FUNCTIONAL FITNESS FOR BEGINNERS

To put it simply, Functional fitness is a fancy name for fitness that is directed towards performing a function or purpose. I like to think of functional fitness as being both useful for your specific trade, but also helpful in everyday life. Many people chase arbitrary goals for their fitness and then they come out the other side stiff, broken, or just in pain. There is nothing functional about not being able to move well or taking steroids and supplements to artificially build a body that looks unnatural.

VERSATILITY

As one of my favorite YouTube content creators says; “What good is it to be able to bench press 400 pounds and then get winded going up the stairs?” Or how about being able to run for hours, but not capable of doing pullups? I say that it is ridiculous. I want to explain my version of functional fitness and some standards for the layman to shoot for, no matter your line of work or hobby.

In my view, functional fitness is training that is built around the concept of improving your ability to perform. Whether you are performing as a Law Enforcement professional or as a Tennis player, you need training that is going to help you perform your job. You cannot say that “just doing X lift until you can reach a Y 1-rep max” is a functional way of thinking or training. Lifts are arbitrary and the idea behind practicing a single movement to serve as a metric of universal capability is not just flawed, its dangerous. The real world is dynamic and we often are required to move in multiple planes of motion and express power for long periods of time. The Bioneer has a great argument about this exact topic, HERE.