You may have heard the fitness term “functional training”, and wondered, “what does that mean, and why should I care?” Read below to learn why you should care, and why you should consider adding functional training to your fitness routine.
Functional training is training done for a purpose. The purpose may be to improve performance in a specific sport, or simply to improve performance in activities of daily living (ADL). Functional exercises have the following characteristics:
Executed while in contact with the ground (standing or kneeling),
Movement based, multi-joint exercises, as opposed to exercises focused on single muscles.
Stability during exercise is provided by the athlete, not supported by a seated machine.
Functional training combines strength, endurance, mobility, flexibility, and balance for the purpose of improving performance in sports and daily activities. Bottom line… you can reduce your training time, and get more bang for your buck with functional training!
A further benefit of functional training is that it teaches you how to handle your body weight in all planes of movement. Additionally functional exercises intentionally incorporate balance and proprioception (body awareness) into training through the use of unilateral exercises. This really makes sense since most of our daily activities, even walking, are single limb movements.
Below is a list of functional exercises that if you haven’t already, should consider including in your workouts:
Squat
Lunge
Deadlift
Cable and Dumbbell Rows - do standing and unilaterally
Push Up - not done on knees, use incline bench if necessary
Cable Pulldown - kneeling, and unilateral
Cable Press - standing and unilateral
Dumbbell Press - standing and unilateral
Plank - both front and side planks
Here is a list of non-functional exercises you should consider eliminating from your workouts:
Machine Leg Extensions
Machine Leg Press
Seated Row
Seated Pulldown
Seated Chest Press
Seated Shoulder Press
Seated Crunch Machine
Bottom line: you should be working your entire body at the gym just like you do in daily life. So don’t sit down when you get to the gym!
To learn more about starting a safe and effective exercise program that will increase your strength, mobility, balance, and endurance, click on the link below.
