Functional Fitness – Work Out With These Exercises

Functional exercise or fitness means doing exercises or activities that are natural to our bodies and that we have evolved performing regularly.

This is, imo, the way to do it.

But let’s get into a bit more why.

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Why To Switch To And Stick With Functional Fitness

The strongest argument for why to stick to functional fitness over conventional one has to do with how our bodies have evolved.

Working out in unnatural ways put an unnatural strain on our muscles that can contribute to injuries and postural muscle imbalances.

And for postural health, which is hugely important for numerous reasons, this type of exercise can work wonders on the way you feel and look.

It can also make everyday life smoother through the increased strength in the muscles and movements that are the most functional.

It’s great for balance and coordination.

Aside from that it comes with all the other types of workout benefits as well including better brain health, feeling better, more energy, less anxiety, stress and depression, better sleep, weight loss, less risk of disease, less risk of falling, stronger bones and muscles, longer life, increased testosterone and so on.

But again, for the best of fitness benefits, keep it functional:

Functional Exercises – Do These

As with any forms of exercise, functional ones, too can be separated into groups of strength or cardio, both of which are great and complementary to each other.

But for the sake of this article, let’s start with strength.

Functional Strength Exercises (Bodyweight):

Squats

Squats are easily achieved with your bodyweight and is a movement we do way too little of nowadays much due to the invention and popularity of toilets, chairs, tables and beds.

Do squat, but not necessarily a lot weight-wise.

It wasn’t ever that common to squat heavy I’d say.

I recommend mostly deep squats, mixing in 1-legged squats if you can or have worked up to that.

Lunges

Lunges is the other large leg exercise that’s very functional, so try that one out to complement your squats with.

I prefer the one where you stand in place as opposed to moving forward.

Deadlifts

This one can be done with or without weights where you simply touch the floor and go back up.

As opposed to squats though, this one is natural to do loaded with weight i.e. picking something heavy off the floor, and works great or even better with one or two dumbbells or a weighted bag.

The barbell on the other hand is less functional due to the unnatural lifting grip.

Step Ups

A great complement to your lunges above.

Standups

I call them this and they entail simply getting down on and off the floor in whatever way works for you, mixing lying down with sitting down onto the floor.

Great as you age to stay able to get up if you fall and to reduce that risk through great balance improvement.

Push ups (mostly on your knees)

As seen in this article, pumping out loads of pushups is not very functional or natural.

I’d stick to a few and with the rest of them on your knees for a more natural angle.

Static Squats

This one’s like a plank but for squats, you simply stand squatted at various depths for a shorter duration of time.

Chin Tucks

A great little addition to those of you that spend a lot of time in front of screens.

Back Bridges

Not entirely functional perhaps but a good enough exercise for your spine and posture that it still makes the cut here.

Weighted Functional Exercises

Aside from the deadlifts that could fit under here too, weighted functional exercises include:

Rows

This is done standing up and in various angles (from floor, from knees, higher up, etc). Best with a dumbbell or two imo.

Shoulder or military press

This one works well with a dumbbell too.

Bicep Curls

Start low and work your way up the weights.

Tricep Curls

These can be done either above your head or out along the sides of your body.

Shoulder Flies

Adding some of these won’t hurt you and as with rows different angles complement each other (side of body, in front of etc).

Chinups and pullups

Get yourself a decent pullup bar and this is an exercise you’ll want to start doing.

Tough as a beginner but very rewarding when you’re not.

Hangs

Hanging is great for grip strength, forearms and for shoulders, so do these as well.

Weighted Carries

Carry a heavy dumbbell, barbell or sack for a set amount of time or distance. Great for functional and core strength.

Functional Cardio Exercises

When it comes to cardio rather it’s a bit more straight forward, as opposed to a mix of movements to fit into your workout.

As thus, they include:

Walking

Not to be underestimated, get your daily steps in.

Running

Running is hard to beat cardio-wise but you may want to start slowly at first and stick to softer surfaces, perhaps barefoot or with barefoot shoes for a more natural posture and less risk of injury.

Yoga

Yoga is a great form of cardio and strength mixed, try if you haven’t. I prefer my intuitive yoga myself.

Dance

Dancing is another great way to get some cardio in, which can also improve posture and your intuition.

Dancing freely to music works fine if you haven’t got any choreography to follow.

Cycling

Cycling can be done both indoors and outdoors although I’d only call it functional if you do it on the proper bike with good posture.

So don’t miss this little detail or it might do with your posture as will too much computer time.

Swimming

This one’s hard to beat too, although not always practical/available at home or at your gym.

Martial arts/boxing

Great cardio and core workout here.

Sprinting

The HIIT version of running that brings a bunch of additional time-efficacy and muscle building benefits to it.

HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training)

Interval training can be functional as well, just find more functional exercises for it then (such as sprinting above).

Sports

Most sports can offer great cardio gains while also being very fun and engaging.

Stretching

Ideally stretch your entire body, with extra focus on tight areas and fixing or maintaining good posture and mobility.

Skip These Common Exercises

Part of functional training might include skipping non-functional exercises, so, to put it briefly skip these ones:

Bench, excessive pushups, situps and crunches, most exercises involving machines or gym benches, running on too hard surfaces.

How Often And How Much Should You Exercise?

This can be a tricky one since it very much depends on your current fitness level, and thus I like to somewhat go with the official recommendations here.

They are a minimum of 150 mins of moderately vigorous exercise or 75 more intense ones, per week.

These again are the minimums though.

My personal recommendations though involve finding which types of exercise that you most want to do, and how much of them, since they’re the most likely you’ll get done.

For cardio, running for example, I’d recommend 1 to 6 days a week if you enjoy that and for 20 – 50 minutes.

With strength training, anywhere from 2-5 days 20-75 minutes a week to a little bit daily.

Either way, you do want to do both of them, meaning some cardio, and some strength.

Essential Gear Needed For Great At Home Workouts

If you’re for convenience you may be thinking of ways to get a good workout done at home, and the truth is that’s not difficult at all.

It takes some basic exercise equipment though, and that’s:

A yoga mat
A pullup bar
An adjustable dumbbell or two
Barefoot Shoes for running
(A heavy sack, skip this one if you don’t intend doing carries)

These 4 or 5 pieces of equipment’s got you covered really well and won’t cost you a fortune.

Click the links above for good products.

Keep The Surfaces Soft

Something should be said about the surface which you train on and that’s to keep it soft whenever possible.

Running is a good example here, where you’ll want to run on a soft surface and ideally barefoot or with barefoot shoes for both injury prevention and promotion of a more natural posture.

But the same goes for all of the above functional exercise movements, that you want to be standing on your yoga mat or on grass.

If not you can use normal workout shoes with the heightened heel for some (but not all) of them since they’re still generally better than being barefoot on really hard surfaces.

Listen To Your Body And Find The Exercise You Enjoy

To listen to your body is a good tip to avoid overtraining or burnout.

You’ll also want to listen to your lust a bit when it comes to exercising, and find the exercise you’ll actually enjoy and want to do.

That way it’ll actually get done, and without immense amounts of willpower needed for it.

Combine Your Efforts With Healthy Eating

As with good results from any type of exercise, you’ll want to combine it with eating healthy.

You can check out what to eat here.

Exercise And Weight Loss

And quickly on weight loss..

Exercise can be good for that but really it’s your diet you’ll want to be focusing on for this.

Work out to increase your appetite for healthy foods and improve how you feel, but not specifically for the calories, since that’s more of a myth, calories in, calories out.

It will often increase your appetite and make you overeat to make up for those calories.

Simpler types of workouts though like walking can have less of this appetite-increasing effect and thus may be better than say running for keeping the weight off.

But again, focus on eating healthy for this rather.

What it can do is help sculpt your body and to make more of your weight muscle rather than fat (strength exercises) which is nothing to scoff at and a great bonus to working out.