Functional training
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Functional training is any type of exercise that has a direct relationship to the activities you perform in your daily life. Whether you are a marathon runner, a triathlete, or simply a homemaker who wants to carry their children without injury, functional training can help.
Functional training has its origins in rehabilitation. Physical therapists developed exercises that mimicked what patients did at home or work in order to return to their lives or jobs after an injury or surgery. Thus if a patient's job required repeatedly heavy lifting, rehab would be targeted towards helping them achieve that.
Functional training mostly involves mainly weight bearing activities and those targeted at the core muscles (abdominal and lower back).
While most fitness facilities have a variety of weight training machines, many of them are static. While this is great for isolating a single muscle group, it does not necessarily bear any relationship to the movements people make in their regular activities or sports.
As a consequence, the exercise market is increasingly moving towards functional training, and the greater variety of equipment needed to perform it.
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[edit] Benefits
Both research and apocryphal feedback suggest that functional training leads to better muscular balance and joint stability, which in turn results in fewer injuries and increased performance.
[edit] Functional training for sports
Many athletes equate strength training with bodybuilding. This means that they either don’t do any strength training for fear of gaining too much bulk and losing flexibility, or else the workouts they do are simply a scaled down version of a body builders workouts.
The truth is that for almost all athletes and sports competitors, the benefits of strength training far outweigh the negatives.
If an athlete’s strength training is functional – i.e. it mimics the movement patterns that used in their sport – then the potential benefits are enormous.
[edit] Equipment
Standard resistance training machines are of limited use for functional training – their fixed patterns rarely mimic natural movements, and they focus the effort on a single muscle group, rather than engaging the stabilizers and peripheral muscles.
Preferred options include:
- Physioballs (also called Swiss balls or exercise balls)
- Rocker and wobble boards
[edit] Cable machines
Of all the types of equipment found in a standard gym, by far the most useful for functional training are cable machines. Cable machines are so effective because they allow an athlete to recruit all major muscle groups on multiple planes.
Cable machines, also known as pulley machines, are large upright machines, either with a single pulley, or else a pulley attached to both sides. On the better machines you can adjust the height of the pulley so that it is anywhere between head height and floor level. This allows you to perform a much greater range of exercises.
- The smooth action of the cable machine confers a number of benefits:
- Continuous tension on the muscle forces it to work harder.
- Reduces the need for momentum to start reps.
- Peak-contraction is possible at the top of each rep, thus recruiting muscle fibers that are not fully contracted.
- Ideal for negative reps.
Cable machines can be used with a whole variety of attachments:
- Long Bar: The long bar allows you to adjust the width of your grip according to the exercise demands. Typically used in exercises for the back, such as lat pulldowns.
- Straight Short Bar: Used for a variety of pushing and pulling exercise including upright rowing, biceps curls and triceps pushdowns.
- Ankle Collar: A wide, leather ankle bracelet used for exercises such as left lifts and leg curls.
- Curved Short Bar: Either ‘U’ or ‘V’ shaped, most commonly used for triceps exercises.
- Rope: A short rope used mostly for triceps pushdowns or kneeling abdominal exercises.
- Horseshoe: The metal ‘horse shoe’ is used for a variety of one-handed exercises including cable curls, one-handed triceps pressdowns, one-handed cable rows and cable raises for the shoulders.
[edit] Components of a functional exercise programme
To be effective a functional exercise program should include a number of different elements:
- Specific to the sport. Any program must be sport specific, working to develop and maintain sport specific strength.
- Integrated – It should include a variety of exercises that work on flexibility, core, balance, strength and power.
- Increases Core Stability – core stability is crucial for any sport or activity. A stable core allows for more efficient transference of power from the lower to upper body, and an increased ability to maintain correct athletic posture over long periods of time.
- Progressive – Progressive training simply means that you steadily overload your strength demand from workout to workout. While most people are aware of the need for this in relation to traditional strength training, it is sometimes overlooked in functional training. For functional training is also means varying speed of movement to make it more sport specific.
- Periodized – for competitive athletes, their functional training needs to fit into their competitive cycle of competition. In broad terms this means that they will vary their program throughout the year to achieve optimal results, peaking for competitions or races and building in recovery time also.
- Individualized – An athlete’s program need to be designed just for them. The only way to do this is to work with a coach or trainer who specializes in the particular sport and can custom design a program. A qualified personal trainer can easily include functional training in their clients' exercise programs, whether they are recovering from an injury or preparing for competition.
