What Is Functional Fitness, Anyway?
Over the past few decades, “functional” fitness has been considered a niche practice, a trend, or a joke. Training styles that call themselves “functional” also vary, from bodyweight exercises to Hyrox training. So, what is functional fitness? Really?
Functional Fitness Is More of a Buzzword Than a Training Style
If you ask anyone who coaches functional fitness, they will probably tell you that it is about doing exercises that will help you in everyday life. Maybe that means doing farm walks with heavy dumbbells so you’re strong enough to carry all the groceries in one trip. Maybe it’s doing hundreds of air squats so you can bend over to pick up your kids. Maybe balancing on a Bosu will make you less likely to slip and fall on an icy sidewalk.
Historian Conor Heffernan traces the roots of functional fitness to exercises prescribed for general health rather than specifically for strength or sport. Sometimes these used unusual devices like pulleys and weighted balls or, today, battle ropes or suspension trainers.
Today’s trainers often define functional fitness as opposed to what they think is “regular” fitness. For some, regular training means lots of single-joint exercises, like bicep curls, so they’ll program compound movements that involve the whole body. For others, regular training means you use heavy weights, so they consider functional training to be training using light weights or body weight only. And for still others, training regularly means doing sets and resting between them, while functional training means moving all the time. In other words, “functional” can mean any type of exercise your trainer prefers.
Sometimes “functional fitness” is like a code word
Just when it seemed like the functional fitness craze was dying down, it seems like more gyms and trainers are picking up the term. But this time, I think there’s something specific going on: “Functional” is code for “CrossFit-style exercise, but not CrossFit brand.”
CrossFit is a mix of dumbbell training, gymnastic movements, calisthenics and cardio. Workouts can involve skill practice, strength training, and the more well-known timed “WODs” (workouts of the day) that require cardio fitness to succeed. But the name CrossFit is trademarked and it’s tied to a specific company, and that company has some nasty things in its history. What do you do if you like the workout style but don’t want to do it CrossFit CrossFit? You call it something else.
So when people do exercises similar to what you would see in a CrossFit class, it is sometimes called functional, whether it is done for an actual purpose or not. For example, Hyrox classes prepare you for a race, which isn’t really functional; but you’ll do wallballs and lunges and push a sled, which you might consider functional exercises
What do you think of it so far?
No exercise is No-functional
The idea of training to be better every day is not a bad one. We all need strength and mobility to exist as human beings without constantly complaining about our knees and backs, and this doubles as we age.
But does this require a specific type of exercise? Not really. Boring old barbell squats may not be “functional” in some people’s eyes, but they still build a ton of leg strength to help you pick up your kids. Anything that improves some aspect of your fitness will benefit you in everyday life.
If you want to learn a lesson from the world of functional fitness, don’t limit yourself to any fitness stereotype. Balance training can be fun and useful; the same goes for grip training, core training, cardio interval training, and all sorts of things you wouldn’t normally think of doing at the gym. Learning new skills is exercise for your brain, as well as your body, and it’s also worth it, even if you’ll never find a “functional” use for something like handstand push-ups.
