Movement Competency for the Backcountry Athlete

The idea of movement competency is relatively simple: can you reliably and consistently access a wide range of physical movement patterns without pain or any form of compensation? If the answer is “no”, then the reality is you are running the risk of injuring yourself in the backcountry (or just going about your everyday life.)

This is one of the foundational pillars of strength and conditioning that far too many people gloss over in the interest of skipping straight to the “real work.” The result is an attempt to build strength and capacity on top of dysfunction, which is a recipe for disaster. It’s not a question of “if”, it’s a question of “when.” 

You probably know someone who has been strength training on and off for years who always starts off enthusiastic and excited to get stronger, only to be sidelined by injury, requiring them to stop training and lose most, if not all, of their “gainz.” More often than not, this is the result of skipping a foundational phase in their training cycle.

Essentially, they’re trying to build a large house on quicksand, rather than taking the time necessary to build a proper foundation. If you’ve ever watched a house being built, you’ll know that once the foundation has been laid, the rest of the house goes up relatively smoothly.

If that analogy doesn’t speak to you, think of it like this: it’s like driving a car with your wheels out of alignment. You can probably get away with it for a while, but the longer you let it go unchecked and the harder you push it, the more likely you are to cause serious damage.

As a backcountry athlete, you’ll need access to a wide variety of movement patterns. Though we may sometimes train in a controlled environment like a gym, our performance is tested in an uncontrollable environment: nature. We’re constantly being faced with a wide variety of unpredictable physical challenges and the more movement patterns you have reliable access to, the more options you have for overcoming those challenges.

There are 7 foundational movement patterns that every backcountry athlete needs to gain competency in:

1. Pushing

2. Pulling

3. Squatting

4. Lunging

5. Hinging

6. Rotating (and resisting rotating)

7. Locomotion (walking/running/crawling - often with a pack or carrying weight)

Not only do you need to display consistent competency in each of these 7 movements individually, but you need to be able to reliably string them together and perform them in multiple planes of movement (forwards/backwards, side-to-side, at a diagonal, etc.) in order to perform in the backcountry.

Once you can reliably and consistently display competency in these movement patterns (IE you’ve laid your foundation), THEN your body is ready to begin building strength and capacity on top of them.

This is so important that I’m going to say it again: without first taking the time to build movement competency, you are asking for an injury when you set foot in the backcountry (or in the gym, for that matter.)

* This blog is Part 1 in a multi-week series on cross-training as a Backcountry Athlete. Subscribe to our newsletter below to make sure you don’t miss out on super-valuable content to support your training! 👇