There’s a whole lot of ways to exercise and a whole lot of movements our body is capable of. However, when it comes to resistance training or HIIT training or other non specialized exercises (specialized I’d be thinking of like martial arts or yoga), then there’s a few core, fundamental movements to master and know how to do in order to build and progress your training.
Core, Push, and Pull
Most all movement can be classified in one of these 3 categories: core, push, pull.
When we refer to the core we are referring to the trunk of our body. Basically everything that isn’t an extremity.
Then we have push and pull movements and it is our extremities that mainly push and pull. It’s important to note that even in push and pull movements our core is still at the base and fundamental of pretty much all movement. We can further subcategorize movements by whether they are lower or upper body.
Core
PLANK - A proper plank is probably one of the most necessary movements to master. It is legitimately fundamental to all other movements because in all other lifts you need to brace your core. One of the best ways to learn how to brace your core is through knowing how to properly plank.
Lower Body Push
SQUAT - A bodyweight squat is a fundamental movement most of us do every day to sit in a chair or go to the restroom. Yet, a surprising amount of people don’t know how ot properly squat. You can can your quadriceps with a squat if your load is to the front of you. You can work your glutes if your load is behind you.
LUNGE - A bodyweight lunge is also a fundamental movement a lot of people cannot properly execute. Many people can’t maintain their balance, lowering themselves with one leg in front of the other. Now the not being able to maintain your balance is probably because the core is not being properly braced. But, for now, know that a lunge can work your quadriceps and your glutes, depending on where the load is or how you’re stepping forward or backward.
Lower Body Pull
DEADLIFT - More fundamental and elementary than a deadlift is a hip hinge. A good morning or a kettle bell swing are good starting points to master before you can advance to a deadlift. However, a proper deadlift is a compound movement and in order to properly perform it it’s best to start with some hip hinge basics. For now, it’s important to know that these hip hinge movements are predominately meant to work your hamstrings.
GLUTE BRIDGE - A glute bridge or hip thrust is basically a lying hip hinge movement. It’s less of a compound, complex movement than a deadlift. As the name implies, this movement predominantly works the glutes. While a glute bridge is not necessarily a functional movement, weak glutes can be an injury risk so it can be important to make sure you’re properly training your glutes.
Upper Body Push
PUSH UP - I assume you’re already familiar with a standard push-up. As the name suggests pushing yourself up with your arms would make this an upper body push move. You can also alternatively do this move with similar effects (just without your core) when you do bench press variations. Upper body push movements in the frontal plane typically work the chest and triceps.
OVERHEAD PRESS - An overhead press is what it sounds like as well. Usually this movement requires some kind of load or resistance in order to complete and includes pressing up a weight above your head. This movement will typically work shoulders and possibly biceps.
Upper Body Pull
ROW - You can complete a row in a few different planes of motion, but essentially when you think of a row it is the opposite of a push up. Instead of pushing load away from you, you’re pulling load towards your trunk or your trunk towards load. Rows are incredible for working your back and secondarily your biceps.
PULL UP - Just like a row is the opposite of a pull up, a pull up is like the opposite of an overhead press. A pull up is advance, but you can remediate it with “lat pull downs”. Great workout for your core, shoulders, back, biceps, etc.
Why This Matters
Knowing how to categorize a movement can help you to ensure that your workouts are balanced. It’s extremely important as far as longevity to make sure that you're trying to be as balanced as possible in your training for functionality and longevity. For example, if your goal is to grow your booty you may be focusing on training your glutes and hamstrings. However, our quadriceps help to absorb stress to the knee joint. So if you don’t train your quads you’ll be less able to properly execute your booty building workouts because your knees could become unable to withstand the load.
By at least having a basic understanding of this you can better discern if the workouts you’re following are effective for your goals or if you’re crafting your own workouts you can have somewhat of an educated rationale for which exercise you choose to do and why.