Strength training is essential to maintain the strength of your muscles and connective tissues. However, you may not want to lift weights or do CrossFit, but you want to be strong enough to tackle your day and all the tasks you have to do. If that’s your goal, you should consider functional strength training.
What Is Functional Strength?
Every day, you’ll need to do things to maintain your quality of life, such as cleaning your home, running errands, bringing in the groceries, etc. These activities require you to use your body to accomplish them. You will need a level of strength to perform those functions. Otherwise, you may not be able to do those tasks without help from others.
Unfortunately, your strength declines as you age. However, you can perform strength training to slow the process and increase your current strength. Functional strength training focuses on improving your ability to function in real-life situations rather than focusing on how much weight you can lift.
What Is Functional Strength Training?
Functional strength training aims to make your body more efficient, less prone to injury, and better able to handle physical tasks. It focuses on mimicking everyday movements, such as squatting to pick up something, opening a heavy door, or carrying groceries.
Functional strength exercises also focus on core stability. A strong core helps improve your balance, posture, and body control. It engages muscle groups rather than isolating individual muscles, as this is how your body naturally works to perform tasks.
Another area of functional strength training is focused on balance and coordination, which helps prevent falls and injuries. According to the CDC, one out of four older people fall each year, causing severe injuries such as broken bones and head injuries. Functional strength can reduce these risks and maintain your quality of life as you age.
By strengthening the muscles that support your joints, you can increase your mobility and reduce the risk of injuries. You can improve your ability to perform everyday movements more efficiently, especially during exercise and manual labor.
How Can You Improve Your Functional Strength?
Functional strength training can be adapted to your fitness level and abilities. Whether you are a beginner starting your fitness journey or an experienced athlete, functional strength training can challenge you and improve your core strength, flexibility, and balance. In fact, you don’t need to use weights if you don’t want to and instead focus on body-weight exercises. Let’s look at some body-weight exercises that can improve your functional strength.
Squats
Squats mimic the motion of sitting and standing. They help strengthen your lower body, which includes muscles in the quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes. As a result, you can get up from a chair more easily, climb more stairs, lift objects from the ground, and maintain good posture.
Beginners can start by doing two to three sets of 10 to 15 reps for each set.
Lunges
Lunges work your leg strength, stability, and balance. They target the quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, and calves. Lunges help improve your stability and strength for walking, running, and climbing stairs. They can also improve your balance, which helps reduce your risk of falling.
Beginners can start by doing two to three sets of 8 to 12 reps per leg per set.
Push-Ups
Push-ups engage the chest, shoulders, triceps, and core muscles. Overall, they help increase your upper body strength for pushing motions such as opening a door, pushing a shopping cart, or simply getting up from the floor easily.
Beginners can start by doing two to three sets of 8 to 12 reps per set.
Pull-Ups
Whether assisted or using your entire body weight, pull-ups target the muscles in your back, biceps, and shoulder. They improve your ability to pull yourself up, climb, or lift things over your head.
Beginners can start by doing two to three sets of as many pull-ups as possible with good form. If you cannot do a full pull-up, you can work on building up your strength by doing other exercises, such as assisted pull-ups, negative pull-ups, or band-assisted pull-ups.
Planks
Planks work your entire core muscles, which consist of your abdominal, back, hip flexors, glutes, and pelvic floor muscles. They improve your core stability and strength. As a result, you benefit from better posture and balance, which can help with lower back pain.
Beginners can start by doing two to three sets of 20 to 30 seconds per set. As you become stronger, you can increase the time spent holding a plank.
Build Functional Strength At Your Own Pace
If you need help creating a workout routine, you can speak to a personal trainer to help you get started. Any recommendation for the number of sets and reps to do is just a starting point. However, it’s vital to know your limitations and go at your own pace. If you can’t do that many reps, start with what you can do.
In time, you’ll become stronger and slowly be able to add more reps. As a result, you’ll develop a solid foundation of functional strength and help minimize your risks of common injuries due to poor coordination, inflexibility, or general lack of strength.
However, it shouldn’t hurt. While feeling a burning sensation as you do your reps and minor aches or soreness after your workouts are normal, any sudden pain means you should stop. If the pain does not subside after some rest, you should see a doctor.
The Takeaway
Functional strength allows you to tackle tasks effectively throughout your day. Functional strength training aims to make you more efficient, less prone to injury, and better able to handle physical work.
You don’t need to use weights if you don’t want to. Instead, you could do bodyweight exercises like squats, lunges, push-ups, pull-ups, and planks. However, know your limitations and go at your own pace. Functional strength training can help you increase your strength and mobility. As a result, you’ll more easily tackle your day and help maintain your quality of life as you age.
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Disclaimer: No content on this site should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
