Monday, February 4, 2013

Why You Need Functional Training

By Tyron Thompson


It has for a while been my personal position that sportsmen of all sorts and all levels can gain benefit from a smartly designed and well executed strength training program. I have regularly seen this to be the situation in my personal athletic activities.

No matter what sport I was playing at any given time, weight and strength training were part of our overall training routines, and for good reason. Strength coaching not only builds just strength, but depending on the design and kind of the strength training program, sportsmen can improve balance, coordination, suppleness, power, speed and endurance.

One area of strength training which has been gaining popularity during the past one or two years is Functional Training ( though many of these exercises have been about for a long, long time ).

Functional Coaching is focused on building strength in the muscles we use to perform daily functions like carrying groceries, walking up and down steps, slicing wood, digging the drive, for example.

Coaching in this fashion makes sense in that the strength gains made are applicable to the areas that we actually need strength in. If you think about it this way, although the bench press is a great weight training movement, I wouldn't say that it always helps a person that is looking to gain strength required for their job as a cook.

Think of functional training as explicit to the game or way of living that someone lives. I read a neat phrase lately that declared learn to train the "go" muscles, not the "show" muscles. That pretty much sums up functional coaching.

So what are some Functional Coaching exercises? There are actually masses of functional movements, and it fact I'd say you can make a discussion that pretty much all exercises can in some ways be considered functional movements, but in the interests of this writing, we'll just name a couple of the more frequently utilized ones.

Take into account that Functional Coaching can involve weights and weight machines, use resistance bands and tubes, medication balls, kettle bells, ropes, pull-up bars, plyometric "jump" boxes or platforms, and stability balls. Regard it like this, the main muscles utilized in swimming are the shoulders, the legs and the back.

Secondary muscles would be the arms, the hips and the trunk muscles. To set up a functional training program for swimmers, I would like to recommend swimmers focus upon buttressing movements that target both the number one and secondary muscles used. I say pull-ups and other pulling movements would be useful for the back muscles. Overhead presses and lateral raises with kettle bells or resistance bands would be appropriate exercises for the shoulders, but also add some movements that target the rear deltoids and the rotator cuff muscles for balance.

Most times wounds happen in the shoulders springing from a lack of balanced strength inside particular muscles in the shoulders. For legs, squats are always a go-to exercise and leg presses work similarly also. I like these 2 leg exercises as they work the whole leg and not just categorical muscles within the leg. I recently read research discussing how to become a quicker pool swimmer by using the free speed that comes from a strong kick-off from the sides of the pool.

This actual research discussed squats as a movement to help a swimmer increase the power they generate from kicking off the sides during each lap. So it is comparatively straightforward to develop a functional programme on your own if you concentrate on it. Simply determine which muscles you are using for a particular function or sport, and then find exercises that buttress those muscles. From there it is merely a matter of performing these exercises during your workout routines.

It's also worth discussing that many exercise that require balancing, like One-Leg Romanian Squats employing a bench and dumbbells, compel you work on balance and buttress the muscles that are involved in balancing yourself during the exercise. This improves balance, but can also translate into more power and agility, which are both very important in sports performance.

It is worth entering into both Functional Coaching and Sport-Specific Strength Coaching to take your sports performance to the higher level. Strength coaching is a complete must for any sportsman looking to be competitive in any sport or recreational activity. Whether you do resistance band coaching, resistance training, power yoga, Cross Fit or any other kind of strength training, it should be considered just as important as flexibility and precise sports coaching.




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