Functional Training

Functional training is one of the more commonly used phrases to get people to join a certain session. Most “functional” sessions, at least those I’ve been shown, and those I’ve seen around me, would include compound movements and a high heart rate that would mostly increase our calorie burn and take our body to it’s limit.

What is functional? To answer that, I would look at the term given from Dictionary.com for a function: “the kind of action or activity proper to a person, thing, or institution; the purpose for which something is designed or exists; role.” Using this definition of a function, I would define functional training as a set of movements with the purpose to ease the trainees day to day life activities. Say you are a carrier, you would not necessarily need to jump rope as much as you may need to learn to lift heavy weights and move around with proper form. At the other end of the scale, say you are a kindergarten teacher, you do not need to lift heavy weights and move around, but focus more on leaning down with proper form and moving around in an environment that is fit for little children without hurting yourself. Both of those people can benefit from doing both types of exercises, but it’s not functional for their day to day activity.

Don’t be mistaken, we all share the same movements in the end, and we all can benefit from doing the same exercise, but we would require a different load and amount of reps to benefit the best. Looking back at the examples above, a carrier would benefit from a heavy Deadlift more than the kindergarten teacher, who would benefit more from a lighter Deadlift with more reps, the carrier might need to lift a washing machine, whereas the teacher would need an infant or a child who weighs a lot less, the carrier would need to do it once or twice, whereas the teacher have the potential of lifting a child more than 10 times to calm them down.

It may sound obvious, and maybe that is a reason it is considered a basic activity, walking is a functional exercise, we walk from different places, we carry stuff around, so it is important to involve walking as part of your routine,

and strengthen the legs to support a correct walking posture to avoid inflicting damage. Running is also part of this section, but it is more advanced and is not a must do for all the people, at least in my opinion.

If you’d look around, at a family reunion or even on the street, you may see elderly people using their hand to both sit down (would usually be placed on the surface on which they are about to sit on) and stand up, instead of using their legs.

This use is unnecessary and can cause pain in the arm joints to begin with, but lack of strength in the legs could also cause them to fall down hard if the hand slips and that is a sure method to be injured. We spend quite some time sitting and standing, while entering the car, sitting at work, relaxing in front of the TV, etc. So while we’re at it, don’t drop to the chair, squat towards it and later on from it.

How many times have you heard of someone leaning to grab something from the ground, and losing their ability to get back up afterwards? Maybe I’ve heard more cases like these because I’m a trainer or because I’m a massage therapist, but even before I was any of those, I’ve heard people around me complain about it.

The hinge in this case is referred to the pelvic bone hinging the back forwards and the legs backwards to create a leaning motion. A Deadlift is a great form of hinging for it makes the body maintain a proper form while lifting the weight straight of the ground, as we so often do.

The simplest example I have in mind for pushing, is that high shelf we have at the kitchen or at our closet with boxes on it that we use often, but not to often, which is they’re there. Getting those boxes on the shelf or from it is a pushing motion,

either positive push when putting the box on the shelf or a negative push when we take the box from it (Concentric and Eccentric motions if we are to look at the professional term). We do a lot of pushing activities but during our daily routine, but I’ve decided to use the shelf example for simplicity.

Taking our laundry from the washing machine, opening closets, picking up a bag, moving a chair back so we could sit, and the list goes on… All of these are pulling motions which we do on a daily base. Some might not require too much strength, but they all require a great technique if we wish to avoid an injury.

If we would examine the chair movement to allow us to sit on the table, the chair might be heavier than we can imagine, and a wrong pull can cause some unpleasant pain, or if we pull on a door that is either heavy or is air pressured due to a working AC or a ventilation system, the outcome can be the same.

One of the last motions we learn as babies, and one of the first we “forget” as we get older, is the rotation. Spine rotations are important and crucial for our body to have, starting with a static rotation, such as when opening a car door using just a single hand, and going on the turning in bed while we sleep, the muscles should operate correctly. Combining controlled rotations within your workout routine is not the only way to work of that motion, a more functional way to work on it would be to engage into uneven pulls or pushes, that way you work on a few elements of the basic movements structure.

To sum it up, we all use the same motion elements, but we use them under different circumstances and for various reasons, if you want to have a functional session every now and then, you must first understand the movements you require, from those mark the movements you do the least while training, and build a routine combining them together into a beneficial training session. If you are lacking the knowledge, consult a professional to help you figure the motions and build a program accordingly.