Functional training mimics the movements we perform in everyday life. Functional strength training relates to daily movements such as sitting and standing, bending over, and twisting from side to side. Such practical workouts strive to make these movements both easier and executed with diminished or relatively low discomfort. We can think of functional fitness as forcing us to use our heads in everyday activities, as well as the best muscles for the job.
The Origin of Functional Training
The idea/entity of functional training first began within the realm of the rehabilitation professions. Physical and occupational therapists use functional training all the time, to help patients regain movement following surgery or an injury. They discovered that this hastens the patient’s recovery and allows him to return to a normal daily routine more successfully.
Just as physical therapists design rehab programs with the patient’s condition and goals in mind, personal trainers who utilize functional training in the gym setting attempt to include exercises that will enable clients to perform their usual activities with ease, or return to their recreational sports without further injury.
Compound Movements and Planes of Motion
Functional training can help improve athletic and sports-specific performance, lessen the risk of injury, and facilitate so many other tasks. Our bodies, blessed in their design, can move in a myriad of different ways, which we can further categorize into movement patterns. Think about the body’s ability to push and pull, hinge at the hips, bend into a squat, lunge forward/laterally/backwards, or step up and rotate. Functional training enables us to keep our muscles integrated and performing as designed.
Functional training makes use of compound movements, which involves bending at multiple joints while engaging several muscle groups to activate the bend. Sadly, the majority of individuals move throughout daily life bending in a single plane of motion to accomplish any movement. This fact alone makes the science of functional strength training even more important. This holds true particularly for our older clients, who occasionally need reminding as to proper form.
Functional training works by utilizing multiple muscle groups to build strength and functionality. Typical resistance training exercises tend to isolate individual body parts, when the client wants to specifically accentuate hypertrophy or pure strength. This fails to promote an increase in “practical strength and movement patterns”. We can think of functional strength training as prioritizing muscle movement over muscular aesthetics. By incorporating such structure into a client’s regular workout program, we can accomplish the following ~
- Upgrade the manner in which the body moves and functions
- Improve strength across movement patterns
- Increase the physical performance of the body
Resistance + Flexibility = Mobility
Every functional exercise move requires that the client starts and finishes in a position where his muscles can work within their natural range of motion. As the client improves his body’s functional strength, he will also likely observe an uptick in his overall coordination as well as flexibility.
As stated above, since functional training makes use of compound movements, many smaller muscle groups known as stabilizers “wake up” to support the larger ones. The majority of bodybuilders, most of whom tend to prefer isolation exercises to foster hypertrophy in specific areas of the body, either neglect or more likely forget about these smaller muscles. Often termed “assistor muscles”, they play a key role in assisting the major muscle groups in their execution of heavy lifts.
Staving Off Joint Pain
Many individuals shy away from working out due to chronic back, muscle or joint pain. Functional training may help mitigate such discomfort due to its regenerative abilities and the manner in which it helps to restore the body.
Upon reducing the chronic discomfort, clients can begin to settle into a more comfortable and broader range of movement in tasks formerly too uncomfortable to complete. At this point, personal trainers can begin to design more in-depth workouts for these clients, including both traditional and functional moves. They may choose to highlight those motions which the clients hesitated to perform earlier.
Functional Movement Fosters Body Awareness
When participating in a functional training workout, one’s body essentially serves as the gym. This encourages the client to rely entirely upon the capabilities of his own body. One of the many positives to this method of training includes getting more in tune with one’s body. By cultivating this awareness, responding to the way one feels while working out (rather than relying upon a machine in the gym dictating how much weight he can lift), the client learns to “feel” how his body was designed to move.
This awareness, termed proprioception, helps clients cultivate confidence in their bodies as they visualize what muscles engage when executing specific movements. As an example, consider the traditional bodyweight squat. During the movement, ask the client what feels uncomfortable, what feels as though it is really working, and what seems unnatural. Ask him if he feels in control and stable, and if he perceives his posture to be in alignment. The trainer acts as a sounding board, and can offer tips to help the client execute the movement as smoothly and effortlessly as possible.
Prehabilitation for Prevention and Preparation
Although functional training began as a form of rehabilitation, the goal of the personal trainer revolves around injury prevention and preparation for life. Some specialists call this work “prehabilitation”.
Prior to undergoing hip or knee replacement surgeries, orthopedists often suggest that the patient works to the best of his abilities in advance, thereby landing him in the most optimal physical shape by the time he enters the operating suite. The idea of prehabilitating makes sense when surgeons observe that patients recover from the surgery faster and more effectively, making the process of rehabilitation that much easier and more successful. Personal trainers can tailor functional training workouts towards an upcoming surgery, again keeping in mind specificity and the motions that the client needs most.
Program Design
An abundance of exercises exist that trainers can incorporate to turn a more traditional workout into one that aligns more closely with daily functions. Consider the following, many of which target more than one muscle or muscle group at a time ~
- Push-ups – cultivates upper body strength and core stability; variations can add more challenges
- Planking –strengthens core, arms, shoulders and legs; fosters improved posture and stability
- Standing On One Leg – promotes balance and core stabilization
- Jumping Jacks –as a plyometric exercise, these strengthen multiple muscle groups simultaneously; great fat-burner
- Walking Lunges – addresses muscular imbalances by working the body in a unilateral fashion
- Deadlifts –increases strength in the lower body muscles; mimics the common functional daily move of lifting objects from the floor
- In-Place Body Squats or Jump Squats – activates lower body muscles as well as the back and core
- Jumping, lunging, or stepping onto an elevated platform – activates the fast-twitch muscle fibers associated with building muscle, strength, and power
When working functional training into a client’s regular session, keep in mind that specificity matters, every bit as much as it does in sports-specific training. Mastery over a movement works ideally when the training mimics the movement. For example, practicing chair squats will foster an easier time standing up from a chair or couch at home, or even standing up to get out of bed, as opposed to expecting something like jumping jacks to help.
Balance, Strength and Stability
It often seems that the slightest “off” motion in life can derail balance and/or stability. True, exercises that strive to improve these motions tend not to have the “oooh and aaah” excitement factor that we often find with a weighted pull-up or a heavy chest press. However, we must remember — and remind our clients – that a truly fit lifestyle has little to do with how fit we appear, but rather our ability to live fully and functionally fit. To that end, trainers in the gym can help prepare and strengthen clients for any and all movement outside of the gym. A stronger core will always lead to improved overall strength.
The Final Word
Over time, functional training can pave the way towards more comfortable movement, encouraging a more active lifestyle. Having a body that naturally works more efficiently through motions regularly performed in daily life (lifting, sitting, reaching, bending over, etc.) makes most individuals want to lead more active lives. More movement fosters a revved-up metabolism, which of course can improve body composition.
At the same time, functional training can help cultivate muscle strength, which tends to bode well for healthier aging. Building muscle can enable the body to burn more calories at rest; many individuals find this helps thwart that dreaded middle-aged “spread” often found in sedentary aging adults. Personal trainers can help enlighten their clients to approach functional training as a means of promoting range of motion, thereby better preparing one’s body for the stresses of everyday movement.
References:
https://nextlevelfitness.com/how-to-incorporate-functional-training-into-your-workout/
https://corehandf.com/8-benefits-of-functional-training/
https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/how-to-exercise-with-functional-training
https://www.afpafitness.com/blog/functional-training-tips-for-certified-personal-trainers/
Cathleen Kronemer is an NFPT CEC writer and a member of the NFPT Certification Council Board. Cathleen is an AFAA-Certified Group Exercise Instructor, NSCA-Certified Personal Trainer, ACE-Certified Health Coach, former competitive bodybuilder and freelance writer. She is employed at the Jewish Community Center in St. Louis, MO. Cathleen has been involved in the fitness industry for over three decades. Feel free to contact her at trainhard@kronemer.com. She welcomes your feedback and your comments!
