You might already have come to the conclusion that living and maintaining a healthy lifestyle these days is a challenge to say the least – you’ve got to work (a lot), take care of your family, go out with friends, have hobbies, clean your home… the list goes on, and if all these things are important, there’s just not a lot of room or time left for exercise.
Or is there? It might be that you’re looking at things wrong, and that in realty there is time for exercise – functional exercise. Let’s take a look at what that means and how you can do it, and you might find your health is improved for good. Read on to find out more.
What Is Functional Fitness?
The first question you’ll probably need answering is what is functional fitness? After all, it’s not a term you hear all that often, and perhaps you’ve never heard it before. Put simply, functional fitness means that you do two things – the first is that when you exercise, you simulate everyday tasks to make them easier for you to do. The second is that when you actually do these everyday tasks, you use it as a chance to exercise. In other words, you can exercise more easily because you’re doing the things you would have done anyway – only you’re doing them with exercise and movement in mind.
Examples Of Functional Fitness
There are dozens of different types of functional fitness and knowing even a small handful of those techniques is bound to help you when it comes to how you feel and your physical fitness level.
One thing you could do would be bodyweight exercises, for example, such as squats, lunges, push-ups, and planks. These are great because you’re using your own body weight to build up your strength, and they only take a few minutes to do, so you should be able to fit them into your day quite nicely.
Or what about martial arts? Exploring BJJ gyms and going to a regular class can be highly motivating and a lot of fun, and because martial arts involves movement of the entire body, it can easily be classed as functional fitness, giving you an extra boost when it comes to balance, coordination, and strength.
Benefits Of Functional Fitness
So just what are the biggest benefits of functional fitness? For one thing, you’ll find your standard daily activities become a lot easier – you’ll be able to perform everyday tasks with ease, even if you found them to be a struggle before you started this kind of exercise. Whether it’s lifting your shopping bags, climbing stairs, or even playing with your kids, you’ll find you become stronger, quicker, and fitter when you do the right exercise.
Another benefit is that you’ll actually be reducing the chances of injury. That’s because when you strenghen your muscles and improve your balance, you’ll be less likely to trip and fall or strain something, and in the end that means you can do more exercise and more daily tasks without any pain.
Finally, you’ll be able to manage your weight more easily when you do functional exercises on a regular basis, especially if they fall under the banner of high-intensity interval training (otherwise known as HIIT).
We hope you’ve found this article informative and an aid to help you on your functional fitness path!
