Five good reasons to practice functional training

By Dr. Nicola Sacchi - Author of the book: Drugs and doping in sport -

In recent years the fitness market has seen the birth of a new form of training, the so-called functional training or functional training. This way of training is based on performing exercises that mimic the movements that the body performs in the environment. Functional training, therefore, does not use complicated machinery resulting from the latest engineering discoveries, but is achieved by placing the body and its movement as the cornerstone of the exercises. This way of carrying out physical activity is born with the aim of training by improving the body's ability to perform daily activities.

This form of training allows us to achieve excellent results, both from an aesthetic point of view and from a performance point of view, for various reasons that we will now analyze.

1- Functional training improves the body's ability to interact with the environment.

At the base of functional training is the idea that physical activity must improve the person's ability to perform the movements he habitually performs in his daily life. The human being, when he has to perform movements during the day, moves his body freely in space in the three dimensions, and moves objects of various kinds, of different shapes and sizes, with not always comfortable grips.

To really improve the physical abilities in the environment it is essential to carry out exercises that simulate this condition, placing the body at the center of the training, without using machinery that guides the movements, abandoning the isolation exercises, but developing gestures that engage the body as a whole and that they are able to activate different kinetic chains synergistically, without the support of any mechanical instrument.

Functional training is based precisely on these principles, so it involves performing free body exercises that activate the entire body and not just some muscles. Only with exercises of this nature, decidedly different from the classic training with machines typical of a fitness center, it is possible to improve those capacities of the body that allow you to interact with the environment that surrounds it.

2- Functional training develops all the physical capabilities of the body.

To obtain the results postulated in step one it is essential to use a type of training that improves all the physical abilities of a person. Functional training is developed through exercises that improve the body in every aspect. Strength, power, speed, endurance, coordination, agility, balance etc. Every aspect of athletics is taken care of in this form of training, consequently the body improves in a global way, not only aesthetic results are achieved, but a real improvement in physical abilities is obtained.

A body is really healthy when in addition to not presenting pathologies and having a beautiful line it is able to move harmoniously, when it is able to perform complex and tiring movements with extreme ease. In addition to the lack of pathologies and in addition to aesthetics, only when the body is able to interact harmoniously, easily and freely with the environment that surrounds it, can we have full health. For this reason it is important that the training is able to improve all the physical abilities. This result is achievable only when in a routine of exercises free body movements are performed to develop these abilities as happens in functional training. Performing exercises for the sole purpose of toning a muscle will never improve the body's overall capabilities, which is why it is essential to carry out more complex workouts. A healthy body is a strong, agile, agile, coordinated body. And a strong, snappy, agile and coordinated body is a healthy body.

It is not possible to make this the body by using artificial machinery that limits movement, so training, to be defined as such, must be structured on the principles of functional training.

3- Functional training intensely engages the body thus allowing to achieve appreciable aesthetic results (slimming and toning) in a short time.

Using the body in its complexity in each exercise and not just a few muscles at a time, a high energy expenditure is realized as moving many muscles simultaneously instead of a few obviously implies a greater consumption of calories. Furthermore, this allows you to activate several muscles with fewer exercises. In practice, by performing training routines based on the principles of functional training, it is possible to train less to achieve more: fast workouts based on exercises that involve the whole body allow you to burn calories, promoting weight loss, and to tone all your muscles by contracting them synergistic.

4- Functional training involves the use of very varied and progressively more complex exercises, therefore it is fun and never monotonous

Among the principles underlying functional training there is also the idea that training, to condition the body completely, must include the execution of very varied movements, which must progressively become more complex, so that the body is subjected to a work that is always different and increasingly difficult. This allows to constantly stimulate the organism and prevents adaptation to the work done, furthermore it is thus possible to obtain a constant improvement of one's abilities.

This feature of functional training makes every working session different from the others, consequently the monotony of constantly repeating the same things is also broken, as often happens when a path is undertaken in a fitness center. A workout so set up is certainly more pleasant and more enjoyable as new things are always stimulating and more interesting, while the long-term routine becomes boring. In life there are already too many things of ordinary and barbarous routine, at least the training must be something involving and exciting.

5- Functional training constantly puts the body to the test, therefore it is also formative psychologically and temperamentally.

Each workout is a different test, more and more complex than the previous one, given that among the principles of functional training there is the desire to create a progression in the difficulties of training, through the execution of increasingly complex exercises.

Being always in front of different tests also trains the mind to prepare to face new challenges, instilling determination and security in its own means. Physical training thus becomes an educational tool for character and psyche. The certainty of having passed a physical test until yesterday considered impossible is an injection of confidence in one's abilities, which will have positive implications also in life, as it will also be useful to better face the difficulties that life presents us with.

All this is functional training: a journey towards the discovery of the body and its capabilities.