What is functional fitness?

Functional fitness is best described as exercise that prepares and reinforces your body for the activity that you encounter in everyday life. Examples of functional movement include squatting, lunging, pushing, pulling, twisting, hinging, and walking. In everyday life, this looks like carrying groceries (OMG those Costco boxes!), lifting your child (or children), vacuuming the house, reaching items on upper or lower shelves, mowing the lawn, and more. Functional fitness also prepares your body for recreational activities you enjoy, like soccer, swimming, volleyball, and spike ball (it’s a thing), etc.

Functional movements pull double duty. They use multiple muscle groups at a time, while also requiring core stabilization. This is also known as compound movement. For example, walking lunges are a bodyweight functional movement exercise that engages your quads, hamstrings, glutes, and core.

Functional exercise requires minimal to no equipment due to the nature of compound movement. Functional movements are often performed with “free weights”, such as dumbbells, kettlebells, medicine balls, bands, and/or barbells, or even body weight, as opposed to machines. While machines isolate specific body parts for training, without machines, the body is forced to engage additional muscle groups for stabilization.

Functional exercise can be done at home or in a gym. This is especially true because of the minimal nature of equipment required. For exercise at home, the types of equipment for functional movement are easy to source (ok except in a pandemic, I get it), affordable, and take up little space to use or store.

Functional fitness allows you to live your life to the fullest by reinforcing your body to engage in the activities that you enjoy and encounter in daily life. Movements train multiple muscle groups at a time, giving you the best results for the time you invest. Minimal to no equipment is required and and training can be done anywhere, including in your home.

So, what are you waiting for?! Try this sample bodyweight workout, and get started today!

In 15 minutes, complete as many rounds as possible of the following:
5 burpees
10 pushups
15 squats

How many rounds can you complete? Give it a shot and let me know!

Our adorable 8 year old Weimaraner, Oakley, supervises us daily in the gym. Here we are as I perform an unweighted squat, also known as a bodyweight squat, or “air squat”.