Movement metaphors

Plants as quilts. Sandwiches as adventures. I frigging love analogies, because as Calvino might say, we find the new in the not-new and the not-new in the new. I’ve long believed that the best teachers are those most adept at metaphors, and fitness coaches are no exception. Just like how physicist Brian Greene collabed with composer Philip Glass to communicate the truths of black holes, trainers might say “resist gravity like someone’s pulling your arm” and it can totally change our physical response. How does “hip extension” actually feel? By expressing ourselves in these movements, we make them more than just one thing — more than the literal, or the bro. There are perfectly apt analogies I’ve heard that don’t really resonate for me (kettlebell swing: “like someone snapped you in the butt with a towel”). And maybe when I tell folks to “knee life’s frustrations in the balls” during knee drives, that doesn’t do it for you either. How can we reimagine moves for our multiverse?

This Vipr tool is all about “loaded movements,” which means combining task-oriented motions with resistance (think full body, multiple planes of motion). You could alternatively use a dumbbell, medicine ball, heavy household item, etc. They’re so fun, because it feels like weighted choreography. But I don’t really relate to the Canadian farmboy hockey story, so here I am, imagining the lunge uppercut like shooting a t-shirt cannon to the nosebleeds. Pew pew! Give it a shot, and tell me how it feels.

Lunge uppercut

• Start with weight at hip, arm across bod

• Lunge forward, bringing weight over shoulder on same side as front leg

• Back knee floats just above ground, weight floats just above shoulder

• Return to standing, reps all one side then the other

What’s your fave movement metaphor?