Functional fitness exercises: Know the benefits
Even though we spend most of our time within our home’s four boundaries, it’s equally important to keep yourself fit and healthy. And what could be a better way other than the functional fitness? Functional fitness exercises make it easy for the muscles to perform day to day activities. These exercises train your body for daily motion activities.
What is functional fitness?
Functional fitness is one of the best ways to combat restlessness and to keep your body in a moving position. These exercises train your muscles to prepare them for common movements by simultaneously using them for upper and lower bodies. Functional fitness exercises, also known as functional training or functional movement, are beneficial for activities like carrying groceries, walking, picking up children, etc. These exercises improve strength, flexibility, and balance.
What are the benefits of functional fitness exercises?
Functional fitness exercises are best for improving the quality of life and reducing the risk of injuries. Since these exercises use multiple muscles; hence they can make it a lot easier to do daily day to day tasks. A few of the benefits of Functional fitness exercises are:
- Improves mobility: Functional fitness exercises increase mobility by improving balance, flexibility, muscle strength, and coordination.
- Improves balance: Since functional fitness exercises are not target-based and use all the muscles, these minimize the stress and improve the balance and posture.
- Minimizes the chances of falls: Functional fitness exercises increase the muscles and ligament strength. There are high chances of injuries in these areas. Hence, functional fitness exercises reduce the risk of such injuries.
- Improves quality of life: There is a long list of benefits offered by functional fitness exercises. These exercises improve the overall functioning of the body. Also, you tend to boost muscle strength, endurance, and stability. Doing functional training is a lot of fun as compared to other exercises.
What are the best functional fitness exercises?
Functional training focuses on natural movements. You can do these exercises even from your home as they require minimum equipment. Here are the exercises that can be done by beginners and seniors.
Exercises for beginners
- RDL
- Goblet Squat
- Framers Carry
- Box step-up
- Walking lunge
Exercises for seniors
- Bear crawl
- Kettlebell Deadlift
- Air Squat
- Half kneeling chop
If you’re a beginner, you should begin with bodyweight exercises. You can add more resistance as your flexibility increases. However, you should avoid adding too much resistance as it may increase the risk for the joints and tissues.
Final Thought
In a nutshell, it can be said that functional fitness is the best way to strengthen your muscles for performing daily tasks. As compared to the other forms of strength training like bodybuilding and crossfit, functional fitness is much easier to perform as they require minimum equipment. Also, these are low-intensity exercises that emphasize performance. Moreover, functional training is suitable for the people of varied age groups as there is minimal risk of injuries and falls. Hence, they can prove to be quite effective.