How symmetrical is your body?
Do you always carry your bag on one shoulder? Drive with one arm on the wheel and legs at a different angle? Have you had a baby that sits nicely on one hip? Or sit at a desk all day long then head to the gym to then sit on a bike or piece of equipment?
Chances are that your body is out of symmetry, there are muscles that are tight and muscles that don’t get the work they are desperate to do this can lead to pain or discomfort. Â This isn’t something we have to put up with.
By taking a functional approach to your training we can get the body more symmetrical and therefore able to work better not only through your training, but everyday life as well. If you think about the training we do in a gym everything is in a straight line going forwards. Is this true to life?
When do we ever get in and out of the car, bed, put petrol in the car, do our shopping, put our shopping away, grab something on put something back in a straight line? Our bodies are designed to move in all sorts of directions, so let’s put that into our exercise!
Many of my clients will tell you what a difference functional training has made to not only their body shape, but their movement and decrease of pain.
We tend to do the same exercises we know and like (because they are easy or we don’t have to worry about doing them incorrectly) but by changing what we do and the way we move we can improve that feel good factor after training, start to notice positive change in our bodies again and also make training fun and enjoyable!
Do we run on the treadmill for half an hour because we enjoy it and feel better for it or because we think we should?
Why not change your training to something better suited to your body and lifestyle and enjoy the huge changes that come with moving in multiple directions and adding some variety in. Change creates change and if you do what you’ve always done you will get what you have always got.
Your body will love the change you give it by trying functional training and you will love getting, hot, sweaty and moving in totally different ways!