Functional Fitness
Functional training is more important than ever.
The average lifestyle of an American involves sitting down for the majority of our day. This causes the hips to become immobile, our thoracic spine becomes stuck with an exaggerated curve, our shoulders become internally rotated and our head adopts a forward tilt. All of these areas are supposed to be mobile and the result of our lifestyle makes us locked into a compromised position while losing mobility.
This lifestyle takes us from being functional to stiff and prone to injury. Being functional is moving through full-range of motion without limitations or pain. It’s being able to catch ourselves before a fall, being able to safely move heavy objects through different planes, being able to simply move through space with a lesser risk of injury.
Training your body to be functional to me means:
Being able to control loads through different planes of motion.
Being able to balance on unstable surfaces with or without load.
Creating symmetry in muscle mass throughout the body.
In order to functionally progress, you must incorporate strength training and stability training.
Some of my favorite exercises include:
One-legged Romanian deadlift with a kettlebell or dumbbell, slow eccentric barbell lunges, overhead loaded walking lunges, pistol squats, bird dogs, warrior 3 pose, warrior 3 with dumbbell row, rotational throws, and so much more.
These exercises require your body to work together, effectively moving a load through space.
Finding a way to incorporate fitness into your lifestyle is more important than ever. Functional fitness could make the difference in living a long, healthy, quality life or just trying to make it through the day without pain.
We all deserve to experience the best life possible and understanding and believing in the importance in functional fitness could be the difference in experiencing just that.
I hope this provides value to you and you take action on this. I guarantee that you will see improvements in your mental and physical health.
Brandon Brown
www.FunctionalProgressions.com
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