All forms of exercise have unique benefits, but not all workouts are the same. Functional fitness has been an emerging health and wellness trend where individuals focus on training the entire body to work as one, in order to improve their ability to perform common movements and routine activities. For individuals who are looking to prepare their bodies for all that life has to offer, functional fitness can be a great way to develop strength and endurance for daily tasks.
Functional fitness has been steadily growing in popularity in recent years as it can be a useful workout routine to get back in shape, recover from previous injuries, and focus on functional strength.
Functional fitness is a workout that consists of compound movements and exercises that are designed to better imitate movements or tasks that you would do at work or home. Whether you’re squatting to pick up that box on moving day or moving those heavy grocery bags from your car to the kitchen, functional fitness always has a real-life application in mind.
Functional fitness differs from other traditional workouts where you’re just trying to focus on how much you can curl or push on a machine.
Functional fitness is structured in a variety of ways and is designed in such a way that you’re constantly building on the foundation from previous workouts. As you progress through each workout, you’ll focus on building strength, mobility, stability, range of motion, and coordination. Initially, you may begin with lower repetitions and slower movements in less challenging positions. Over time, repetitions, speed, resistance, and position changes will build on those earlier foundations to build your whole body’s capacity and reach your desired goals. These compound movements and exercises will help you build a strong foundation which will also build your confidence to do normal every-day activities without fear of injury or failure.
Functional fitness focuses on full-body workouts that are designed to target the body as a whole instead of one isolated muscle group. For example, instead of working your quadriceps by performing an isolated leg extension on a machine, compound exercises like a step-up or lunch may be performed.
Here at Results Physiotherapy, we use functional fitness to help our patients get back to doing the things they love. You’ll work closely with a licensed Physical Therapist who will listen to your goals and work with you to incorporate functional exercises into a comprehensive rehabilitation program which you can continue once your Physical Therapy plan of care is completed.
Our licensed Physical Therapists will educate you on how to properly perform each movement and monitor your progress throughout the course of treatment which will also help you build confidence along the way.
There are plenty of benefits with functional fitness including improved balance, stability, strength, coordination, social connections, and a decrease in injury risk. Functional fitness can help you not only through your fitness journey but also improve your willingness to exercise through group activities and social engagement. We’ve identified some of the key benefits of functional fitness to highlight why you should consider adding functional fitness into your workout routine.
Functional fitness is all about improving your ability to do routine tasks throughout the day. It’s difficult to do much of anything if your balance is poor. A good functional fitness program will incorporate single-limb exercises, uneven weights, and dynamic movements. This will help develop balance that is easily translated to the tasks of life.
Through compound movements, your body will learn how to manage certain activities, weight, and physical stress better. Underdeveloped muscles and injuries are a leading cause of poor posture as other muscles and support structures tend to compensate or work overtime to alleviate pain in those regions. Functional fitness helps retrain both sides of a muscle group, which over time may help improve your posture and overall movement.
As your body begins to develop muscle and grow accustomed to performing functional movements and exercises, you’ll increase your ability to control varying and uneven weights through ranges. As discussed earlier, a good functional fitness program will incorporate uneven weights which will improve the overall stability and control of your joints through movements as the demand from smaller stabilizing muscles is increased.
Functional fitness will help you build strength and stability, that can help with the performance of other activities, such as running. In this example, building strength and stability of the ankle, knee, and hip muscle groups will improve the body’s ability to handle loads, especially through difficult tasks like running.
Functional fitness can also easily be done in a group setting or one-on-one. This style of exercise is easily translatable to any social setting. With functional fitness, you can choose to join a group to work in group training sessions or work one-on-one with a personal trainer or licensed Physical Therapist. Entire organizations are focused on providing functional fitness classes for newcomers and experienced athletes who are looking to workout with others. Some of the most common ones that you might have heard of in the past include Orangetheory Fitness and CrossFit.
Working with others in functional fitness courses and group settings is a great way to find motivation amongst your peers. If you’d feel more confident working one-on-one, working with a personal trainer or licensed Physical Therapist can be a great way to get individualized attention and guidance during your fitness and wellness journey.
At Results Physiotherapy, we pride ourselves on working individually with each patient to develop that unique connection to build your confidence and help you reach your goals.
Functional fitness helps you get back to the basics to ensure that you’re doing things properly and safely to avoid risky injuries. Because functional fitness targets whole muscle groups as well as small, stabilizing muscles, theoretically your chances of injury should be lower in whatever activity you are doing.
With so many different workouts to choose from, you might be asking yourself why you should consider functional fitness over other traditional forms of exercise like weight training, group classes, bodybuilding, traditional cardio, and more. As with all exercise programs, you should always try and start from the ground up to build a solid foundation before moving onto complex exercises or workout programs. Functional fitness helps you do just that by focusing on building a strong foundation with compound movements that are designed to help you improve your ability to perform everyday tasks.
With functional fitness, you can get individualized attention and instruction on how to perform certain movements to ensure that you’re doing so safely, and set yourself up for future success at the same time.
Exercise isn’t only about being able to lift 400 lbs through a deadlift or bench pressing 300 lbs. Functional fitness will allow you to focus on what truly matters, being able to confidently do more every day with a healthy lifestyle. Functional fitness also allows you to build the confidence you need to transition to some of the other workouts and exercise programs you’ve been hoping to try. This is great for those individuals who haven’t worked out in quite some time or would like a refresher on how to exercise safely without getting injured.
At Results PT, a licensed Physical Therapist will work with you to establish a functional fitness program that is tailored to meet your needs and goals. Each one of our licensed Physical Therapists is passionate about working with clients from all fitness and wellness backgrounds to prevent future injuries, alleviate the pain you’re experiencing, and recover effectively. No matter your fitness experience, our Physical Therapists can help you with your unique situation and goals!
Schedule an Appointment Today at one of our clinics to see how functional fitness and Physical Therapy can help you!
