The Top 5 Most Functional Exercise’s

Functional training is important for several reasons, one of the main being to improve your overall physical functionality and enhance your ability to perform daily activities. Functional training focuses on movements that mimic activities you do in your everyday life. This makes you better prepared to handle tasks like lifting, bending, reaching, and carrying, reducing the risk of injuries and enhancing your overall quality of life. Functional exercises will often engage multiple muscle groups and joints in a coordinated fashion. This helps us improve not only our movement patterns but also joint stability, meaning a reduced likelihood in muscle imbalances and faulty movement mechanics that tend to lead to injury and strain.

Now when we are considering the most functional exercises, it's important to focus on movements that translate well to everyday activities and improve overall physical capability. You also don’t want to be doing movements that are similar to the other either hence why o have chosen the squat over the lunge. *In some cases the lunge however may be better if you need unilateral movement in your routine, thats the beauty and art of training! :)

Here are five of the most functional exercises:

1. Squat: The squat is a fundamental movement that we all do everyday; sitting down and standing up. It engages the muscles of the lower body and promotes mobility and strength in the hips, knees, and ankles. We maintain posture with our upper body and core as well.

2. Deadlift: The deadlift involves lifting an object from the ground using a hip-hinge motion. This movement is essential for tasks like picking up heavy objects from the floor, making it highly functional for real-life scenarios. We may think we squat to the floor but a lot of times we are doing more of a deadlift movement instead.

3. Push-Up: The push-up is an upper body dominant exercise however it mirrors the movement of pushing oneself up from a surface, which we often do to get up from the ground or out of bed. It strengthens the chest, shoulders, triceps, and core.

4. Pull-Up or Row: Pulling movements are important for activities like lifting ourselves over obstacles, carrying objects, and simply maintaining good posture. Pull-ups and rows target the muscles of the back and arms, improving our overall upper body strength and posture as mentioned. A lot of our daily tasks are done in front of us making chest and shoulders tight, incorporating exercise’s like rows regularly can help prevent this imbalance from worsening.

5. Carry or Farmer's Walk: Carrying objects is a functional movement that challenges grip strength, core stability, and overall muscular endurance. Farmer's walks involve holding heavy weights in each hand and walking, simulating the act of carrying groceries, luggage, or other objects. Grip strength is also an underrated importance we tend to take for granted and decreases as we age.

These exercises emphasize movements that closely relate to daily activities, making them effective for improving functional fitness and enhancing your ability to perform everyday tasks with ease as well as recovering from injury. As always, proper form and technique are essential to prevent and recover injuries and achieve optimal results. If you're new to these exercises… you may want to consider working with someone like myself to ensure you're performing them correctly :)

Happy exercising!

Robyn