Functional Training

Balancing on one leg while standing on a Bosu Trainer is a form of functional training

My mom started having issues with her knees years ago. The little pops that she experienced in her 40's gave way to much more severe issues and eventually led to a knee replacement. Last spring she slipped on some wet grass and ended up fracturing all the bones of her ankle, harming the surrounding tissues and suffering nerve damage. Because of the severity of her injuries she was unable to stand. Thankfully, a neighbor saw her trying to crawl back to her house and assisted in getting her to the emergency room. Her recovery was slow and painful and she still has issues with nerve pain.

Since her accident I often wonder if my mom could have avoided the fall and maybe even the knee replacement if she had been instructed by her health care providers to strengthen the muscles that support the knee joints. It is a moot point now, but it really made me start to look at my future. I have osteoarthritis in both of my knees. Was this going to be my future too? Not if I could help it. I needed to take some action to prevent the same kind of thing from happening to me. The answer for me has been functional training.

I had never heard the term "functional training" until I started working out at American Mobile Fitness. According to The American Council on Fitness (ACE), functional training involves strength training "in such a matter that the improvement in strength directly affect that performance of movements so that the individuals daily activities are easier to perform. " A key element of function training is to take into account how the body moves in more than one direction, or on different planes. In simple terms, rather than isolating muscle groups, functional training focuses on strengthening multiple muscle groups and their surrounding joints so that daily activities that you perform are easier and less painful.

For instance, in the image below, the lunge with a twist being performed is similar to the type of movement we might make while shoveling snow. The move not only works the muscles of the legs, but the addition of the rotational motion works the core of the body.


Functional training involves mainly exercises that are weight bearing and work the core of the body where all of our movements originate. When we strengthen the core or our bodies, our daily activities are easier to perform.

If you think about the typical activities you perform on a daily basis, functional training makes good sense. For instance, if you are the parent of a small child you need to have the strength to pick up your child to carry him or her. A squat with a bicep curl or overhead press is similar to this motion.



Using functional training methods to strengthen the muscles is an excellent preventative measure. You may remember last week when I spoke about breaking my toe when I tripped. Had my trainer, Gregg, not been teaching me functional training methods, that trip may have turned into a fall that resulted in a much more serious injury. Thankfully, in the six months that I've been working with Gregg, my core stability has dramatically improved.

If you have not incorporated functional training into your workouts, give it a shot. You never know what you might prevent.