Life does go around in circles. There used to be a time when people would do a lot of physical work and that itself would be the equivalent of exercising. Over the years times changed, and people would frequent gyms to lift weights and use all the Bodybuilding Equipment to get back in shape. And now, it seems, most gyms are focusing on exercises that don’t require you to use exercise machines, thanks to the focus on functional training (FT).
What is Functional Training (FT)
In FT, you use your body weight as resistance. Basically, your body becomes the machine.
Popular FT exercises include climbing wall, dash track, climbing ropes, TRX suspension, BOSU balls, and so on. Innovative trainers also use animal movements such as spider crawl, crab walk, frog jumps.
Why Is It So Popular?
This form of exercise is popular because it’s the easiest way to simultaneously workout different muscle groups of the body, and is fun to do as well. Besides, FT also trains your muscles for real-life body movements such as lifting heavy things up the stairs, placing or removing things from the loft, and so on.
For example:
- Swinging across monkey bars works on your core (abs and lower back), lateral torso as well as the arms.
- In TRX suspension, you hold two straps anchored to a point, say a wall, and then exercise using your body weight against the wall
Another reason for its popularity is that most just need a leaner & more agile body, instead of huge biceps and a bulky body. They just want to engage their body and mind at different levels, and that’s where this form of exercise works best.
Crossfit – the fitness trend that combines weight lifting, gymnastics and endurance training has attracted millions of practitioners around the world and is a major attraction in Mumbai as well.
This includes men as well, who are moving away from machine-based workouts, which many think are repetitive, increases the risk of injury, and don’t benefit beyond a point.
What Equipment You Need?
There are some soon-to-be-launched gyms that have no intention of spending on bodybuilding equipment and machines. They intend to focus on group exercises and functional training, for which they plan to build a TRX cage, a dash track, monkey bars and ropes for climbing.
Some Functional Training gyms still use treadmill for warm-up, but everything else is no-tech.
Final Thoughts
For long, gyms have been a place where you would see sweaty patrons pumping iron, with a serious look on their face. Finally, there’s something to smile about and have fun with. Those who like bodybuilding will of-course continue to pump iron, but their numbers are dwindling. Swinging across monkey bars, jumping through a row of tractor tyres, doing workouts that seem to come straight from a children’s playground, is definitely fun.
As most gyms ditch conventional gym machines and focus on functional training,
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