You may have noticed one of the ‘buzz words’ around in exercise currently is functional exercise… what is it, and why do I personally love functional movement vs machines.
Functional fitness is a type of training that prepares the body for real-life movements and activities. Also known as functional training or functional movement, “It trains your muscles to work together and prepares them for daily tasks by simulating common movements you might do at home, at work, or in sports.” – Mayo Clinic. Movements such as squatting, reaching, pulling, and lifting will be made easier with functional fitness integrated into your exercise routine. According to WebMD.com, ‘functional fitness is focused on building a body capable of doing real-life activities in real-life positions, not just lifting a certain amount of weight in an idealised posture created by a gym machine’. For example, you could be pushing 150kg on the leg press, but when you go to put a suitcase in the back of your car, you throw your back out. Or, you can bicep curl with 25kg dumbbells with perfect form, but picking up your child makes you pull a muscle.
Functional fitness has been a buzzword in and outside of gyms for a very long time now. Why? It’s not just because of its benefits to people’s everyday lives, but because of the validity and truth behind its origin. Before functional fitness even had a name, all of our ancestors were doing it.
Functional fitness is designed to prepare you for all aspects of your life, not just to successfully lift heavy weights in the gym. If you can hit a 100kg back squat, but you’re out of breath walking from your car to your front door including functional fitness may be the answer. This style of training will help you become a more well-rounded athlete which will translate to your everyday life.
Generally a good skilled personal trainer, will include a mix of resistance Training, cardiovascular training and include functional movement to give you the best outcome from your workouts, and this is why seeing a skilled personal trainer is so important. For any of my clients, I will always include the super important exercises like say Squats and Deadlifts first to ensure you are at your freshest as these use the biggest muscle groups, so will fatigue you the fastest… see now you can begin to understand the importance of a good Personal trainer here right!
It’s been said multiple times before, but the advantage of functional fitness is that this training translates to your everyday life. Whether it’s through bodyweight exercises like lunges, pull-ups, and push-ups, or weighted exercises like deadlifts, squats, and bent over rows, functional fitness training can benefit everyone for their specific needs. So for an example of how this style of training can translate into your life:
• Are you the parent of a toddler? Or does your job require you to be bent over/pick up heavy items frequently? Functional movements like the deadlift and the squat can be highly beneficial for you.
• Do you worry about not having enough strength to lift an object overhead safely? Try exercises like the dumbbell shoulder press and the straight arm plank.
• Do you find that you have tight muscles and joints when reaching and rotating? Do you feel like your range of motion and flexibility could use some help? Try functional exercises that will help increase your mobility.
These are just a few examples of functional fitness exercises that directly translate to your life. There are thousands of more exercises, movements, and methods of this training that can be incorporated into your training.
So you can see why I am a big fan of including it, as a personal trainer, because to me movement in everyday life is just so important and really is impacted by what you do at the gym, if I can improve your everyday movement at home or at work, then I get an extra pat on the back!!
