"Animators, get outta the chair!"

"Animators, get outta the chair!"

Having professionally taught 3d animation as well as directing game animators and motion capture sessions over the years, I still find character animators trying to create complex (or even subtle) movements while "sitting down."
Effective animations come from "feeling" your way through it in order to appreciate (as well as replicate) the right types of weighting, inflections and subtleties.
Blocking/acting out your movements in front of a mirror as well as having access to a video camera (or phone) to record your actions to review and reinforce your understanding (once back at the computer) is highly effective and seriously recommended.
Try and never let yourself become to complacent, familiar or even lazy to the most simplest of motions... Act it out!
The important thing is to not only hit the extreme movements first but to go back and implement the anticipation and secondary movements into your animations as well. There are numerous subtle yet very apparent inflections that will sell a character's movement and story that can't truly be appreciated if you don't take the time to move about and feel it.

Mo-cap obviously has the ability to capture these subtleties but so does your "eye" if you continually train yourself to look for these little gems.
So get out of the chair, feel your way through poses, weight shifting, anticipation and secondary. You may feel horribly silly but it will definitely help your animations not too!