Fitness trends always seem to be on the rise for it seems as though there is a new trend to become healthy and fit fast. Remember jazzercise and the vibrating belt? Regular movement remains a critically important contributor to your health and well-being.
Functional fitness is a mega fitness trend that will challenge those who partake in exercise to rethink how—and why—they workout. Will this trend stick around? What is it exactly?
The meaning of “Functional Fitness”
Functional fitness indicates a manner of training that helps you to perform better in life or within a sport or activity. What you do in the gym will directly benefit what you do outside of the gym. Training functionally utilizes a great variety of exercises that focus on movement patterns that you perform in other areas of your life.
Functional fitness goes beyond fat loss and having a defined abdominal area; it is about becoming a more accomplished person.
Functional Fitness Advantages
While bodybuilding workouts, for instance, focus on the movements that increase the size of different muscle groups, and more; functional fitness workouts focus on movements that help you do things outside of the gym. The goal of functional fitness is to make real life movements easier.
An example of real-world movements is bending over to pick something up from the floor. Practicing the deadlift movement is an excellent way to strengthen and exercise the muscles and the body mechanics of such a move. A functional fitness-minded program will help you to move better, improve coordination, and become stronger and faster.
Functional fitness involves as much of your body as possible by moving multiple joints at once. This will increase your body’s resilience through all planes of motion—you can grab your unstill toddler, keep up with your dog in the backyard, and grab a heavy box from a top shelf with more ease. You will be less susceptible to injury while increasing muscle mass and strength.
What Functional Fitness Looks Like
Functional fitness includes exercises that use multiple joints and muscles (your upper body and legs) in numerous planes of motion (side-to-side and rotational). In addition, a good functional fitness plan will include not only resistance training, but cardiovascular stamina and high intensity work.
You can build muscle with heavy barbell squats, add box jumps for intensity, and increase cardiovascular endurance with sled pushes or running.
Lacey Warner Fitness 