Functional Training
- If people are not active in sports or physical education (in other words doing something that challenges their stability and ability of muscles to react), they start to lose balance at the age of 15 or 16.
- After the age of 70, nearly 85% of people die from complications due to breaking their hip.
If those aren’t reason enough to incorporate core and functional training into your exercise program, perhaps learning more will convince you.
What is Functional Training?
Functional training is defined as “activity that trains movement” and includes: balance training, stabilization training, core training, and dynamic movement training. The result of functional training is agility – improved reactionary forces where your body has the ability to compensate for changes in your center of gravity and can move quickly and efficiently. In other words, if you’re falling or suddenly caught off guard, your body is trained to react quickly, meaning you are less prone to injury. Exercises promoting core strength and stability improve or maintain posture and alignment as well as challenging balance and equilibrium.
Core training is different than just training your abdominals. Although the abdominals are an important part of your core musculature, true core training is a more integrated approach; it combines strength, balance, agility, and flexibility of the muscles that control the entire trunk and spine. Regular conditioning of the core muscles is essential to prevent injuries, correct posture, and making you more efficient with all that you do.
Functional training is about QUALITY of the movement, not quantity!