Functional training exercises engage multiple muscles and make them work together to achieve efficient movement.
If you think about it, movements involved in your daily activities do not require isolated muscle function. Rather, your day to day movements ¨C getting into a car, lifting your child, running to catch the train ¨C all require an integration of various muscles. Functional training exercises aim to reproduce those demands and develop your muscles, and the relation of your muscles to one another, so that you can perform those activities effectively, efficiently, and without injury. To train function, an exercise must engage the superficial core muscles to help produce force, reduce force, or dynamically stabilize the spine, and they must engage the deep, underlying musculature to provide stability. Functional exercises also activate shoulder stabilizers and neutralizers in the upper body, and the hip, knee and ankle joint stabilizers in the lower body. Meanwhile, functional exercises balance body segments over your base of support and challenge the body to maintain ideal posture. Functional training often incorporates the use of balance boards, Swiss balls, and other tools that create instability because the body responds better to training in an unstable environment.
The benefits of functional training are healthful, practical and aesthetic.
Functional training creates a healthy, well-conditioned body. Specifically, functional training helps you develop kinesthetic awareness and body control, will improve your posture and balance, thus decreasing your risk for injury and improving your athletic performance. Moreover, functional training will positively affect your spinal health and make your movement more efficient. People who use functional training tend to have a more balanced musculature, tight abdominals, and a generally toned appearance. Functionally trained muscles are a solid foundation upon which you can then layer traditional strength training if there are specific body parts your want to build. Always perform functional training first, since your nervous system will be most fresh and responsive, and traditional strength training afterward.
Functional training is the science of training the body to meet the specific demands of life and sports, and differs significantly from traditional strength training.
The goal of functional training is to train or retrain muscles to work properly (ˇ°functionˇ±) through the use of specialized exercises. Functional training is based on the premise that you only improve what you've specifically trained, and that - since muscle form dictates the role and function of each muscle ¨C a muscle must be trained the way it is designed to function. Functional training differs significantly from traditional strength training, which develops strength and builds muscle through the isolation of specific muscle groups. While adequate for building muscle, traditional strength training will not train the body to meet the specific demands of life and sports because it does not reproduce real life conditions.