Workout Wednesday: Functional Fitness

Functional Fitness gives you the type of strength that really matters: the kind that lets you move furniture, lift a suitcase into an overhead bin, or carry your toddler. In other words, it improves your coordination, balance, force, power, and endurance and helps enhance your ability to perform normal daily activities.

This type of Fitness has been around forever as the moves mimic our daily lives. We use to call it calisthenics, now it's referred to as functional fitness.

I tend to use it on our Baby Boomers as the workout programs help with rehabilitation and independent living. I have found the following exercises help prepare us for daily activities.

A Kettle Bell Lift can help by preparing the body for simple lifting of objects using proper form, use, and strengthening of specific muscles used for this task.

A Lat Pull-Down will help strengthen the muscles used when bringing items down from an overhead bin.

A Bent-over Row will help when pulling our body forward as if we were stepping up onto a bus using a handrail.

As we age, we need to stay strong and agile to maintain our ability to perform daily tasks.