What is Functional Training?
Around the gym you might have heard people using the term functional training. Often you might wonder what this actually means, and what does it entail? In a general sense it means doing a workout that trains the body to be able to handle the normal activities of life.
The problem is most exercises can count as functional training. There is no right or wrong set of exercises to perform functional training and the proper exercises could vary from person to person. For instance an office work might need training to lift up to 50 pounds, while a firefighter would need to life more and have endurance to handle a stressful situation.
Often this form of exercise is mistaken for ballistic training often used by athletes and sporting event players who need peak fitness to be able to handle the tasks that their sports require. The problem with the average person trying to take a similar approach is they end up hurting themselves because they try to mimic the results where it isn’t logical for the average person to do.
What a person really needs to achieve with functional training is the increase the relationship between the nerves and the muscle portions of the body. Force producing exercises that build muscle mass have little relevance in this sense. Rather resistance training is where functional training actually plays into things.
With this form of resistance normal daily functions become easier to do. With the training the signals from the brain are direct and your coordination becomes more precise than it was before. Everything as a whole that you do becomes accurate and you can do certain tasks with minimal stress.
For example, if you have repetitive couching in your daily routing. Squats would prove to be a portion of functional training. As you perform them in regular intervals your body creates endurance to this normal action, and you can maintain the position longer. This can be helpful say for a file clerk who spends a great deal of time combing through filing cabinets.
Remember these are functions that in turn will train movements on down the line. These are core exercises often as well, rather than just training your abs and calling it good, there are other portions to your body that need the recognition. While they might not help improve the toned look of your body, functional training is crafted to help your daily life.
There are many reasons why this form of training is essential in your daily life. Along with what has been previously stated, we can explore more some key points to consider.
- Functional training enhances your daily living needs and provides maintenance to prevent your overall health and mobility from slipping below a standard level.
- It promotes overall health increase and can assist in extending your life and giving you spinal health. This can result in better posture and comfort from back pain.
- The repetitive patterns that mimic what you would normally do in a day aid in helping make your life a little easier. It can come in various forms including work tasks, home activities, and sporting events you might participate in.
Functional training goes beyond cosmetic fitness. Rather than only exercising the muscles that you can visually see you are training core muscles beneath them and giving them strength and toning. Imagine the number of people you hear that get hurt doing a small task; this is because core muscles are not properly taken care of. Just because you can’t see under the hood of a car, doesn’t mean it doesn’t need care as well.
