Functional Exercises, Strength Training

Functional Strength Training Specialists

Combined with functional medicine training that targets your lifestyle and diet, functional exercise training helps you achieve your fitness goals with minimal effort.

When your strength, mobility, and flexibility work together, you work and play more effectively. Functional strength training also helps you prevent injuries.

When you learn how to perform functional exercises properly with the help of doctors, you’re better prepared to take on anything that comes your way.

Functional fitness is what every physical therapist views as part and parcel of a healthy body. Your body is designed to move, but you have to move safely and efficiently. Functional fitness refers to the ability to do everyday tasks painlessly with ease. Functional training prepares you to use proper form to prevent injuries.

Safety and efficiency are the goals of functional exercises. The training workouts target various muscle groups that you use most to do things like bend, walk and run without straining. Just like you exercise to improve your quality of life, functional fitness training focuses on similar goals.

Optimum Use of All Your Muscles

While you work, play sports, clean the house, and do your job, you engage a whole slew of muscles — even if you sit at a desk all day. By simulating the movements that are a part of your daily routine, you strengthen and improve the flexibility of the muscles you use to do those activities. You’ll end up being more efficient in your movements. And you’ll reduce the chances that you’ll strain those muscles or incur an even worse injury.

Functional strength training teaches you to engage a number of muscles that, in some cases, you don’t normally use at all when doing a certain task.

For example, by learning a proper squat from your physical therapist, you not only prevent back injuries when you bend to pick something up, but you engage your thighs, buttocks, and calf muscles in addition to muscles in your lower back — that makes optimum use of those large, strong muscle groups. Our specialists offer a number of the latest techniques to prevent and treat upper, mid or lower back pain.

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Functional Training Workouts

With the consent of your doctor, visit your practice like the one-stop facility at PT center to learn proper form when you embark on a functional training workout. Once you learn the correct way to perform the exercises, you can continue with your training at home or in the gym.

Some of the more common functional training workouts you may be taught include:

Tai chi, which builds flexibility and balance as you learn the moves
Yoga, that also includes flexibility training, combined with resistance
Lunges, which are useful to improve your form when doing normal activities like raking leaves and vacuuming
Bicep curls, that save your back from getting involved in a full range of daily movements
Stair climbing strengthens and tones your legs, and adding dumbbells helps you better carry groceries up the stairs
Hip extensions with the reverse fly, designed to work on your coordination and balance
Diagonal reaches while holding a weight in both hands, which covers those tasks that require you to reach up into the cupboard for a dish or a box high up in the closet

Personalized Functional Exercises

Before you get started with your doctor to design an ideal functional exercise program, you have to explain your goals and any limitations you’re currently experiencing.

If you’re seeing a doctor for an ongoing condition, your therapist may request to see your records or contact your physician. You don’t want to add any complications to treatments you may be undergoing.

Your physical therapist also needs to know what kind of work you do, what your regular exercise consists of, and what your daily grind includes. If for example, you have young kids at home, you may want to include some functional exercises that target muscles used for picking them up, picking up after them, playing tag, and cleaning. If you work in construction, the exercises recommended for a carpenter may differ from those designed to improve functions for a metalworker.

Functional Fitness for Athletes

Personalized exercises are the best way to get the most out of your physical therapy sessions. And your physical therapist can deliver a set of personalized exercises to help you reach your optimal fitness level, primed for your day-to-day tasks. Everybody is different and needs different moves to stay healthy and make the most of your daily routines.

If you participate in a sport, professionally or not, you also need a specialized exercise regimen. No matter what your sport — from running and playing basketball to bodybuilding and aerobics — you can enhance your performance when you rely on functional exercises to coordinate your muscle groups. Achieve maximum performance in sports through functional training workouts that include flexibility, speed, and range of motion.

Functional Medicine training

According to the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy: “Functional medicine is an individualized, patient-centered, science-based approach to healthcare that looks beyond symptom resolution to identify why illness occurs and addresses those root causes to restore health. While conventional medicine focuses on using medication to reduce symptoms, functional medicine empowers patients and practitioners to work together to resolve the complex underlying causes of disease and promote optimal wellness through diet and lifestyle change.”

Your physical therapist practices a holistic approach to wellness. That’s why functional medicine training ideally complements functional strength, flexibility, and mobility training. And you get it all in one convenient Brooklyn location. Call today to learn how you can become your very best, in sports and life and ensure your body stays in a fluid motion.