Functional Training and Healthy Joints
Most people decide to start a training routine for aesthetic reasons or health issues related to weight and fat loss. Regardless of your motivation, moving your body is always a wise decision. However, there is a reason that is often overlooked, but that should be one of the main reasons to exercise: body mobility.
Most types of workouts disregard the health of the joints, the ability a certain exercise will provide us to carry out a certain movement more swiftly. The kind of training that specializes in these exercises is known as functional training or mobility training. It mainly consists of a series of exercises that help strengthen and give more flexibility to the muscles and ligaments surrounding the joints. Therefore, making joints healthier, protecting them from injuries, and making many practical movements easier. With aging, many basic movements become more challenging to perform. Primarily, this happens due to the lack of exercise of certain muscles. This is why many people can gain strength at the gym and become able to lift heavier weights every time, but doing something as practical as standing up from the floor without using their arms seems more challenging.
Functional training focuses on our overall physical health, emphasizing on our mobility and flexibility, which are greatly affected with time if we neglect some muscles. Hence, here are a few exercises we recommend for anyone who would like to get into functional training:
Squats: squatting won’t only strengthen your legs but will help you gain more balance and improve your hip, knee, and ankle joints. Focus on doing the movement correctly, always positioning your back and legs properly. Connect your breath to the movement by inhaling as you go up and exhaling as you go down. Once you’ve mastered the basic squats, we recommend leveling up your squatting by introducing more challenging ones like pistol squats, deep squats, and more.
Planks: Planks won’t only strengthen your core, but they improve your posture. Planking helps strengthen the muscles that support your neck, back, and shoulders. Hence, helping you improve your posture and preventing injuries. As recommended for all functional exercises, always aim at mastering the basic exercises, and incorporate a more challenging version every time.
Lunges: You can try different versions of lunges; from side to side, reverse, and others. This exercise can be a useful warm-up, but it can also strengthen and provide more flexibility to your hip joints. In the same way, you’ll be training to get stronger legs and healthier knee joints.
As always, we recommend consulting your doctor first if you suffer from any physical condition. For functional training, the focus is your mobility, so aim at doing the same exercise better every time and take it to the next level with patience and dedication.
Orthopedic Corner | Leon Mead MD Orthopedic Doctor | 730 Goodlette Road North, Suite 201 Naples Florida 34102 | Phone: (239) 262-1119