Functional Patterns Training in Penrith – Move Better

“At Penrith Biomechanics I use Functional Patterns training to look at the body as a connected system rather than isolated muscles…” Steve Zekic

Walk across the room. It sounds like the simplest thing in the world. But watch it closely and you'll see something interesting. Your right arm swings as your left leg moves forward. Your pelvis rotates, your ribcage responds, and your body transfers force diagonally from one side to the other. Just to name one force vector.

You don't have to think about making any of this happen. Your body has been doing it for millions of steps.

Now compare that to the way most people train. Sit down at a machine. Push with both arms. Pull with both arms. Squat with both feet. Pick up a barbell with both hands.

We spend an enormous amount of time training our bodies in symmetrical positions, while almost everything we do outside the gym involves some degree of rotation, shifting weight and movement from one side of the body to the other. That difference is what interests me.

At Penrith Biomechanics, I take a different approach to training. As a Functional Patterns practitioner, I use the Functional Patterns methodology to look at the body as a connected system rather than a collection of individual muscles.

And one of the concepts that helps explain this is the body's fascial lines.

Your body is connected

We're often taught to think about the body in terms of individual muscles. Here's your lat, your glute, your chest, your hamstring. But that's not really how the body behaves when you move. The muscles and connective tissues of the body are interconnected. At FP (Functional Patterns) we understand that the body has evolved to stand, walk run and throw, and these adaptations have organised our fascia lines in the body to operate in a very particular way.

Take the Back Functional Line.

It describes a relationship between the latissimus dorsi on one side of the body and the opposite glute and lower limb, connected through the tissues of the trunk.

Then look at the way you walk. Your left leg moves forward while your right arm moves forward. The opposite hip and shoulder are working together through the movement.

Suddenly, the idea of a connection running diagonally through the body starts to make sense. The fascial-line model isn't about saying that one piece of fascia is magically responsible for an entire movement. It's a useful framework for understanding something we can clearly observe:

The body doesn't operate in isolated pieces.

Look at the way you actually move

Think about walking, or running...

Every step involves a constant exchange between left and right. Your foot interacts with the ground. Your leg transfers force up into the leg, then into the hips. Your hips and ribcage move in relation to each other. Your arm swings to counterbalance the movement. Then you take another step.. and another. It's a beautiful, coordinated sequence. Now imagine trying to train that entire system by only thinking about individual muscles.

That's where I believe conventional training miss an important piece of the puzzle. Prioritizing squats, deadlifts or bench presses do not adhere to the first four (standing, walking, running, throwing). If they dont, then it is not in accordance with the SAID Principle (specific adaptation to imposed demands) Meaning, if I am not training to what my evolutionary blueprint says i should, then its very hard for me to train my body correctly. Building strength is valuable, and conventional resistance training has an important place in developing physical capacity. But getting stronger at a particular exercise isn't necessarily the same thing as improving how your body coordinates movement.

That's an important distinction. You can be strong and still not move particularly well.

Strength isn't the whole story

Imagine someone who has spent years getting stronger in the gym. Their squat has gone up. Their deadlift has gone up. They can press impressive amounts of weight. But they still experience the same recurring problems when they walk, run, play sport or simply go about their day. Should we automatically assume they need to get even stronger? Maybe. But maybe strength isn't the missing piece. Maybe it's how that strength is being organised.

Your nervous system doesn't just need to produce force. It needs to coordinate that force through your body. It needs to stabilise one part while another moves. It needs to transfer force from the ground through the legs, pelvis and trunk. It needs to coordinate opposite sides of the body. And that is where rotational and contralateral training becomes interesting.

How Functional Patterns Training Works in Penrith

This is the basis of the work I do as a Functional Patterns practitioner in Penrith. Rather than looking at the body as a collection of muscles that need to be strengthened independently, the Functional Patterns training methodology focuses heavily on the movements that underpin how humans actually move through the world. Gait. Rotation. Contralateral movement and much more.

The relationship between the feet, hips, pelvis, ribcage and shoulders. Instead of asking only, "What muscle is weak?", we can start asking a much bigger question:

"How is the entire body organising movement?"

That changes the way we train. An exercise isn't simply about lifting a weight. It's about how the body produces, transfers and controls force. The goal is to build strength that can actually be expressed through movement.

Training the way you move

This is why my training doesn't look like a traditional gym session. We're not trying to make exercise complicated for the sake of being different. We're trying to make the training relevant to the way the human body actually moves. If you walk, your body needs to coordinate opposite sides. If you run, that coordination becomes faster and more demanding. If you rotate, your legs, hips, trunk, shoulders and arms need to work together. If you change direction, your body needs to absorb and redirect force. These are the qualities I want to develop. The fascial lines give us a useful way of understanding the connections involved. Functional Patterns training gives us a methodology for putting those ideas into practice. And that is what Penrith Biomechanics is about.

I work with people in Penrith and online, helping them understand how they move and developing training around the way their body needs to function—not simply around how much weight they can lift. Because strength matters. But strength without coordination is only part of the picture. Your body doesn't move in straight lines. It doesn't move muscle by muscle. It moves as a connected system.

So perhaps your training should too.

Want to understand how you move?

If you're in Penrith, or you'd prefer to work with me online, get in touch with Penrith Biomechanics to arrange an assessment and find out how Functional Patterns can be applied to your training.

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