If you already understand the benefits of working out and enjoy activities like strength training, yoga, or sports, you likely know how valuable being fit is for your health and vitality, but only focusing on one type of fitness could be harmful.
That’s where functional fitness comes into play.
Functional fitness refers to the activities required for everyday living including, bending stretching, pushing, pulling, twisting, etc. It’s our strength, balance, range of motion, and mobility that determine how well we stay injury free throughout our lives. That’s what helps us avoid pulling a muscle while getting out of bed or tripping over a curb walking into a store.
Let’s look at how you can include functional fitness into your daily routine.
Free Download: 20 Simple Ways To Make Your Lifestyle More ActiveHow To Add Functional Fitness into Your Daily Routine
Modern functional fitness is based on work traditionally done in rehabilitative therapy. There are a lot of reasons people need rehabilitative therapy. Some include recovering from:
- An accident
- An injury
- Having surgery
- Mobility issues
Physical and occupational therapists use functional therapies to correct weaknesses and rehabilitate the body to the most functional state possible. ‘Function’ is based on what the patients did on a regular basis in their daily lives prior to injury.
The ideas and practices of functional therapy easily translate to a purposeful fitness mindset that can be used every day.
Functional Fitness Has Incredible Benefits for Daily Living
Functional fitness emphasizes activities used in daily life. Therefore, the benefits can be experienced day in and day out. Additionally, it tends to be less taxing on the body which boosts energy rather than draining it like an intense workout might.
The most common result is more ease moving throughout the day. It becomes easier to use the body which feels stronger, less stiff, more agile, and more stable.
You can Incorporate Functional Fitness Techniques Throughout the Day
While scheduling a functional fitness workout is a great way to stay fit, you can add techniques into your daily life too. Shifting your mindset from ‘working out’ to operating from a functional perspective is pretty easy and there are plenty of unexpected ways to add functional fitness to your daily routine.
Consider these ideas-
Make Squatting a Habit
Stooping over or bending at the waist is a common way to pick something up from the ground, but squatting offers greater benefits. Squatting builds strong gluteal muscles and helps stabilize our core. Make squatting your preferred method for reaching things on the ground or lifting things.
Get Up Off The Floor
Being able to get up off the floor from a sitting position without using your arms for stability is a key way to boost your mobility, strength and agility. It may feel painfully difficult in the beginning but start off using your hands for leverage and work towards using your legs and abdominal muscles without assistance from your arms or hands.
Walk and Use The Stairs
Opting for the stairs rather than an elevator can boost your overall fitness. Parking in the lot as far as possible from the store when doing errands can also create time and space to promote functional fitness.
Lift Heavy Things
Challenge yourself to lift heavy items throughout the day. When possible, lift and raise items up over your head to help boost strength and stamina. Yard work, cleaning the garage, or housekeeping tasks are great activities to boost functional fitness in this way.
Free Download: 20 Ways To Make Your Lifestyle More Active
When you add functional fitness to your mindset you can make daily tasks part of your fitness routine. People are often amazed at how small changes can reap huge results. To help you leverage new habits into a lifetime of good health and better fitness download my free report 20 Ways To Make Your Lifestyle More Active. Once you choose a healthy lifestyle, you’ll never have to worry about dieting again.
