What Does Functional Fitness Mean?
Functional fitness simply means doing movements that mimic everyday ones. This helps to build strength, mobility and stability. For many people, especially as we age, whilst we may have various different fitness goals; most of us work out to improve our quality of life. Through performing exercises that focus on helping us perform our everyday exercises more safely we can improve this.
So what are some examples of functional movements?
DEADLIFTS-These activate the muscles used in our pulling motion and mimic picking objects up and putting them down.
PULL UPS– These activate many muscles in the upper body all within one movement. Pull ups also help with grip strength.
SQUATS– Most people’s days will consist of switching between sitting and standing. Performing a squat, and its many different variations, can improve your efficiency of these movements.
LUNGES– Performing lunges (forward, back, diagonal,) can help prepare for common activities eg. walking, vacuuming.
Whilst weight can be added to Functional Fitness exercises it is always a good idea to start with bodyweight only and ensure you have correct form before you start tackling weights as well. Functional fitness is beneficial to anyone irrespective of their fitness goal.
Words by My Fitness Hub Instructor Ellie Burr
