While movement quantity can be important enough for certain outcomes that it becomes an area of focus, movement quality must be seen as the primary goal in any form of training. The quality of your movement will determine the outcome that quantity ends up producing.

I’ll pick on bodybuilding a bit in this post because it is usually seen as the most repetition-heavy form of strength training out there.

So let’s take the biceps curl in bodybuilding as an example. Common wisdom on the subject says that one can perform this bodybuilding movement that is “single-joint” (using primarily the elbow joint) with a weight that allows 8-12 repetitions in one set before exhaustion/”failure,” with big biceps (hypertrophy) as a result.

That is true on some level, but what about quality? No movement is truly “single-joint.” In any movement the moving part is attached to the rest of the body, which must either support, stabilize or assist the moving joint in its efforts.

We see this all the time – the person on the bodybuilding plan using their hips to drive the weight up.

In this video, Tuan Tran is intentionally doing “cheat” curls. You can tell by his physique that he’s relatively experienced. So, in this instance, the movement quality from the hips is assisting in exposing the muscle (with a controlled eccentric/lowering phase) to more overload. Just so, Tuan points out that his final few reps falter (even in a “cheat” form).

So “cheating” is movement quality, and can be used to help, as well as hurt. The “best” movement quality is the one that moves you to your goal. If your goal is to train without injury, poor movement quality is not best.

What does good movement quality look like?
I think this is the question. It’s been addressed by a lot of somatics practitioners and teachers over the years in terms of aesthetics. Good movement quality from an aesthetic standpoint is controlled and expressive. From a strength training standpoint, good movement quality also exhibits control and expression, in particular of the generation of force.

How do we develop good movement quality?
First, it depends on what the movement is that you want to develop quality in. In general, though, movement quality is the result of a healthy well-functioning neuromusculoskeletal system. That means the body has a broad “map” for movement that it can reference. Such a map comes from the practice of movement in diverse ways – fast, slow, high, low, weighted, free, with gravity or against it, etc.

Diversity of training is the key to good movement quality.

Diversity
The rule of diversity is true, as well, for bodybuilding, of all things. Focus on one plane of movement in one joint for too long, and that joint will begin to break down. We’ve heard of this as “repetitive strain injury.” But practice movements from a variety of angles and we not only avoid overuse, we work the muscle (and the rest of the body) from many angles, rounding out both the “map” and the muscle.

The way to do this is simple – play. Play is the exploration of possibility. Even within bodybuilding, play is possible, as the video above demonstrates. Controlled “cheat” curls aren’t really “cheating.” They’re playing with the rules of strict form to achieve the goal.

Another thing that can help is an understanding of anatomy and physiology. Why does the body move the way it does? How do I achieve xyz goal based on anatomy and physiology. This is the ground floor for approaching goals in strength or fitness training.

Focus on your knowledge base, and take that into your practice or training with a playful attitude and achieve superior results!!