A training form that’s the order of the day

There is no doubt that exercise in any form is good. Recently, a form of exercise known as functional training has emerged which is in vogue at the moment.

I define functional training as a form of exercise which aims to improve one’s function at activities by incorporating movements which are part of the daily life. As an example, a person who wants to improve their ability to rise from a sofa may consider doing squats as it mimics getting up from a sofa. Similarly, a tennis player may perform lunges as the sport involves significant lunging.

Functional training is an excellent training approach as it not only improves one’s performance at daily activities but also adds variety to the workouts. However, it may not always be the best way to train due to its shortcomings. If the functional training approach is adopted to improve one’s ability to stand up from a chair in the example above, squatting will be the ideal exercise.

However, knee extensions may be the exercise of choice if weakness of quadriceps, one of the main muscles during this activity, is the reason for not being able to rise from a chair ( weak link).

This will avoid muscle injuries and other potential problems such as patellar tendinitis, we often see that, if functional training approach is chosen to train quadriceps as it may overload the weak muscles and tendons. Second, it will also prevent relatively strong muscles from compensating for weaker muscles to produce the overall movement which always happens.

This is where medical training comes into play because this approach after a thorough assessment looks at imbalances and particularly targets weak areas to improve the overall performance.

The writer is clinical quality head, team leader - Sports Physiotherapy,

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