As you develop your training program, think about the three planes of motion:
- The frontal plane (sometimes called the coronal plane) divides your body into the front half and the back half.
- The sagittal plane divides you into left half and right half.
- The transverse plane divides you into top half and bottom half.
In our daily life, we often move in all three planes simultaneously. Our exercises, on the other hand, tend to focus on one plane or two at most. The one that we tend to ignore is the transverse plane. Most of our exercise machines work our top half (arms, shoulders, chest) or our bottom half (legs, glutes) but not our top and bottom half. It’s like we have a top and a bottom but they’re not related to each other.
There are a few tri-planar exercises that work all three planes of motion. One of the better known is the ax chop. Pick up a weight (a medicine ball is good) that’s
to the right of your right foot. Swivel and lift until the weight is above your left shoulder. Then repeat, starting on your left side and finishing above your right shoulder. You can do this with a weight or with a stretch band.
The burpee (or squat thrust) is also a good tri-planar exercise. We all learned the basic maneuver in high school gym class. You can make it make it more strenuous by adding a push up when you get to the plank position or by adding a kettlebell that you lift over your head.