Functional Fitness
Article Summary
Functional fitness - 100% of us need movement in our days. It's recommended we do at least 30 minutes of exercise a day or 150 minutes a week, to stay healthy.
Our bones, muscles, and nervous system need movement to stay healthy. The opposite of movement is stagnation and nothing, except illness and disease, survives in a stagnant environment. If you are not moving 30 minutes a day you are missing out on tremendous health benefits.
Read on to learn more about functional fitness for you!
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Movement
100% of us need movement in our days. Not one single person is excluded from this statement! It's recommended we do at least 30 minutes of exercise a day or 150 minutes a week, to stay healthy.
Stagnation
Our bones, muscles, and nervous system need movement to stay healthy. The opposite of movement is stagnation and nothing, except illness and disease, survives in a stagnant environment. If you are not moving 30 minutes a day you are missing out on tremendous health benefits.
Movement Improves
Physical activity can improve your cognitive health helping you think, learn, problem-solve, and enjoy an emotional balance. It can improve memory and reduce anxiety or depression. But you don't have to be a fitness guru to reap the benefits. Any amount of physical activity can help.
Being physically active can improve your brain health, help manage weight, reduce the risk of disease, strengthen bones and muscles, and improve your ability to do everyday activities.
Functional Fitness
Enter functional fitness. Functional fitness is a classification of training that prepares the body for real-life movements and activities. Functional fitness trains your muscles to work together and prepares them for daily tasks by simulating common movements you might do at home, at work, or in sports. Movements such as squatting, reaching, pulling, and lifting will be made easier with functional fitness integrated into your exercise routine. Functional fitness is focused on building a body capable of doing real-life activities in real-life positions, not just lifting a certain amount of weight in an idealized posture created by a gym machine.
For example, you could be deadlifting 400+ pounds in the gym, but when you go to put a suitcase in the back of your car, you throw your back out.
Or, you can bicep curl with 50-pound dumbbells with perfect form, but picking up your child makes you pull a muscle. If either of these things sounds like you, it may be time to incorporate functional fitness training into your routine.
Functional Fitness Program
The O-Zone is now a functional fitness gym. But you don’t even need to go to a gym to perform functional fitness on a daily basis.
If you are going from a stagnant place it is recommended that you enter into the program slowly. You can easily do this from home.
Here is a quick 10-minute workout that you can do in the O-Zone or at home to ensure your functional fitness is on track.
5 minutes of movement on the bike, treadmill, or elliptical. Walking to the Ozone can count. Focus on your heart rate. Take it up and down by practicing deep breathing (just a few) as your breath starts to shallow from exertion.
5 minutes of slow train lifting on the following:
Chest Press Machine or Push-up on the wall or sink
Seated Row Machine or pulling a band towards you and squeezing the shoulder blades in the back
Squatting using the TRX bands or Functional trainer or slow stands and sit back down in your chair.
Slow Train
Slow training is the best this means you lift slowly for a count of 10 seconds and put the weight down slowly for a count of 10. That equals one rep. Try to do one to three reps on day one and continue to work a little harder every single day.
Gradually build up the time you spend doing this until you hit 30 minutes of movement per day. It is recommended that you build that movement up for 1-3 minutes at a time until you have built up the strength and conditioning to work more.
Start at 10 minutes today and by day 5-10 you’ll be at 30 minutes.
Gradual Process
Gradual training ensures that you release those “stagnant” toxins slowly. If you go from the couch to training for 30 minutes on day one you will experience a sick feeling which means those toxins are releasing but it is too much for your body on day one. This is often the reason people quit the workout program they just started. Don’t let that be you!
Conclusion
How will you improve your functional fitness this year? Remember not a single one of us is excluded from 30 minutes of movement per day. Start slowly and build one day at a time. Be sure to consult your physician before starting any exercise program.
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