Are you tired of being overweight? Do you feel sluggish and unmotivated? Functional fitness for men over 40 might be the answer for you.
This post will explore how functional fitness works and why it’s a great way to get fit. We’ll also look at some of the benefits of functional fitness and how it can help you lose weight and build muscle.
There are many reasons why men should consider functional fitness. It helps with strength training, weight loss, and lean muscle mass. But most importantly, it makes you feel better. You will feel stronger, fitter, healthier, and happier when you exercise using functional fitness principles.
If you’re looking for a new workout routine, functional fitness may be precisely what you’ve been searching for. Let’s dive in and learn more about functional fitness for men over 40.
Functional Fitness For Men Over 40
Functional fitness is a term used to describe exercises designed to help you move better and feel stronger while improving your health and wellness. This type of exercise focuses on making daily movements and activities easier and safer by building strength, endurance, balance, and flexibility.
The Difference Between Functional and Strength Training?
Functional training focuses on multi-joint movements like squats, lunges, pushups, pull-ups, and overhead presses. These exercises mimic everyday movement patterns such as walking, running, jumping, climbing stairs, etc. They’re great for cardio conditioning, building core stability, and improving balance.
On the other hand, strength training focuses on isolating muscles and targeting specific muscle groups. You might use free weights or resistance bands to isolate specific muscle groups.
An example of this type of training could include bicep curls, bench presses, shoulder presses, lat pull-downs, leg extensions, calf raises, hip flexors, quads, and hamstrings.
Regarding aesthetics, bodybuilders prefer strength training because it allows them to target specific muscle groups to achieve their desired look. Bodybuilders often perform isolation exercises – such as chest presses, chin-ups, barbell rows, dumbbell flies, cable rows, and so on.
Is It the Same as CrossFit?
Functional training exercises are among the most popular forms of exercise today. They’re often used as part of a workout routine because they strengthen muscles and improve overall health.
However, there’s a difference between functional training and CrossFit. While both focus on strength building, functional training involves movement patterns that mimic everyday activities like climbing stairs, lifting weights, and squatting.
On the other hand, CrossFit focuses heavily on athletic movements such as sprinting, jumping rope, and pulling up heavy objects.
CrossFit is a sport and therefore includes many skills that aren’t necessary for functional training. For example, you wouldn’t want to use a barbell during a pull-up.
You’d want to do a pull-up.
Functional training doesn’t require those kinds of skills.
Functional Fitness: A Change of Mindset
The idea of functional fitness is much bigger than just getting into shape. It’s about changing your mindset and how you think about yourself.
Functional fitness is about performing better in life – lifting weights, running, climbing stairs, jumping rope, doing pushups or pull-ups, or even playing sports.
You don’t have to spend hours in the gym every day; you don’t have to do hundreds of crunches to build core strength; you don’t have to run miles and miles to burn fat. You don’t even have to lift weights to improve your health.
If you want to change your body, you must change your mindset. If you’re looking to lose weight, you’ll find that most people are focused solely on the number on the scale.
They obsess over calories burned versus calories consumed. They focus on counting carbs and protein grams. But the truth is, the body doesn’t care about numbers. It cares about function.
Functional fitness participants organize their training around different variables (e.g., different types of workouts), different planes of action (e.g., strength vs. endurance), and different levels of performance (e.g., beginner vs. advanced). You’re not just a collection of separate parts but a complete, integrated whole.
As you can see, functional fitness fanatics take their way of training seriously.
What Are The Benefits of Functional Training?
1- Improvement of healthy movement
Training in each movement pattern you were designed to use will help prevent you from developing muscle imbalances that could lead to pain, tightness, or poor movement patterns.
2- Reduced risk of injury
When it comes to exercise, we do certain things every day that could potentially cause us harm. We lift weights, run, jump rope, and even play sports. But what about our daily movements?
Do those little actions add up to more risk of injury?
If you think about our everyday habits, we often move around without thinking much about how our body moves. Our bodies are designed to move naturally, but sometimes we forget that.
For example, let’s say you’re sitting down at work and decide to stretch out your leg. You might notice that your foot doesn’t quite reach the ground, and you push off against the chair to stretch it out. While doing this, you might feel some pain in your knee joint.
What happened here?
Your body moved in a way that caused a strain on your knee. When you sit down and stand up again, you might experience discomfort because your muscles aren’t used to moving like that.
Studies show that people who regularly stretch suffer fewer injuries during physical activity. Now, that wasn’t necessarily bad—it just meant that you weren’t stretching correctly. However, if you continue to push off against chairs throughout the day, over time, this habit could increase your chances of injuring yourself.
The same goes for our daily activities, such as walking, running, jumping rope, and playing sports. By practicing good movement patterns, you’ll reduce your chance of injury.
So next time you move around, pay attention to your body and don’t force anything. Instead, focus on making minor adjustments to improve your overall movement pattern.
3- Weight loss
Functional training is one of the best ways to lose weight because it combines resistance exercises, cardiovascular workouts, and core work into one workout session.
By combining multiple muscle groups during each movement, you’re burning more calories in one workout than you would by performing just a joint exercise like bicep curls.
This means you’ll burn up to 30% more calories while working out than if you did just a joint exercise such as biceps curls. And don’t forget the added benefits of functional training, including increased strength, endurance, balance, and coordination.
4- No fancy equipment is required
You don’t need weights to have a functional workout. You can often use your body weight or grab household items to add resistance.
5- Daily tasks get easier
The #1 thing I hear about from people getting into fitness is how hard it is to build a nice body working out in the gym because of all their work. But there’s another reason we struggle to stick to our goals — the simple stuff.
We don’t want to climb those stairs anymore. We’re tired of lifting those suitcases. And we hate having to bend down to reach something off the floor.
But what if we could make these everyday activities easier? What if we could train ourselves to lift those heavy items without breaking a sweat? What if we could start doing squats while standing up?
And what if we did all of that without even realizing it?
That’s exactly what functional strength training does. It helps you build muscle groups that help you move around every day. You’ll be able to walk up the stairs faster and carry heavier loads without feeling pain. Functional training makes everything easier.
6- Increased strength and overall fitness
Regular exercise improves your strength, endurance, and overall fitness. Functional fitness is no different.
The 14 Best Functional Fitness Exercises
1. Jump Squat
The jump squat is a great exercise to improve your lower body strength and power. It’s also one of the best functional fitness exercises for beginners. You can do it anywhere, anytime, without requiring equipment or space.
How To Do A Jump Squat?
Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and hold dumbbells in both hands. Bend your knees slightly and jump up as high
2- Reverse Lunge
The reverse lunge is an excellent exercise to help you build muscular legs and thighs. This exercise helps strengthen the muscles around the knee joint and improves balance.
3. Single Leg Deadlift
Single-leg deadlift is another effective functional fitness exercise for building strong legs and improving balance. This exercise strengthens the glutes, hamstrings, quadriceps, calves, core, and shoulders.
4. Palm Plank
Palm plank is a simple yet challenging exercise requiring balance and coordination. If you are looking for a full-body workout, this is the perfect exercise.
5. Pushup
Pushups are one of the most popular exercises among people who want to get fit and lose weight. They are easy to perform and require no special equipment.
6. Plank Bird Dog
Plank bird dog is a beneficial exercise for strengthening the abs, back, arms, and shoulders. It is a combination of a pushup and a plank.
7. Side Plank
Side plank is an excellent functional fitness exercise for strengthening the abs and core. It is a variation of a side plank where you place your hand on the floor next to your foot.
8. Elbow Side Plank
An elbow side plank is an excellent exercise for strengthening the abs. The critical point of this exercise is to keep your elbows close to your sides while performing the exercise.
9. Kettlebell Swing
The kettlebell swing is a dynamic exercise that targets all major muscle groups, including the upper and lower body. It is a great way to burn calories and increase metabolism.
10. Burpees
Burpee is a classic exercise that everyone should know how to do. It is a complete body workout that includes cardio, resistance training, and flexibility.
11. Dumbbell Bent-Over Row
A dumbbell bent-over row is great for building strong biceps and triceps. It is a compound movement that involves pulling a barbell towards your chest using only your forearms.
12. Lateral Raise
Lateral raise is a great exercise for developing the lateral deltoids located at the front of your shoulders. It is a compound exercise that combines a pull
13. High Knee Sprint
High knee sprint is an excellent exercise for increasing speed and agility. It is a quick burst of activity that works out the entire body.
14. Mountain Climbers
Mountain climbers are an excellent exercise for burning fat and building endurance. It is a series of alternating jumps and lunges performed on a step or stair.
How Often Should You Do Functional Training?
Functional fitness is a type of exercise focusing on building strength and endurance throughout the body. These exercises are great because they help build muscle mass and improve overall conditioning.
The best part about functional training is that you don’t have to use weights to complete most of these moves. Instead, you’ll use your body weight, resistance bands, or medicine balls. And while some people think that functional training requires specialized equipment, no special tools are needed.
You need to make sure you’re doing enough movement every single day. If you want to start seeing results, it’s recommended that you train two times per week. But if you’re feeling energetic and ready to work out more frequently, you can do it 3 or 4 times per week.
FAQ’S Corner
Is functional training good for seniors?
Functional fitness is great for seniors for various reasons. The functional fitness exercises mimic everyday movements, and by training several muscle groups at a time, seniors prevent getting injured.
Conclusion
Sure, there are times when you wonder whether it would be nice to be so strong that people would mistake you for a young Arnold Schwarzenegger or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, but sometimes, if not always, it’s best to stay focused on keeping your health and fitness goals real.
Life would be pretty impractical if you’re so muscular that your muscles are so big that you can’t even reach your shoulders. That’s where functional training comes into play.
Here’s the reality: Most of us won’t become professional bodybuilders. Most people who go to the gym aren’t getting paid to exercise there. They don’t have an exciting careers as a celebrity trainer or are not the fitness model they claim they are.
There’s functional fitness for the rest of you who don’t want to lift the heavy iron. Daily movements are essential for our physical and mental well-being as we age.
Everyone at some point in their lives has experienced carrying heavy things, lifting bags, or helping someone else move something. And it doesn’t have to be too hard.
And for that, functional fitness focuses on the one factor every man needs: practical, all-around strength and functional fitness.
If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comment section below.
