Erwan Le Corre - Movnat natural movement
Erwan Le Corre first came to our attention when he appeared on the front cover of a magazine asking in bold letters if he might be "the fittest man on earth?" That quickly led to the video that seemed to back up the claim, produced by Erwan himself, entitled "The workout the world forgot". A brilliant piece of content that did exactly what it was intended to do, showing him at his best, in a range of natural environments, looking completely at home on both land and water. And there was not a gym, medicine ball or boxing glove in sight.
The development of Movnat over the past few years has been a joy to watch, as they have slowly expanded their range of courses and workshops, with an online training course offer now as well. Their interpretation of natural movement focuses on core movement skills such as running, throwing, jumping, swimming, climbing, throwing, striking and grappling.
By categorizing movements in this way, and moving away completely from talking about isolated body parts as most fitness professionals are taught to do nowadays, Erwan opened the door to a new approach that was more intimately connected with nature, life in the outdoors and real world challenges that we, or more likely our forefathers, might be facing on a daily basis.
And that is the point of course, that we have become utterly disconnected from how we are meant to move, we've come to think of fitness merely as being able to bench or squat X, run Y or spin for Z. Movnat throws all of that out of the window in favour of an outdoor-oriented training method. Expect lots of swinging, climbing, balancing and barefoot running in any workshop you attend, as neatly demonstrated here:
How is Movnat different to Biofit you may ask? There is without doubt a shared ethos and philosophy, Movnat are however far larger and more developed as a brand than we are, lets be honest. They have a global schedule of workshops and considerable brand awareness amongst the fitness community. We're a few years behind in that process lets say!
However, from a business perspective, the key point is that we tackle the same problem in different ways as we're both engaged in trying to help 21st century urbanites live, eat and move in ways that nature intended.
Biofit designs biophilic, nature-inspired gym facilities with our in-house architects, landscape architects and gym designers. We then source (not 'produce') a range of premium pieces of functional fitness equipment made of natural materials such as leather, hemp, bamboo, wood and cotton from a network of trusted suppliers, ensuring a premium, natural style in the gym. Finally, we train the onsite coaching team in our Biofit class program, covering Movement, Mobility, Strength, Stamina, Play and Fight techniques.
Difference 1: Movnat do not design gyms although they do have a growing number of affiliate gyms operating under license that teach their method and use their co-branded equipment made with a partner company in Germany.
Difference 2: Biofit is a multi-sensory indoor or indoor-outdoor gym experience that finds ways to harness the healing power of Vitamin Nature by using our own acoustic music playlists, natural aromatherapy, circadian lighting, air purifying plants and biophilic design touches. This is a holistic, 360 degree view of what it means to provide a healthy gym experience, taking into consideration air quality, sound, lighting, touch and scent.
Difference 3: Biofit offers affiliate gyms a breakdown of between 1 and 6 different class genres to deliver a complete 6-day / 52-week gym program ensuring plenty of different options to appeal to different audiences; when taken together this provides a complete movement regime for beginner through to advanced level practitioners.
Difference 4: The exact content of our training method is easy to distinguish from the Movnat offer as well, just think of it like two Italian chefs in a kitchen, each one brings his own culture, knowledge and preferred ingredients with him when he cooks. Both are Italian restaurants but the gastronomic experiences on offer are very different.
Ultimately, no one system can ever cover everything, so a good student will always seek out new stimuli, new opportunities to learn and push their training regime in new directions. So try us, try Movnat, try anything that inspires you, just keep your beginner's mind and above all, enjoy the ride!