of life by helping to prevent injury and build resilience. “When we look at older populations, those who are the most healthy are the ones who can live life and complete tasks independently,” Dr. Shah says. “If an injury does occur, having a higher level of fitness and movement helps the body recover from an injury at a quicker rate. Primal movement is excellent for exploring those end ranges of motion, improving mobility, and allowing the body to move in more planes than we typically do as humans.”
Primal movements improve balance, coordination, single-leg stability, core stability, rotational qualities, and strength. “In daily life, movements like bending down to pick something up, pushing a door, or lifting a heavy box are common,” Shah says. “Practicing these movements with proper form in a controlled setting, like a gym, prepares the body to perform them safely in real-life situations.” For example, squatting with good form by activating the glutes, quads, and bracing the core can prevent injuries when picking up items from the ground.
“Humans often find themselves only moving forward and back, up and down,” Nobbe adds. “Including rotational movements, like wood chops, through primal exercises can help improve the body’s functionality and ability to get in and out of positions.”
Primal movements can promote flexibility, improve your overall physical fitness, and may help alleviate some aches and pains.
The key is to do these movements properly, Shah says. “Good form and proper progression are vital to ensuring these movements help rather than harm,” he tells DailyOM. “Remember, it’s not only about the movement, but also about the execution.”
Proper form, Shah explains, ensures that the stress of a movement is distributed across the muscles and joints as intended, reducing the risk of strain or injury. “For instance, when squatting, keeping the knees in line with the toes prevents undue strain on the ligaments of the knee,” he says.
What also makes primal movements ideal for those with aches and pains is that there’s less of a learning curve. Since they are innate movements, beginners are able to do them more safely at a lower risk of injury.
“Generally, primal movement exercises don’t involve any resistance aside from body weight,” fitness instructor and weight loss coach Joe Johnson tells DailyOM. “This greatly reduces the risk of injury.”
Primal movements can also improve spatial awareness. “Many injuries happen because people lack awareness of their bodies in space, termed ‘proprioception,’” Shah explains. “When engaging in exercises that challenge balance, strength, and coordination, one is essentially training the brain to better understand where the body is in space without necessarily having to look.”
This, in effect, builds muscle memory, he says. Exercises like squats, lunges, and deadlifts force you to be more conscious of your body alignment, as well as more conscious of the position of the joints and the activation of specific muscle groups, all of which improve proprioception.
How to Do Common Primal Movements for Reducing Aches and Pains
Primal movements can benefit people of all ages and with a range of fitness abilities. However, Shah stresses that you should always consult a healthcare professional or physical therapist before starting any new exercise program, especially if you have existing aches and pains or any pre-existing or underlying health condition that may impact your activity level.
Working with a physical therapist or certified fitness trainer can help you create a customized training plan with primal movements based on your needs and goals. By teaming up with a professional, you can understand how to do exercises with proper form while reducing your risk of further injury, and they can help you modify these and other moves, too. And like with any exercise, a bit of muscle soreness is fine, but any discomfort beyond that is not, so listen to your body and go slowly and gently.
Below, Shah breaks down the best practices for four common primal movements.
Squatting
Squatting can help strengthen the entire lower body and core, which can alleviate lower back and knee pain. Squatting with poor form can lead to injury, so to start, you may find it helpful to do your squats in front of a mirror so you can watch your body in motion.
To do this movement correctly: Keep your back straight throughout the movement and make sure that your knees are tracking over your toes. By keeping your back upright and your knees over your toes, your center of gravity is maintained and your glute and leg muscles are working efficiently. Keeping the weight in your heels and tightening your core will also make you more stable in this movement.
Bending
Bending is a part of everyday movement. To offload the muscles in the back, bend at your knees and hinge forward while maintaining a strong core when doing exercises like deadlifts. If you have a back problem, avoid movements that involve excessive or forceful bending until you’ve consulted with a healthcare provider.
To do this movement correctly: For deadlifts, stand with your feet hip-width apart, bend at your hips while keeping your back flat, and grip a weight with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width. Then, stand up by pushing through your heels while keeping the weight close to your body and maintaining a straight back. Lower the weight back down by reversing the movement, ensuring your back remains flat and your core is engaged throughout.
Lunging
Lunges are excellent for building lower-body strength and stability. When done correctly, lunges can help strengthen the quadriceps. Strong quadriceps can aid in knee stabilization, potentially helping to prevent knee pain. However, you should make sure that your knee is not going past your toe when lunging to avoid unnecessary strain. If you have existing knee issues, you may need to modify or avoid this movement completely. (With lunges, more weight is placed on each knee, whereas with squats the weight is more evenly distributed.)
Reverse (back) lunges can often be more knee-friendly than front lunges. When stepping backward into a reverse lunge, there’s typically less forward movement and momentum of the knee over the foot, thus reducing strain on the knee, especially the patellar tendon. Reverse lunges also allow for a more vertical shin position, which many people with knee issues find more comfortable.
To do this movement correctly: Step one foot forward and lower your body by bending both knees to about a 90-degree angle, ensuring the front knee is aligned with the ankle and the back knee hovers above the ground. Push through the front heel to return to the starting position, maintaining an upright upper body throughout the movement.
Pushing/Pulling
Movements like rows and push-ups can help build upper-body strength and improve shoulder stability, which can relieve shoulder and upper back or cervical and thoracic pain. Keep your core engaged and back straight when performing pushing or pulling movements. If you have shoulder issues, be cautious with these movements, modify them, or, if you’re at the gym, utilize constrained machines to reduce strain on the shoulder joint.
To do this movement correctly: To do rows, use 2-pound or 3-pound dumbbells to start (or cans of soup or water bottles if you don’t have weights), hinge at your hips to create a flat back, then pull the weight toward your lower rib cage, squeezing your shoulder blades together and keeping your elbows close to your body. Lower the weight back down in a controlled manner while maintaining proper back alignment.
4 Primal Movement-Based Workouts for Relieving Aches and Pains
Many types of workouts incorporate primal movements, making them ideal for people who are looking to alleviate or protect against pain. According to certified strength and conditioning specialist trainer Reda Elmardi, these four workouts are particularly helpful for increasing mobility and building muscle while decreasing tension in the body.
1. Strength Training
Body-weight strength training, or weighted strength-training workouts in general, can be helpful for relieving aches and pains. “Doing light weight-based exercises can provide relief from tension headaches and back pain,” Elmardi says.
Aside from benefiting joint health, other potential benefits of strength training include increased power and endurance, stronger bones, and reduced inflammation, he adds. When starting out, he suggests choosing simple exercises that focus on a few key muscle groups, like squats and lunges, and other primal movements, keeping the focus on maintaining proper form as outlined above.
2. Yoga
Yoga is a great way to help build muscle, increase flexibility, and relieve or ease pain, Elmardi says. (In fact, because of the overlap of primal movements and yoga poses, primal movement yoga classes are popping up at studios across the country as well as online.) Since many poses are done by alternating legs, yoga is also helpful for improving balance, which can help people avoid future aches and pains through falls and other injuries.
“There are many different poses that can be used to target specific areas of pain, which can be done slowly and systematically over time,” Elmardi tells DailyOM. Warrior I pose, for instance, can help with aches and pains in the shoulders, neck, and wrists, while child’s pose can alleviate tension headaches and provide general tension relief, he explains.
3. Pilates
Pilates is another popular workout that can help build muscle around the back, increase core stability, and relieve or ease pain. Doing Pilates regularly can enhance the muscles in your core, thereby helping to stabilize the back and hips, especially during everyday tasks involving lifting or moving items. Moreover, Pilates offers the advantage of being low-impact, making it valuable for those who prefer or require low-impact workout options.
“Pilates focuses on using your own body weight, which strengthens your back muscles and helps to reduce any tension in your back,” says Elmardi. “This exercise also helps improve posture and can be an effective way to relieve aches and pains in the neck, shoulders, and upper back.”
4. Cycling
Cycling is a great way to work your quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves, and even your abs, Elmardi says. “By working all of these muscles in different ways, cycling can help you alleviate or ease pain in areas that may benefit from added strength and endurance,” he explains.
Some people do not consider cycling a primal movement, yet cycling at light or moderate intensity can build muscular endurance. And if you’re able to incorporate the movement into your daily routine by biking to work or with your family, even better.
Medically reviewed September 20, 2023, by Reyna Franco, RDN, CSSD, CPT
