Functional Fitness

Why Participate in Functional Fitness?

• Want to start exercising but not sure how to do it?

• Not comfortable in a gym setting?

• Not sure about your exercise technique?

• Keep getting re-injured?

• Are you bored of your program?

• Have you plateaued?

• Do you need a challenge?

• Are you looking to train for something specific?

Everyone has a special reason for being fit and it is our goal to support your journey!

New to exercise?

• Exercise can be intimidating and what we feel may be beneficial for us may actually be doing our body a disservice.

• We typically hear from patients that they learned a specific exercise from a friend however when they demonstrate, technique is not there and the reasons for doing the exercise are not the same.

• When building an exercise program you are taken through a variety of progressions until we find the appropriate one for you.

• Body awareness has a large component with technique and working with a Kinesiologist allows a trained eye to guide you so you may learn the proper technique and movement patterns, maximizing strength and prevent injury.

• We teach you how to ‘hop’ before you start ‘leaping’.

A large gym versus an intimate space

• Going to a large gym with a variety of equipment can be very beneficial for some but not for others. Outside of a large gym with large pieces of equipment we can work on the same areas and challenge your body in a variety of ways that allow you to do your exercises wherever and with very little equipment. Depending on your like and dislikes, we can work together to build an exercise program that motivates you and will allow you to make the most gains.
• Many patients enjoy going to a large gym and feel comfortable working independently. Exercise programs can be designed together and then worked on independently for weeks until progressions are needed. Programs typically included exercises, the use of equipment you enjoy using and other exercises that may be recommended to further benefit strength and endurance gains.

Quality of quantity

• Above all, technique is important. If technique fails, injuries are more prevalent.

• Technique is also important for targeting the right areas and using your time efficiently e.g. if you are squatting but loading through your knees instead of your hips you will be seeking advice for your knees fairly soon and over developing your quads but not working on your hamstrings.

• Why spend 1.5-2 hours at a gym when you could spend 20-40 minutes to gain the same benefits?

• Endurance exercises have a time and a place just as strength and power exercises do. They must be integrated into an exercise program and continuously changed in order to continue making progress or else you body becomes accustomed to it and eventually you will plateau.

Keep getting re-injured?

• Re-injury can happen for a variety of reasons; technique and ergonomics during exercise, sport, work and all aspects of your daily activities are important and play a factor in injury

• How you rehabilitate and where you strengthen or stretch can play a role in providing stability or mobility to a joint.

• When an injury occurs it is important to break down the movement and retrain the movement pattern  as your body can compensate for the strain/sprain/tear etc.

Bored? Plateauing?

Often, patients report doing the same exercise for the past year, 5 years, 10 years or even more. After roughly 6 weeks, our body adapts to the positive stress and stops making significant  physiological gains from an exercise if intensity, duration, reps or sets are not constantly changing.

The Challenge

• Keep in mind it depends on the reason for an exercise but generally for a healthy non-injured person, If exercises are ‘easy’ you may have achieved most of the benefit from that exercise and could be using your time more effectively.

• Our aim is to continuously provide positive stress to your system so that you are making gradual and continuous physiological gains.

• We can do this by modifying reps, sets, rest time, the type of exercise and the combination of exercises performed.

• The important part of challenging your system is knowing how much overreaching is ‘healthy’ and how much can lead to injury and  burnout.

Cross Training

• Each sport involves many similar movement patterns but many specific movement patterns at the same time. Developing these movement patterns and practicing until they are perfect and automatic is the goal for every athlete.

• We are constantly looking at fine tuning movement patterns and making them the most efficient to decrease the length of time it takes and the strength/power generated from the movement.

• Cross training is a necessary component to increasing performance and knowing the sport and dominant movement patterns helps to bring light to the areas that are not being focused on during training and start developing those areas.