Functional Training for Real Life Function

Functional training helps empower everyday movements, whether you’re an athlete trying to strengthen his or her game or a senior strengthening mobility, stability and flexibility for regular activities of daily living.

Training in this manner is not for increasing the size and power in one particular muscle group, but rather multiple muscle groups strengthened and trained together. This creates flow from one muscle group to the next vs. stiff blocky movement that happens with muscles that are trained separately instead of together.

Example: a bodybuilder that is trying to increase size of shoulders may set in a shoulder press unit that will protect his or her back while pressing dumbbells repeatedly overhead. However, someone that is trying to increase functional strength, will do exercises such as reaching down to the floor and picking up a barbell or a set of dumbbells and pushing it/them overhead meanwhile teaching and training the muscles to work and function in unison.

In real life, we don’t have a seat or machine protecting our back when we lift, pull or press things, so why would an athlete or someone trying to enhance capabilities in real life train any different then how they move in real life, whether it’s performance on track and field or simply doing yard work?

Going into a gym, purchasing exercise equipment or simply using bodyweight exercises can be a little intimidating when someone is trying to figure it all out, but not so, if you are simply trying to improve real life function. By mimicking real life movements and using exercises to create a greater resistance (such as using a barbell or set of dumbbells while doing a squat) we simply build more powerful movements and greater endurance!

Example: If you always carry a heavy set of dumbbells (or other form of resistance) up and down a hill or stairs, eventually going up and down this hill or stairs with only your bodyweight will be super easy!

Example bodyweight exercise: get down on the floor (use a chair or sofa if needed) and lay flat on the floor with arms stretched out overhead, then stand back up and extend arms overhead once again. Repeat until it becomes a slight strain to stand back up. Over a period of several weeks, you will see this become easy and your muscles used for this will become more toned and conditioned. You can use cans of food or dumbbells to increase resistance.

Example barbell exercise: lift a barbell with weights up from the floor to your chest, then go into a full squat and as you stand back up, press the weight overhead.

Training in this way teaches our muscles to work together. Bodybuilders pump individual muscle groups to increase size and strength; athletes train multiple groups of muscles at one time, to work together for more powerful and coordinated movements.

Never let a gym or exercise routine intimidate you into thinking you have to figure it out, simply use the contraptions it provides to serve the purpose you need it for. When you take real life movements and add resistance and duration to the movement in your exercise routine, it makes the movements and duties in real life become lighter and easier!