‘Exercise allows us to get the most out of life’

We’ve all been there – lifting a heavy box, bending over to pick something up or reaching up to a high cupboard and noticing that something feels sore.

It might be a little niggle in our lower back that goes away in a few hours or a sharp pain in our neck that is eventually forgotten after a few days. But, over time, these little injuries mount up and start to affect movement in our daily lives, reducing mobility, decreasing our ability and creating a lack of confidence in our bodies.

Enter functional training. It’s a term we hear a lot when it comes to fitness (in fact, it’s what the F in F45 stands for!) but it’s not often explained.

Simply put, it’s a way of exercising that recreates the common movement patterns that we all do on a daily basis.

An example would be a deadlift. Although outside of the gym, we might not often need to pick up a heavy barbell from the floor, we may need to lift shopping bags over the doorstep using the same movement.

So, if we’re doing this movement regularly anyway, why do we need to practice this in our gym routine? It’s all about teaching our body how to do it safely in an engaging way.

Firstly, learning good lifting technique is important. Many of us will have watched that ‘safety in the workplace’ video about how to lift a heavy box, but we often forget these techniques when it comes to real life, risking an injury.

Taking time to practice doing the movement correctly in the gym will help our body to understand how it should be moving, and allow it to replicate the move more easily in the outside world, without you even needing to think about it – especially helpful when fitting in that food shop at the end of a busy work day or around children’s schedules.

Having someone like a personal trainer or instructor on-hand is also ideal, as they’ll be able to give you tips on correcting your form, and tell you how to adapt the movement to suit your individual body.

Next, we want to strengthen the muscles that we rely on to live our lives. Another common cause of injury is when we pick up something that’s a lot heavier than our bodies are used to, so it’s good to challenge your muscles and help them grow stronger by safely and slowly increasing the weight that you’re lifting.

This way, even if your shopping bags are heavier than usual (how can we resist a three-for-two deal?), you’ll still be able to easily move them from the car to the kitchen.

Changing how you pick up the load, as well, is key. Here at F45, both in the studio and in our live workouts, we use different speeds, positions and holds for each exercise to prepare your body for as many different real-life situations as possible.

Finally, we want to have fun – yes, really! Exercising on a regular basis can be the last thing we want to do (especially when Netflix is calling!) but is key for our long-term physical health and allowing us to get the most out of life.

Finding a gym or studio that offers functional classes is the perfect way to stay motivated – they’ll take care programming the most effective exercises for you, so you just need to turn up and take part.

Our classes are 45 minutes long, making them easy to fit into your schedule, too, and we swap between resistance and cardio classes each day to keep things interesting and make sure that you’re ready for whatever the rest of your life has to throw at you.

Jess Brown is head coach at F45 Bristol Central. If you’d like to know how F45 can help you stay functionally fit at home, visit www.f45training.co.uk/bristolcentral or email us bristolcentral@f45training.co.uk

Main photo: JMP

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