For the past 6 months I have been working on some complex integrated multi-joint strength training exercises for myself to improve my ability to move. For over 3 years I was not been able to run without pain or complete any type of jumping or agility type of movements like I used to do without breaking down in severe pain. This was due to a battle with an auto-immune disease (psoriatic arthritis) that crippled many of my joints and while it took some time for medications to work and my body to get into remission I was not able to get back to moving like I used to. It was not necessarily my strength that was the problem for I was able to complete simple strength exercises with loads similar to what I used in the past, but every time I tried to do something fast or go for a run I would have problems. I knew I had to change my training approach to a more functional multi-joint method to teach my body how to move efficiently again. For many years I have worked with several people who struggled to walk or coordinate multi-joint movements due to disease or severe injury and it is not until I experienced this myself that I appreciated how hard it is to regain. I was eventually able to get back to running again and being able to do the things like I used to and the biggest secret or turning point was restoring my strength and control with exercises that utilized “weight shifting” seen in my recent article about multi-joint exercises. If you can learn how to use this effectively with various unilateral integrated movements it quickly helps the body overcome weaknesses and compensation really quickly by using the muscles and joints more efficiently. In this article, I will explain exactly what weight shifting is, what it looks like and why this is really is the key to movement efficiency.

What Is The Weight Shift Method & Why Is It So Important?

If my goal is to improve movement efficiency, especially with walking or athletic movements like running and jumping I know that simple exercises are not going to cut it. Simply trying to execute complex multi-joint exercises that require high levels of skill and coordination are going to be too difficult for most to do. So what should you do?

Well, you could try to use a stack of isolated exercises and gradually build up your strength and stability piece by piece to eventually take on the multi-joint exercises which will take a really long time and may not work that well anyway. One big problem with the muscle and isolated exercise approach is that it often concentrates too heavily on muscle weakness when it may be more to do with neuromuscular weakness. Plus, it also assumes that once your strength is there that your body will automatically know how to use it in complex patterns, which is almost never the case.

In the book “Corrective Exercise Solutions for the Hip and Shoulder” by Dr Evan Osar he states,

“The body does not like to work in isolation and will attempt to distribute forces across as many joints as possible to reduce stress to any one region.”

It is not necessarily a lack of muscle strength that is the problem with gait for many people easily develop adequate strength needed in the muscles of the legs within simple isolated exercises. For example, they can use their glutes perfectly well in a single leg hip extension or clamshell exercise and even in a bilateral squat or deadlift, but cannot get it to fire when they walk. How can the same muscle be extremely strong in these exercises and not work at all in another? If the muscle was truly weak then you would not be able to do any of the exercises.

This is an example of where the weakness is more to do with functional stability and timing as opposed to a muscular origin and insertion weakness and is something I see a lot with severe muscle imbalances such as scoliosis and lateral pelvic tilt disorders.

The better solution is to use exercises that target the specific joints and muscles with actions, positions and timing that mimics what you want to improve, in this case gait. By using a combination of simple stability and strength exercises with the more complex multi-joint movements you can effectively address both the muscular and neuromuscular systems at the same time.

In order to do this you need to be able to regress the difficult neuromuscular exercises to allow you to learn the skills without it being so difficult or risky and gradually progress the demands as you improve. The secret to making these work at any level is learning how to effectively transfer the weight of your body from one side to the other without compromising your posture, core stability, or compensating at the hips or feet.

This in effect is what the weight shifting concept is all about.

To fully grasp just how important this is we need to look at the gait cycle in more depth.

What Is The Gait Cycle?

"A gait cycle is a sequence of events in walking or running, beginning when one foot contacts the ground and ending when the same foot contacts the ground again. The human gait cycle is one of the most complicated, coordinated series of movements."

The gait cycle is divided into two phases.

1. The stance phase
2. The swing phase

Each cycle begins with the initial contact of the heel strike of the leading leg with a stance phase, into the swing phase, and ending again with the stance phase. The stance phase is broken into three parts being:

1. Heel strike
2. Mid stance
3. Propulsion

There are so many muscles firing within milliseconds of each other during this cycle in order to make this movement efficient and effortless. The different phases are designed to decelerate the forward momentum of the body while at the same time absorb shock as the body moves over the lower leg ground reaction forces.

Every muscle from the trunk down has one function the minute your foot hits the ground. All the muscles of the lower limb (glutes, quads, hamstrings etc) act together to stop the ankle, knee, and hip from bending to prevent you falling to the ground. All the muscles have the same function which is to apply the brakes and slow you down and then almost reverse this process and instantly switch into propulsion mode.

This explains why isolated and especially bilateral exercises have very little effect on changing the gait cycle for they do not address the timing and interaction with multiple muscles and do not require the weight shift of the body to be controlled. For example, a Romanian deadlift is an amazing exercise and builds tremendous strength and motor control at the muscles of the glutes, hamstrings and core yet it does very little in changing how these muscles work with walking or running.

A single leg hip extension or single leg deadlift has a much better chance of doing this for at least it addresses the weight shifting but once again there is still something missing and that is these exercises do not teach the body how to decelerate joints and absorb shock from the landing, and then transfer into propulsion with split second timing and reactions. I often need to start with the simple single leg exercises and develop stability and strength with them but I know that to finish the job I have to progress to more dynamic movements.

Training The Slings

While single leg exercises are great they do not strengthen the slings of the body which are critical for providing efficient motion for the body. The body is made up of several slings that help connect the upper body and lower body together.

There are 4 slings that we use to do this.

1. Anterior Sling
2. Posterior Sling
3. Lateral Sling
4. Deep Longitudinal Sling

While all these slings are vitally important the two that stand out with relation to the gait cycle are the anterior and posterior sling.

The anterior sling combines the serratus anterior, rhomboids, obliques on one side of the body to work with contra-lateral adductors and quadratus lumborum on the other side of the body to help decelerate the body and create efficient movement with actions like throwing a ball and gait. Most of the exercises using this sling are pushing movements.

The posterior sling is where the glute max of one hip works with the latissimus dorsi of the opposing side to create tension in the lower back region called the thoracolumbar fascia. The action of these muscles along with the fascial system is to prevent rotation of the pelvis when we walk and enable you to store energy to create more efficient movement. Most of the exercises that use this sling are pulling movements.

Where the anterior sling provides deceleration this sling provides propulsion with gait it is the opposite with throwing actions.

Each sling has a corresponding partner on the opposing side and as they both cross the midline they help to connect the upper body with the lower body to either accelerate or decelerate movement. Also it must be stated that this criss-cross connection enhances the stability of the trunk and spine and is why exercises that use these slings are referred to as core strengthening exercises.

A detailed explanation and video examples of these slings are seen in the video below.

This is where the benefit of the weight shift method comes into play for it emphasises this exact timing and constant transfer of weight from right to left with the opposite sides of the body as seen with the anterior and posterior sling. It is not just limited to walking or those with gait dysfunction either, for these methods also develop highly athletic and explosive movements like jumping and change of direction in sports, as well as throwing actions seen in baseball, tennis, cricket, and golf. All of these athletic movement patterns require a weight shift and some degree of rotation in order to produce the force required for efficient movement.

Classic examples of this is a baseball pitcher throwing a ball.

To maximally accelerate the shoulder the pitcher loads the anterior oblique sling. There is a ‘winding up’ and an ‘unwinding’ that takes place at a rapid speed starting from the legs, progressing through the hips, pelvis, lumbar spine, thoracic spine, shoulder, elbow, and wrist. And each must be taught to absorb its fair share.

Both Tennis and Golf are other sports to use where there is a clear example of this transfer of rotary power – a series of wind-ups finally being unwound as the stable base of the hips whips back in the opposite direction. Any weakness in this chain will create compensation and problems somewhere, usually the shoulder or the lower back.

All of this makes great sense but how do you learn how to do this? Where do you start and how do you progress to the challenging exercises without getting hurt?

As you can imagine there is no rule book on this so you have to apply some common sense and logic to find what is best for you.

Exercises To Develop The Weight Shifting Ability

There are several ways to learn how to do this and will start with the easiest and gradually progress to the more challenging and difficult exercises. Remember you must try to get to the exercises featured towards the end to have any chance of making serious changes to the way the body develops the gait cycle.

Single Leg Hip Extension Test

This exercise is a great test to use and is one I use in my standard assessments with all new clients. It provides great information as to the stabilisation strategy the client uses with the glutes and pelvis. You will very easily see the lateral pelvic tilt if there is a weakness in the gluteal and obliques on the opposite side.

You should feel a strong contraction in the glute area in combination with your core bracing the just prior to your lifting the foot off the ground. This is where you often see the person shift to one side before they even lift the foot. This indicates poor stability. It is hard to confirm that it is only the glutes at fault here for it could be several reasons for this. But one thing is for certain is if that happens on this exercise it will be much worse on the more complex standing ones about to come.

Kneeling Inline Lunge

One of the best exercises to see this in action and works well as a test is using the kneeling inline lunge seen at the 6:00 mark in the video below.

This is an amazing exercise for providing reflex stability and is surprisingly very difficult.

It is impossible to initiate a reflex with conscious thought. For example, if you have to think about contracting your core before you pick up an object off the ground, it is already too late. Even if it was perfect the instant you get distracted, you will mess it up for your brain will lose its focus. Training conscious core control is not the best solution and a poor strategy over the long term. It serves a great purpose in the early days of corrective training, but to truly grasp the concept of stability you need to be exposed to more random and unconscious control.  

This is the beauty of the stability lunge drill shown above that features 3 levels of difficulty all requiring this reflex stability skill. The three levels are as follows.

1. Hands by your side
2. Hands behind your head
3. Hands behind your head and eyes closed

Each level forces greater reflex responses and for you to find a way to maintain optimal alignment and stability in order to move. Anyone with hip stiffness created by using the hips as the main driver of their stability will find this almost impossible. Why?

The hips can't remain still and simultaneously move. Something must be sacrificed and it will be your stability so that you can move your leg in front of you. This is such an amazing drill to use with any person who is a risk of falling, as it simulates the falling response but without the risk of serious injury. Trust me when I say the fear of falling is very much the same. This is a key exercise we use with beginners and older adults they begin training and is part of our assessment process.

Single Leg Stability

To gradually progress this I would progress to the single leg hurdle step seen at the 8:30 mark in the video below.

This is basically the same thing as the inline lunge but with the added complexity of the foot being included, hip mobility of the lifted leg a factor, and the body requiring more strength and stability being in a standing position.

This is one of the tests used in Gray Cook’s FMS testing process as it enables you to easily spot compensations with either stability, mobility, or both. When a person transfers from double leg stance to a single leg stance it is often done without thinking which is what enables to get good look at how their body tries to find stability. Once again like the kneeling inline lunge you get to see how their reflexive stability works for they do not have time to consciously premeditate their movements. Prime mover strength will not be able to effectively hold them in a good position.

Things I look for are

1. A loss of height as they buckle at the knees
2. A slight lean to one side
3. Rotation to one side

These all indicate poor stability and motor control. Most of the time it has a lot to do with weakness within the stance leg and poor stabilizer timing. However it is not always the stance leg that is the problem for it could trunk and leg stability may be sacrificed to make up for the loss of mobility in the lifted leg.

Lifting the leg over a high hurdle like this deliberate to see what hip mobility is like for it mimics the height required for actions like running or walking up a flight of stairs where there is a demand for higher hip flexion. A loss of hip flexion due to poor hip mobility will expose the body to instability as it attempts to compensate the body in a better position.

Once I have looked at basic tests that are stationary with reflex stability I will progress to more integrated moving single leg exercises like the Toe Touch drill and eventually the single leg deadlifts and single leg squats that all have a bigger effect on improving strength and developing the ability to control the weight shift.

Toe Touch Drill

This is very similar to the last exercise in that it requires some degree of stability but also hip mobility but this time instead of height, it is the multidirectional movement of the lifted leg. This is an excellent exercise I use right at the beginning of most people’s programs to help them learn how to stabilize the stance leg but with little risk of injury or harm. If they make a mistake there is no consequence, only frustration on their behalf for mucking it up.

There are 3 key things I look for.

1. Poor leg alignment - You should have a straight line from the ankle, knee and hip. Any deviation in this indicates there could be weak glutes and foot stability. It could also be a result of tight hips and ankles. Or it could be all of the above. With more testing and close observation you can begin to narrow the energy leak to where the real problem lies.
2. Poor postural alignment – This indicates there may be poor abdominal and pelvic stability and thoracic stiffness to explore with more tests.
3. Poor range of motion - This indicates lack of strength with the stance leg and possibly lack of mobility in the moving limb with the hip.

You can read more about this exercise and see several other progressions I might use in this article.

• Why the Toe Touch Drill is my favourite stability exercise

Once I have developed skills with this I can now move to more strength based single leg exercises.

Single Leg Deadlift & The Hip Airplane

Once you are at this stage you are really making serious progress and very likely to get your gait pattern under control. However, this part does take considerable time to get right and for the body to develop the required strength to control these movements.

In many articles I have made the statement that single leg deadlifts and single leg squats are the best exercises you could do for your legs. I even ranked them number one in my review of 20 strength training exercises! I also use this as a test on the first day with people for like the hurdle step in the previous step it reveals hidden weaknesses really quickly.

Watch the video below to see what I look for.

Out of all the exercises to make a big difference with hip, back and knee injuries the single leg deadlift is number one.

Why?

This is mainly to do with its ability to realign the femoral back deep into the glutes by releasing the hip and strengthening the glutes while simultaneously improving the alignment of the knee in the frontal plane. Poor alignment of the knee in the frontal plane is the most common form of injury to the knee with ACL injuries, meniscus tears, patella tracking and ITB friction type injuries. The anterior pelvic tilt is essential for all this to happen and allow the glutes to generate their full capacity for strength and maintain the alignment and motor control.

See article about knee pain causes for more detail on this.

While the bilateral RDL is a great start to retraining the anterior pelvic tilt, improving hip mobility and gluteal strength, it will have little effect on correcting the weakness permanently.

Why?

Firstly, it is very rare to find two hips with the identical problem and the single leg exercises expose any compensation and weakness you will not see in the bilateral exercises.

Secondly, the bilateral exercise neglects the important role the feet must play in providing stability of the leg and its critical interaction with the hip during the action of walking.

The single leg stance demands significant more stability from the feet as much as the hip and it is these areas that most lower-limb injuries are created.  The muscles of the feet must provide adequate stability to guarantee optimal alignment of the ankle, knee, and hip when we walk.

This is where I might use the progression of the hip airplane to do this before moving to the loaded variations of the single leg deadlift.

Watch the video of the hip airplane below to see this in action.

Great articles to read with tons of additional information.

• How to improve knee stability with the hip airplane
• How to use the single leg squat as an assessment tool

Now that we have completed many of the stationary exercises we are at the point where we must try to move fast.

The Wood-chop

This is the easiest way to see the weight shift and in many ways the easiest to perform. People forget that the power of the axe in the wood-chop is nothing to do with the upper body or strength of the arms, but the strength and power of the legs transferring force into the core and out the arms.

The first mistake I often see people make is to excessively load the exercise in the belief it will make their abs stronger. Instead all that happens is they load their spine and risk tearing their discs.

The second mistake is they perform the exercise too slowly. I often see this in Pilates and this completely ruins the timing of the movement. If you move too slowly, you will disrupt the workload of the muscles and the sequence they are meant to fire in.

Almost every rotational movement we make is quite fast, and in particular the sporting movements such as a golf swing, a tennis forehand or throwing a ball. The timing is everything for executing efficient movement. If you don’t believe me ask any tennis player or golfer about how important the timing is.

While this exercise links the upper body and lower body together and develops incredible strength and power with rotation it does not have a great influence over gait and this is where you need to progress to the exercises using the slings.

You can read more about the wood-chop in this article – 5 ways to improve your rotational power

Why Integrate Upper Body Movements If The Legs Are The Key?

This is a great question for if everything is linked to the power development of the legs and especially the glutes why worry about including the upper body? Why not just focus on leg specific exercises? The answer again comes back to the slings.

Think about a running action where you folded your arms across your body and how stiff and awkward the action of running would be. Sure, your arms are not creating any power or hitting the ground to create the propulsion needed to run but they are severely limiting the ability of the anterior and posterior sling to effectively accelerate and decelerate. This makes the running action extremely inefficient but worse than that it places tremendous stress into the hips, pelvis and sacroiliac joint.

This is exactly what you see with a person who walks with instability as they no longer use their arms to swing and create motion as they use their arms to provide added stability. The big question is did this create the instability or did the instability create the lack of arm swing? It is difficult to say what is the chicken or the egg, but either way this lack of arm swing greatly inhibits the hips and glutes from firing in the gait cycle.

It must be noted that a fast arm swing of the right arm will create a reaction of the left hip to flex. The two joints are connected and this is something that is trained by sprinters who compete at a high level to enhance their running technique.

Below is a great video I did a while back that explains this in great detail and a great exercise to begin putting all the complex exercises together.

Once I have completed these exercises I can begin using the exercises that target the slings such as single cable push and pulls.

Below are some of my favourite exercises to do this.

Cable Push With Ipsilateral Forward Thrust

This first one is an extremely dynamic version of the standard single arm cable push which is a great exercise for the anterior oblique sling. This progression starts in an awkward ipsilateral stance and finishes in the contralateral stance which many people find quite difficult at first. The reason for this is it mimics the power propulsion seen in the mid stance of sprinting. Watch the video from the 11:00 mark.

The only way for this to work effectively is to have incredible strength with the glutes and core and be able to execute at a high speed to get the timing just right where it feels efficient. This is a lot harder than it looks but a great way to feel the weight shifting from one leg to the other being driven by the posterior chain and stabilized by the core.

Other variations I use are the standard weight shift seen in the video below which mimics the throwing action instead of the running action.

Backwards Walking With Posterior Sling Drive

This next exercise is actually a lot easier to get right than the previous one but it still does mess with your coordination at first. Instead of going forwards with the anterior oblique sling this time you are moving backwards and using the posterior oblique sling.

The weight shift is once again a big part of this but this time the bending action of the hips is more critical to this than with the pushing exercises seen previously. Rotation is slight but extremely important for maintaining stability in the high stance phase and for power and efficiency in the bending phase. If you do not rotate enough it becomes mechanical and awkward.

There are lots of moving parts and it all happens in the blink of an eye but I hope you can begin to see how useful these can be for developing the neuromuscular system as much as you are training the strength of the muscular system.

Watch the video below from the 12:00 mark.

Walking Deadlift

This is highly coordinated movement and many people struggle to get their timing and feet working correctly when they first try it. Once again this shares the hip-hinge seen with the Romanian deadlift which is why it is so good for the hips and the core. The three main differences with this exercise versus the standard single leg deadlift are:

• The speed at which it must be completed
• The rotation element and weight shifting used
• The constant switching from right to left and left to right

It is easy to see how this relates to walking so well especially if you can execute it at high speed and with a challenging load that forces you to swing the dumbbell. One of those deceptively hard exercises at first but quite rewarding and soothing once you figure it out.

Do You Need More Help?

Before jumping straight into any type of corrective program make sure you have seen a qualified Health professional for an accurate diagnosis and assessment of your condition. I cannot stress this enough as self-diagnosing can potentially lead to more problems. We often refer out to Doctors, Chiropractors, and Physiotherapists before implementing our program to know exactly what we are dealing with. Being certain on where to start is crucial to the success of the program.

If you have seen a health professional and are now looking at implementing a series of exercises and stretches this article will provide you with many great ideas on how to do this. As many people struggle to implement this into a gradual progression I created some detailed step by step programs for the most common injuries to the back, knee, and shoulder that you can instantly download below.

Summary

As you can clearly see there is a lot more to the simple weight shift than you think, but at the same time it is something we use all the time without even thinking about it. The big thing to take out of this is how effective is your current ability of weight shifting when you transfer from two legs to one and how well you can you use this with fast speeds. The better you are at moving fast the more likely you are to preserve this at a high level. Once you slow things down you begin to lose the arm swing and rotation, and eventually you will lose stride length and speed. Once this happens you are on the slide down the hill with your gait and once it progresses past a certain point it is really difficult to get back. It is not impossible, but really difficult. The best thing to do is make sure you never lose it by using exercises shown in this article.

For more ideas and information on specific topics I may not have covered in detail be sure to check out our INDEX PAGE on the website that has over 300 of our best articles. These are all sorted into categories for quick reference so you can find what you are after more easily. You can also subscribe to our FREE fortnightly newsletter by clicking here.

If you do need specific help with your exercise program please feel free to reach out to me for help and we can set you up with your individualised program.

About The Author

Nick Jack is owner of No Regrets Personal Training and has over 19 years’ experience as a qualified Personal Trainer, Level 2 Rehabilitation trainer, CHEK practitioner, and Level 2 Sports conditioning Coach. Based in Melbourne Australia he specialises in providing solutions to injury and health problems for people of all ages using the latest methods of assessing movement and corrective exercise.

References:

• The Gift Of Injury - By Dr Stuart McGill and Brian Carroll
• Functional Patterns
• 8 Steps To Pain Free Back - By Esther Gokhale
• The Vital Glutes - By John Gibbons
• Movement - By Gray Cook
• Corrective Exercise Solutions - by Evan Osar
• Back Pain Mechanic - by Dr Stuart McGill
• Diagnosis & Treatment Of Movement Impairment Syndromes - By Shirley Sahrman
• Low Back Disorders - by Dr Stuart McGill
• Ultimate Back Fitness & Performance - by Dr Stuart McGill
• Knee Injuries In Athletes - by Sports Injury Bulletin
• The ACL Solution - by Robert G Marx
• Understanding & Preventing Non-Contact ACL Injuries - American Orthopaedic Society For Sports Medicine
• Athletic Body in Balance - by Gray Cook
• Anatomy Trains - by Thomas Meyers
• Motor Learning and Performance - By Richard A Schmidt and Timothy D Lee
• Assessment & Treatment Of Muscle Imbalance - By Vladimir Janda
• How To Eat, Move & Be Healthy by Paul Chek
• Scientific Core Conditioning Correspondence Course - By Paul Chek
• Advanced Program Design - By Paul Chek