7 Benefits of Functional Training

““No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training… what a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”
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— Socrates

Benefits of Functional Training

What Is Functional Training?

FUNCTIONAL TRAINING IS ESSENTIALLY just a workout (read: playout) with a purpose: to improve physical activities elsewhere in life. In most cases, the aim is to get better at everyday activities like comfortably squatting to pick something up, safely carrying objects or sprinting for the bus.

A functional training session will strengthen you in a way that enhances your life outside of exercise, making daily activities more comfortable, and more natural, to perform. Functional training focuses on movement patterns with a real-world objective.

Functional training typically uses weight-bearing activities that work the core muscles in the torso as well as multiple joint exercises known as compound movements. By comparison, most fitness plans focus on isolation training, such as upper body vs lower body or even more specifically training the biceps or just the shoulders. Isolation training targets muscles in a way that doesn't always reflect (or best support) the real-life, natural actions we make as we go about our day.

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Where does functional training originate?

The origins of functional training started in the rehabilitation professions— hence its goal orientation. Physical and occupational therapists, for instance, use functional training to help patients with movement, often following surgery or an injury. They use exercises that mimic motions the patient needs to do at home or work, to hasten the patient's recovery and to allow them to return to their normal lives more quickly.

For example, a patient with a job that involved a lot of lifting would undergo rehabilitation that was targeted towards strengthening their ability to lift.

Treatments are designed with the patient's condition and goals in mind. Functional training attempts to adapt and develop exercises that will allow individuals to perform their usual activities without further injury.

What are some benefits of functional training?

#1

Improve Function

Functional training can improve the overall function of your body, boosting muscle strength and endurance. You can develop stability in your muscles and your body, allowing you to complete everyday activities more efficiently.

By targeting the movements we do every day, these workouts provide a practical and useful style of fitness and one that is suited to everyone. We all need ease of movement, no matter our age or fitness level. Functional training helps with activities like lifting the kids out of the car, playing on a weekend sports team, or carrying home heavy groceries.

Whether a fan of boxing movies or not. Think of the training montages in the Rocky Movies, one of my favourites is the Rocky IV training montage which includes wood chopping, hill sprints and bear crawls. No doubt the epitome of functional.

#2:

Functional training is scaleable

The low-impact nature of functional training makes it an ideal, adaptable fitness style for any fitness level. If you're new to working out, it can be hard to know which fitness style to choose and which will serve you best.

By focusing on functional movements, you can improve your physical abilities while putting minimal stress on your body and your joints. The low impact also makes this training a choice for older adults, helping them maintain good movement without putting undue pressure on their joints.

As you get stronger and more capable, your workouts and intensity can grow with you.

#3:

Functional training increases coordination, balance, posture and flexibility.

Functional exercises emphasise a wide range of motions, and each move makes you start and finish in a position where your muscles are working in their natural range. Resistance plus flexibility produces mobility. As you work on your training, you will be boosting your body's functional strength, your overall flexibility, and your coordination.

Your range of motion will improve as you train, making day-to-day activities much more straightforward.

Because many muscles are employed in functional training, you tend to use multiple small muscle groups known as stabilisers to support the larger ones. By targeting various muscles all at once, you increase both your strength and your natural balance. By developing these in tandem, your overall posture can improve too.

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““FUNCTIONAL TRAINING IS ESSENTIALLY just a workout (read: playout) with a purpose: to improve physical activities elsewhere in life.””

— Darryl Edwards

#4:

Functional training helps with joint pain.

If you regularly suffer from back, muscle, or joint pain, then functional training can be beneficial to manage your pain. Functional fitness sits somewhere between physical therapy and personal training because the practice is regenerative and restores the body.

Chronic pain in the back, knees, neck, and joints can be reduced significantly, giving you a more comfortable and broader range of movement in tasks that used to be painful or uncomfortable to complete.

Common sense prevails, of course, and you should always seek advice from a professional if you're concerned about what activities you can undertake at low risk.

#5:

Functional training reduces the risk of injury.

By making your body better able to cope with physical stress, functional training reduces your likelihood of being injured. Because this training mimics common movement patterns, you are better able to cope with daily exertion.

As you train, it's not just your muscles that gain strength but the soft tissue ligaments surrounding the muscles as well. Strengthening connective tissue is good news since ligaments and tendons are often an area that can easily be injured.

#6:

Functional training builds functional muscle.

One of the significant advantages of functional training is that it doesn't isolate one muscle group at a time but works to train several muscle groups in one go.

As mentioned earlier, these are compound movements. By training in this way, you can build strength holistically, helping your body learn to function as a single unit. This approach means training for movement, not for aesthetics or bulk.

#7:

FUNCTIONAL TRAINING GIVES YOU A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR BODY.

While functional training, you will be using your body as the gym. When exercising in this way, you need to rely entirely on what your body can do. You must become more in tune with your body and more responsive to the way you feel while working/playing out, instead of relying on something external to tell you how you feel.

For example, if you are doing an air (or bodyweight) squat, focus on your body to see and feel how it is set. Notice what feels uncomfortable, what parts of you are engaged. Can you go further? Are you balanced, stable, graceful, with good posture, and in control?

As you adjust your moves to function according to the task at hand, this awareness, otherwise known as proprioception can increase your understanding of your body and make you feel more confident and in tune with yourself.

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Although the origins of functional training may have been for rehabilitation, the principal aim for us is prevention and preparation for life. Some specialists call this work "prehabilitation".

Functional training makes movement more comfortable, encouraging you to be more active. A body working more efficiently, and you choosing to move more will naturally lead you to speed up your metabolism, which can improve your body composition.

At the same time, functional training will build muscle strength and help you to age well. Building muscle can help your body to burn more calories at rest, as you become more metabolically active so you might find that you lose a bit around the middle as you become stronger and fitter too. These benefits aside, you should approach functional training to increase your range of motion and better prepare your body for the stresses of everyday life.

A durable and functional body today will protect you from injury and help you to stay in good shape for later life, with free and easy movement for years to come.