Functional training is all the rage – but does it work?
telegraph.co.ukHIIT as the exercise regime du jour. Is it a fancy fitness craze or should we all be doing it? “Functional training” is a slightly baffling term.
Surely all types of exercise are functional? Even a star-jump will get you fitter, help with sideways movement and lubricate your joints, right?
Yes and no. Functional movement is a term used to describe exercises that mimic key movements we do in daily life. Take sitting as an example – we sit down into a chair, onto the toilet, into a car seat many times a day.
Another example is lifting something heavy and placing it overhead.Sounds obvious? It is. However, fitness trends have been so focused on hoola-hooping or “training like an athlete” that we have overlooked the most important exercises of all: the ones we do all the time.More and more research is coming out of the word’s Blue Zones (five places in the world where people live long, healthy lives into their 100s).
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