Being able to maintain a healthy weight is a part of keeping yourself healthy throughout life. With modern lifestyle, we are often beset by countless challenges that ruin our ability to keep our body weight regulated. That’s why it’s important to develop a fitness routine that focuses on the key elements that are crucial to maintain optimal health and functionality. Functional fitness is a great way to accomplish that.
What is Functional Fitness?
Functional fitness is a form of exercising that centers around activities and exercises that mimic daily activities. It’s considered as an exercise regime that trains the body for the activities of daily living- such as carrying grocery bags, climbing stairs, lifting objects and even just to maintain a good balance. This form of fitness does not just focus on physical muscles but its good for improving flexibility and coordination as well. Functional Fitness is an effective way to manage weight and to stay fit.
Benefits of Functional Fitness
There are many benefits of adding functional fitness to your routine. The main objective of functional fitness is to recover and improve your bodily performance so that you are more able to perform daily activities in a better, stronger and faster manner.
The immediate benefits to start noticing are as follows:
• Improving balance, coordination and flexibility which will help in everyday life
• Strengthen your core muscles and work on other muscle groups
• Prevent muscle and joint injury
• Improve posture
• Increase strength and energy levels
• Improve mobility
• Burn calories, helping in certain weight management
• Develop better form, which in turn helps in preventing fatigue and/or injuries
• Helps to improve mental wellbeing
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) for Weight Loss
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is a form of functional fitness that combines both intensity of workout, with rest periods. This type of functional fitness helps you to build lean muscles and encourages your body to continue burning fat long after the workout session is done, making it one of the most effective ways to manage weight.
The following are some of the benefits of HIIT:
• Improves aerobic capacity
• Maximizes calorie burning
• Maintains muscle mass
• Enhances exercise performance
• Increases oxygen uptake
• Improves metabolism
• Helps to reduce body fat
• Improves heart and lung function
• Improves overall health
Functional Fitness Exercise Regime
A functional fitness regime should cover all the major muscle group exercises with a combination of resistance, balance, and core exercises. These exercises should be done with intended movements that target specific muscle groups. You should also consider incorporating high intensity interval training (HIIT) or other forms of cardiovascular exercise into your regime.
Below is an example of a sample functional fitness regime to get you started:
• Air Squats
• Push-Ups
• Lunges
• Bear Crawls
• Deadlifts
• Glute Bridges
• Burpees
• Mountain Climbers
• Lunges with Shoulder Press
• Hip Extensions
• Step-Ups
• High Knees
• Leg Lifts
• Planking
Functional fitness is a great way to manage your weight by taking a holistic approach to fitness. The key is to develop a customised regime that is tailored to you, focusing on what muscle groups, the exercises and intensity you need to keep healthy and fit. It is also important to ensure that your regime includes both muscle and cardiovascular exercises, like high-intensity interval training (HIIT) to get the maximum benefit from your workout.
Start today and you could see the results you want in no time.
