Functional fitness Archives

Functional Fitness: What It Is and How to Improve It
Functional fitness is a type of exercise that trains your body for everyday activities, such as carrying groceries, climbing stairs, or playing with your kids. It involves movements that mimic the way you use your muscles in real life, such as squatting, pushing, pulling, twisting, and balancing.

What Is Functional Fitness?
Functional fitness is not a specific workout program or a set of exercises. It is a concept that focuses on improving your ability to perform tasks that are relevant to your daily life. Functional fitness exercises can be done with or without equipment, and they can be adapted to suit your goals, preferences, and fitness level.

The main idea behind functional fitness is to train your body as a whole unit, rather than isolating individual muscles or joints. This way, you can improve your strength, endurance, flexibility, coordination, and balance in a more efficient and effective manner. You can also reduce your risk of injury and enhance your quality of life.

Some examples of functional fitness exercises are:

• Squat: This exercise mimics the movement of sitting down and standing up. It works your legs, glutes, core, and back muscles. It can help you with activities such as getting in and out of a car, picking up something from the floor, or lifting a heavy object.

• Push-up: This exercise mimics the movement of pushing yourself away from something. It works your chest, shoulders, arms, and core muscles. It can help you with activities such as opening a door, getting up from the floor, or pushing a stroller.

• Lunge: This exercise mimics the movement of taking a step forward or backward. It works your legs, glutes, core, and balance. It can help you with activities such as walking, running, climbing stairs, or changing directions.

• Row: This exercise mimics the movement of pulling something toward you. It works your back, shoulders, arms, and core muscles. It can help you with activities such as carrying a backpack, opening a drawer, or pulling a suitcase.

• Plank: This exercise mimics the movement of holding yourself in a stable position. It works your core, back, shoulders, arms, and legs. It can help you with activities such as maintaining good posture, supporting your spine, or stabilizing your body.

Why Is Functional Fitness Important?
Functional fitness is important for everyone because it can help you:

• Prevent or manage chronic conditions: Functional fitness can help prevent or manage conditions that affect your muscles and joints, such as arthritis, osteoporosis, back pain, and diabetes. Functional fitness can help improve your blood sugar control, bone density, joint stability, and pain management.
• Enhance your performance and well-being: Functional fitness can help you perform better in your daily activities, such as walking, running, climbing stairs, or playing with your kids. It can also improve your balance, coordination, agility, and reaction time. Functional fitness can also boost your mood, energy, confidence, and self-esteem.

• Age gracefully and independently: Functional fitness can help you maintain or improve your mobility and functionality as you age. It can also prevent or delay the onset of age-related decline in muscle mass, strength, and power. Functional fitness can help you preserve your quality of life and independence by reducing your risk of falls, fractures, and disability.

How to Improve Functional Fitness
To improve your functional fitness, you need to engage in exercises that challenge your body in multiple planes of motion and mimic the movements that you do in real life. You can use your own body weight, free weights, resistance bands, or other equipment to add resistance and variety to your exercises.

To improve your functional fitness, you should aim for at least 20 to 30 minutes of functional fitness exercises three to four times per week. You can also incorporate functional fitness exercises into your daily routine by doing them during breaks, before or after work, or while watching TV.

How to Measure Functional Fitness
There are different ways to measure your functional fitness, depending on the specific tasks or goals you want to evaluate. Here are some common methods for measuring functional fitness:

• Functional movement screen (FMS): This is a set of seven tests that assess your mobility, stability, and movement quality. The tests include deep squat, hurdle step, in-line lunge, shoulder mobility, active straight leg raise, trunk stability push-up, and rotary stability. Each test is scored from zero to three based on your performance and technique. The total score ranges from zero to 21. A higher score indicates better functional fitness and lower risk of injury.

• Senior fitness test (SFT): This is a set of six tests that assess your functional fitness as an older adult (60 years and older). The tests include chair stand (lower body strength), arm curl (upper body strength), chair sit-and-reach (lower body flexibility), back scratch (upper body flexibility), 8-foot up-and-go (agility and dynamic balance), and 6-minute walk (aerobic endurance). Each test is scored based on your performance and age group norms. A higher score indicates better functional fitness and lower risk of disability.

• Performance-based tests: These are tests that measure your ability to perform specific tasks or activities that are relevant to your daily life or goals. For example, you can measure how fast you can walk a certain distance (gait speed), how many times you can stand up from a chair in 30 seconds (sit-to-stand), how far you can reach forward while sitting (functional reach), how long you can balance on one leg (single-leg stance), or how many stairs you can climb in a minute (stair climb).

• Start with the basics: Before you try advanced or complex exercises, master the fundamental movements that are essential for functional fitness, such as squat, hinge, push, pull, lunge, and plank. Learn the proper form and technique to avoid injury and maximize results.

• Mix it up: Functional fitness can involve a variety of exercises and equipment, so mix it up to keep things interesting and challenging. Try using resistance bands, kettlebells, or even everyday objects like water bottles or bags to add resistance to your exercises. Focus on multi-joint and multi-plane movements that work multiple muscles and directions at once.

• Be progressive: Gradually increase the difficulty of your exercises as you get fitter and more comfortable. You can do this by adding more weight, reps, sets, or time to your exercises. You can also try different variations or modifications of the same exercise to challenge yourself in new ways.

• Be consistent: To see improvements in your functional fitness, you need to be consistent with your training. Aim for at least two to three sessions of functional fitness exercises per week. You can also incorporate functional fitness exercises into your daily routine by doing them during breaks, before or after work, or while watching TV.

Summary
Functional fitness is a type of exercise that trains your body for everyday activities. It involves movements that mimic the way you use your muscles in real life. Functional fitness can help you prevent or manage chronic conditions, enhance your performance and well-being, and age gracefully and independently. To improve your functional fitness, you need to engage in exercises that challenge your body in multiple planes of motion and mimic the movements that you do in real life. You can also measure your functional fitness using various methods, such as functional movement screen (FMS), senior fitness test (SFT), or performance-based tests. By maintaining a good functional fitness level, you can enjoy many benefits for your body and mind.