What Is Functional Fitness?
Over the past few decades, “functional” fitness has been embraced as everything from niche practice to trend and joke. The training styles that call themselves “functional” also vary, from push-ups and lunges to kettlebell and barbell work. So what is functional fitness really ?
Functional fitness is more of a buzzword than a workout style
If you ask someone who is involved in fitness, they will probably say that these are exercises that will help you in your daily life. Maybe this means walking a farmer with heavy dumbbells to keep you strong enough to carry all the groceries in one ride. Maybe you do hundreds of air squats so you can bend over to lift your baby. It may be balancing on Bose, so you will be less likely to slip and fall on the icy sidewalk.
Historian Conor Heffernan traces the roots of functional fitness to exercise that was prescribed for general health rather than specifically for strength training or sports. Sometimes they used unusual devices, such as pulleys and weighted balls, or, today, battle ropes or hanging machines.
Today’s coaches often define functional fitness as opposed to what they perceive to be “normal” physical fitness. For some, regular training means lots of single-joint exercises, such as biceps curls, so they program complex movements that involve the whole body. For others, regular training means you are using heavy weights, so they view functional training as light weight training or body weight only. For others, regular training means doing sets and resting in between, while functional training keeps you moving all the time.
In other words, “functional” can mean any type of exercise your coach prefers.
Sometimes it’s a code word
When the craze for functional fitness seemed to be waning, it seems that more and more gyms and trainers are coming back to the term. But this time, I think something specific is happening: “Functional” is the code for “CrossFit type exercise, but not CrossFit brand”.
CrossFit is a mix of barbell workouts, gymnastics and rhythmic gymnastics, and cardio. Workouts can include skill training, strength training, and the most famous “WOD” (Workout of the Day), which requires cardio to be effective.
But the CrossFit name is a registered trademark, and it’s company-specific, and this company has a few unpleasant moments in its history . What will you do if you like your workout style but don’t want to do CrossFit CrossFit? You call it something else.
No exercise is non-functional
The idea of training to be better in everyday life is not a bad idea. We all need strength and mobility in order to exist as humans without constantly complaining about our knees and back, and this doubles with age.
But do you need special exercises for this? Not really. The plain old boring barbell squats may not be “functional” in the eyes of some people, but they still increase leg strength to help you lift your baby. Anything that improves your physical fitness will be beneficial in your daily life.
If you want to learn a lesson from the world of functional fitness, don’t be limited by any fitness stereotype. Balance training can be fun and rewarding; the same can be said for grip workouts, core workouts, cardio interval workouts, and anything else you wouldn’t normally think of doing in the gym. Learning new skills is an exercise for your brain as well as your body, and it’s worth it, even if you never find a “functional” use for something like handstand push-ups.