PRIMAL MOVEMENT IS THE FITNESS TREND OF THE YEAR

Are you ready to crawl, creep and squat? Is life lived behind your desk in the slouch position killing your posture and your moves? If the idea of twisting and stretching your body sounds good to you right now as you read this from your seated perch, you might be one of the millions of people who have helped TikTok searches for ‘primal fitness’ rack up almost two billion views. The Pinterest Predicts 2023 report, which tracks trends according to the uptick in searches, says this mobility movement is set to be a major trend.

It involves engaging all the natural movement patterns that have been part of human mobility and motion for thousands of years. Richard-Dean Sumares - the owner of Crawl Labs in Cape Town – explains: “Primal movements are patterns that are meant to be reflective of the evolutionary process. Patterns that connect us to something primordial and innate. These can be animal mimicry-type patterns, such as bear crawls or lizard crawls, but can also be very basic micro patterns involving oscillations or spirals. The premise suggests that we are somehow tapping into a type of somatic intelligence that is deep within our DNA and nervous system.

“I think in recent years there has been a shift towards practices that take people out of conventional gyms, and exercise regimes, and encourage a reconnection to body, nature and some kind of philosophical or spiritual grounding,” Richard-Dean continues. “Primal movements allow us to reconnect to some intrinsic and subtle layers of existence and self-expression that are otherwise ignored in exercise and fitness. The focus is to bring us closer to the natural evolutionary cycle and the movements that encouraged our evolution to become what we are today. To use the body according to its own design and connect more deeply with its natural functions.”