How do you know if functional training is working for you?

Functional training is a type of exercise that helps improve your life. It helps improve everyday tasks such as walking up stairs or getting up from a chair. It can also help you improve how you move and feel at your job or sport. The exercises used in functional training mimic your real life (such as squat is like getting up from the couch) and enhance the specific demands and skills of an activity (such as the balance needed to walk down stairs.) With functional training mimicking real-life, the exercises can be related and imagined to your goals. Instead of just doing a goblet squat, it can be visualized to squat with a grandchild. A suit case carry can be pictured as carrying groceries. Functional training is life changing.

1. Notice improved ease in daily activities, like lifting groceries or climbing stairs. 2. Experience enhanced muscle strength and endurance, allowing longer periods of activity without fatigue. 3. Observe better balance and coordination, reducing the risk of falls and improving movement. 4. Enjoy increased flexibility and mobility, making joint and muscle movements smoother. 5. Track progress in training sessions, such as lifting heavier weights or completing more repetitions. 6. Feel reduced pain or discomfort during physical activities, indicating better functional fitness and injury prevention.

When designing a program for a sport, you need to take into account an athlete's specific demands. If a sport has a high degree of specificity like basketball or baseball, there will be certain exercises that apply more effectively than others. With low-specificity sports like football or track and field, training programs can be more generalized because certain lifts and exercise will have more immediate carryover. Every athlete can benefit from the addition of strength training, but most athletes will benefit from different loading periods around their season and offseason. Ex: A basketball player will lift lighter loads less frequently during the season, and more intense, consistent loads during the offseason.

If training for sport, you can use simple tests like sprint/speed testing to measure the effectiveness of strength training on fast-twitch muscle fibers. Conversely, if strength and muscular endurance is a large component of someone's sport, you could assess how well someone's biomechanics hold up in contests vs. how well they held up before a training program started. Oftentimes, you will notice that an effective program will lead to increased muscular efficiency (better biomechanics) and increased endurance during competitions. This can be assessed and re-assessed by watching film or simply tracking statistics.

Keep functional training fun and relatable to a clients goals and life. Doing this, will keep them engaged and motivated. It will also be a reminder of their "why"; sometimes people get sidetracked and forget why they started. I train a couple in their 70s. While they were already grandparents, those grandkids are preteens now. They just became grandparents again and want to be able to take watch her and keep up with her. We now play a game where they each do a set of goblet box squat holding a kettlebell. We pretend the kettlebell is the baby. All of a sudden it's time for a diaper change. They now to a goblet carry to another area of the gym to mimic walking the baby the changing table. They love this game and it makes the session fun!