Why is functional training essential for your career?

Functional training is a very vague concept in everybody's minds and yet has given the health & fitness industry a whiff of fresh air and a tremendous boost. Today I bring you a more functional explanation of this jargon of the fitness world so as to help you make your individual informed decisions about exercise routine.

What is it exactly? As the name suggests functional training is making your fitness regime as similar to your daily routine movements or activities. Now if I have to train a person whose job is being glued to his laptop or tablet for 9 hours working on the internet or a desk work I will aim at making his core muscles (abs & lower back) strong, stable and flexible also give him/her movements of the arms & shoulders as these tend to get stiff during the course of everyday work. So in other words with this form of regime functional training is just a type of exercise that trains our body to better adapt & be ready for activities of daily life without having any injuries. It originated as a rehabilitation program for people who suffered injuries, ailments of joints & bones or nerves, sportsman etc. From injuries to daily routine training functional training has come a long way piercing successfully into our average man's life.

What is the significance to your life? Well to say the least our average lives are equally stressful as any athlete or hi profile personality we just don't pay heed to our needs and thats what differentiates us from them. Be it a desk job, a chef, sales & marketing professional, computer engineer, web designer, hedge fund investor, project mangers, angel broker, housekeeper, wedding planner, fashion designer, hair stylists, housewife, nurses, doctor, lab attendants, teachers or a CEO each one of us has our own functional training requirements and like it or not we never pay attention to ourselves for the jobs we offer to others. To cut to the chase and hit the nail on its head your job and progress in the career depends not only on your talent to get the job done right but the ability to do the job in the first place. What is the difference between the two? Well lets just say I am a terrific chef, I have all the ingredients of creativity, budgeting skills, man power management, innovation, cultural diversity in culinary art and good communication skills but one thing I lack is doing my basic job cause of my inability to work physically or mentally due to some redundant ache, pain, flexibility issues or minor illness here and there occasionally. Occasional health problems aggregate to become a huge problem especially when you reach that critical point in your career when you're in line for the big pay day or promotion you've worked so many years for. Functional incapability is a core problem in most organizations as well as individual small businesses due to lack of awareness and forth right attitude towards the most important thing in our life that keeps us going - our life. Imagine being a little bit more functionally apt for the job, for the promotion, for your kids, for your family on vacations, for your group of friends over that weekend, for that corporate competition in a sport or a run. It takes 30 minutes every other day of the week to make that bridge between us and our success professionally as much personally. An inadequate fitness does no good to our work nor love life or family life. Thrusting that endorphin through your blood lines everyday keeps you going for at least 18 hours a day until.

Equipments & Exercise - The equipment used in the training is very easy to use, portable to carry wherever in a small bag and can be used at home, office and even outdoors. The equipment is mostly cable pulley, physio ball, resistant tubes, terra bands, dumbbells, medicine ball, balance discs. However you can do all the workouts focused on your daily functions with 2-3 things from the above mentioned. The most important aspect is the functional training exercises and they need to adhere to the individual's daily life. If the individual is a sales person on the field the exercises need to keep focus on the lower body stability, strength, power and flexibility not to mention the core stability. A computer engineer needs focus on the entire spine area apart from shoulders and upper body the same would go for banking tellers and BPO employees. In the hospitality industry including airlines and spas the focus in more on joints, spine and major muscle groups surrounding it including core muscles and endurance. The exercises need to be stabilizing at first, strengthening and progressive in the second stage and then giving it power with endurance depending on the tasks of real life. Exercises should literally mimic the daily chores or actions or responsibilities. This has two benefits firstly it trains the body exactly in the actions that take over in day to day pattern which gives the muscle tone more habitual actions and secondly the person can practice the exercises even at work as per suitability if it is mimics the work actions.

Difference between fixed equipment & functional training - In a research conducted by Spennewyn in 2009 that was later published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research which showed 58% better conditioning and strength of subjects that were functional training as against those who were doing the conventional fixed equipment weight training.

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