Written By: Coach Emma
Let’s talk about functional fitness!
Functional fitness means doing movements in your workouts that translate into your everyday life. For example, when we squat it relates to standing up from a chair, getting on and off the toilet, bending down to weed your flower beds, the list goes on and on!
You may wonder “if I do these movements everyday in my normal life, why should I worry about doing squats in the gym?”, this question brings up so many answers besides the muscle gains!
Here are some of the reasons that functional fitness is so great:
Doing functional fitness allows our bodies to age better!
Functional fitness allows us to take care of ourselves as long as possible. From getting ourselves out of bed when we are older to being able to get ourselves on and off the toilet; These are all things you are more than likely going to want to be able to do yourself when you’re older and functional fitness helps us keep those muscles trained so we can do these things as long as possible!
Helps us avoid injuries!
At most jobs when you go over health and safety training they will talk to you about lifting heavy objects and tell you to make sure to lift with your legs and not your back.
It sounds simple enough, but people still hurt their backs when it comes to lifting heavy objects at work or anywhere!
This happens because we aren’t told about the importance of bracing our cores while lifting with our legs. Bracing your core is one of the key points you will go over while deadlifting because it reduces the strain on your lower back! When you learn and train this in the gym, it allows you to use it in real life when you’re lifting heavy objects and to preform these everyday tasks without injury!
Helps us move better!
Functional fitness can truly change the way you move in your day to day life! It helps us build muscles that help us pick up our children or grandchildren with ease, it helps us increase our endurance making it easier for us to get up the stairs without feeling light headed. It allows us to strengthen our cores to help us protect our backs and decrease back pain! Functional fitness helps you to preform every day movements with ease.
Functional fitness as a whole is what Degree is all about!
When you come to any class or session at Degree your Coach will more than likely tell you the functional benefits of the movements you’re performing, allowing you to understand WHY we have you perform certain movements; WHY we have you push yourselves to pick a fast pace during certain workouts, as well as the benefits of the workouts and movements you are doing!
As much as we workout to be healthy now, we also do it to maintain our health and to be healthy later on in life; This is why functional fitness is so important!
Are you interested in aging gracefully, avoiding injuries, and overall feeling and moving better? Reply back to this email or, shoot me an email at
[email protected] to take your first step today!
