Do you often wonder what we mean by full functional exercise? Well, here you are, read on to find out what it is, the importance of it and 5 benefits too!
What is full functional exercise?
Compound exercises (such as squats, lunges) that cover the full body requiring more than one muscle group to work together focusing on the movements and activities you do every day. This refers to the type of workout that Performance to Summit provides and should be something everyone includes into their fitness journey. Yes, it is that important! Here is why:
Why is full functional exercise important?
This type of training has a great purpose relating to getting better at your everyday activities and also stamina and endurance activities which will demand you to engage power, strength, flexibility, mobility, mental fitness, emotional resilience and all-over physical health.
3 benefits of full functional exercise:
- Improves your body’s ability to work efficiently as one unit. You help your body function better as a whole by training multiple muscle groups at the same time, training it to work as a system rather than individual independent parts.
- Improved coordination and balance – helping to avoid injuries that can be prevented. Coordination, focus and core strength is required to enable multiple muscle groups to work together at one time. Like everything, the more you practise the better you get, in this case the more you train multiple muscle groups at once the stronger they will get together as well as improving coordination, focus and core strength.
- Improves posture. By performing full functional exercises, you can improve your posture which is in no doubt going to cure the many pains and aches you suffer with daily, most of this is from the time we spend sat down!
Did you know that in the UK we spend an average 8.9 hours a day sat down!
5 full functional exercises combined together to improve your overall physical performance from day-to-day requirements, leading to exceptional physical requirements on demand:
Kinetic chain
When an at-rest human body takes a step forward, then moves to the side, then jumps, instead of seeing individual muscles like biceps, quads and abs, you see fluid, functional combination of all three, as well as every other muscle, bone and connective tissue in the body. That is the kinetic chain in action: each part of the body is a link and each link in the chain depends on the others around it for normal, healthy performance.
Kinetic means motion or movement. So, we are talking about a chain movement.
Importance of a good warm up and cool down!
We all know it is important to warm up and cool down properly, but do you know why it is important?
It is important to warm up as this boosts up your cardiovascular system by increasing heart rate and raising your body temperature and increasing blood flow to your muscles enabling oxygen to reach them. This can help to prevent soreness of muscles and injury through strains.
It is just as important to cool down, by lowering the intensity of exercise to gradually lower your heart rate and begin the recovery process. By completing static stretches, not only does this help your muscles but it also helps to bring your mind and body back to a resting state.
Hydration before and after training
It is recommended to drink plenty of nutrient rich fluids before exercising, this includes the day before, and the day of the exercise. Drinking during exercise is important to remain hydrated. One way to determine how much to drink after the exercise, you can weigh yourself before and after the exercise and the amount of water needed to be drank will be determined by the difference in weight.
Top Ten Performance To Summit rules:
- An injury does not grant you a holiday from exercise. Work out the body parts that don’t aggravate your injury so that you retain your fitness.
- You can control pain with strength. Strong muscles support and stabilise a vulnerable joint.
- If a joint is ever swollen, see a Doctor.
- A strong backside is the key to a happy life. Healthy glutes mean healthy hips, back and hamstrings.
- Have two massages a month for healthier muscles.
- Sleep is the most important activity of your day, so don’t skimp on it.
- Try to exercise every single day. Exercise is a medicine. It will keep you healthy and happy.
- Train your entire body as full functional fitness for real-world movement, even if you play only one sport. Isolated single-muscle exercises have no basis in reality.
- Single leg exercises such as squats, hops, lunges all build strength and stability in your ankles, knees and hips.
- Never forget to have fun!
For information about our face to face and online Fitness Sessions or online Health and Wellbeing workshops, contact us via: support@performancetosummit.co.uk
To widen thought and increase personal performance, why not have a look at these links:
https://www.self.com/story/what-functional-training-is-why-its-important
https://www.sundried.com/blogs/training/functional-fitness-to-improve-posture
https://mountainsidefitness.com/blog/benefits-of-functional-training/
https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/guide/workout-injuries-prevention-and-treatment#1
https://www.active.com/nutrition/articles/how-to-hydrate-before-during-and-after-a-workout
Author: Performance To Summit Team – Dave Pickles & Fay Burrows