by Emily Wickersham

Created on: July 31, 2011   Last Updated: August 03, 2011

Functional training is one of the hottest trends in fitness training programs today.  The idea behind functional training is to strengthen the muscles an individual uses in  daily life and improve the way those muscles work together to promote maximum efficiency. The concept can include, but is not limited to, the training of athletes for better performance in a particular sport.

Not everyone uses the body in the same way.  A person can have a very high level of overall fitness and still be subject to repetitive injuries and stress injuries because they have not trained for the demands of their particular sport or lifestyle.  This is the problem that functional training seeks to remedy.

Origins of Functional Training

The concept of functional training began with rehabilitation programs, where individuals learned to reuse muscles after an injury. Exercises were developed for the specific purpose of helping an individual learn to perform their daily functions again, whether those functions involved lifting children or playing football.  That inspired the concept of adapting exercise programs to the routines of individuals who had not been injured but simply wanted to be more effective in their sports or in their daily lives.  It is a vast improvement over the one-size-fits-all routines of the past.

Functional Training for All Types of Lifestyles

Unlike some training programs that are only appropriate for athletes or those training for a particular sport, functional training can be adapted to everyone from a barely-mobile senior citizen to a distance runner.  The entire point of the concept is to help the individual better meet the needs of daily life, regardless of what that life might entail.

Equipment Used in Functional Training Routines

Because the needs of individuals participating in functional training can vary so widely, the equipment also varies widely.  Among the items typically used are wobble boards, clubbells, kettlebells, (clubbells and kettlebells are particular types of weights used to build strength) physioballs, resistance tubes, foam rollers, stability discs, dumbbells, and cable machines.  Training focusing on body weight, such as pushups and lunges, is also employed frequently.  Exercises need to use a variety of equipment and techniques to develop range of motion in all planes.  Exercise machines that cause the exerciser to operate in only one plane will not

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