Health and Fitness

Functional Fitness - One size does not fit all

How do you use your body?  If you are a bricklayer, you might use a strong back and arms as well as tough hands and good sun tan.  If you are a lawyer, you body might have to endure long periods of sitting at a desk, your eyes have to be good for lots of reading and you may need a kind smile to reassure your clients.  If you are a model then you need stunning good looks and perfect grooming.  If you are an athlete you may need strong arms or fast legs, a massive set of lungs or reflexes like lightening.  Seldom will one person require all of these characteristics in the one body.  More often, we ask our bodies to do a set number of things for us and usually these things have nothing to do with what the world says is important.

Think about your own life.  Why do you need your body?  What does it have to do for you?  What is important now and what will be important in the future?  Do you have a plan for making the most of your body?

Body capability is the key issue here.  We have to decide how we can get our bodies to work for us.  How we can make our bodies capable of performing the things that we require of them?

We all hear reports of declining world fitness.  But what does this mean in real terms?  The most important thing that this tells us is that we are less and less likely to be able to sustainably do the things that we want with our bodies.  While we can reasonable expect to live to a relatively old age, we may not experience the quality of life that we seek, because our bodies let us down. 

While some people aim for the loosely defined and imprecise goal of total body fitness, a more realistic goal for living in the real world is to aim for functional fitness.  Functional fitness can be broken down into many different categories, the most important of these are:

1. Aesthetics
2. Strength
3. Endurance
4. Flexibility
5. Bone density
6. Cardiovascular
7. Nutrition
8. Body Composition
9. Disease
10. Senses (esp. sight and hearing)

You will notice that number 1 and 8 are the most popular categories in fashion in the media.  That 5,6 and 9 are favourites of the medical profession.  That 2,3,4 and 6 are favourites of sports people.  And that 7 and 10 are just plain handy in the real world.

Out of these ten and any others that you think are important, your job becomes choosing what to spend your valuable time pursuing depending on what you need your body to do for you.  Forgetting all about what the rest of the world tells you is very important.  Only you know what will lead to you achieving your long term goals and satisfaction. 

Surely this is a liberating way to view your body and health.  Instead of suffering from perpetual guilt and regret over the condition you are in, you are able to deliberately choose the areas to concentrate on and get to it.  Rather than half heartedly wishing to maximise every aspect of your body, instead you can increase your focus on what really matters to you.

As an example, I provide my own functional fitness profile to show you how it works.  This is especially relevant because over the last two years I have totally changed what I require my body to do for me and so I have had to totally change my definition of functional fitness.

Currently I need my body to do 7 major things and do them well:

1. My eyes must be sharp as I spend a lot of my day reading or on the computer.
2. My back and core must be strong to support this time spent sitting down on a chair or theraball.
3. My arms and back must be strong to enable me to repeatedly pick up and carry the weights of 13kg and 4 kg which are my daughter and my son.
4. My cardiovascular system must be able to keep up with my body’s demand for oxygen as I run
5. My muscles must be supple and my tendons and ligaments flexible to reduce training injuries
6. My digestion and nutrition must support a heavy training load as well as long hours spent actively pursuing my other goals.
7. All of these factors combined, contribute to my endurance which enables me to live a full and vibrant life and still have enough energy to drag myself into bed at the end of the day.

 You might notice that I have placed no emphasis on aesthetics, bone density, body composition, or  disease.  Neither have I mentioned oral hygiene, sleep, skin care or colonic irrigation.  This is not because these things are not important, but simply because I have realised that there is not enough time in my life to devote my attention to these as a major focus.  Sure I Brush my teeth, and I shave and keep myself looking good, but I refuse to spend much of my valuable time chasing goals that aren’t important to me. 

Now, of course, your life is totally different to mine and so what you require of your body will be totally different to me.  You might consider the time I spend training to be such a waste, when I could spend the same time in a beauticians studio and end up looking like a movie star.  But that is just the point.  It isn’t important for me to look like a movie star.  That is someone else’s dream and I refuse to live it for them.  My dream is achieving my goals and I use my body to do that.  If I need my body to do something towards that achievement, particularly if it is a long term request then I concentrate on making sure my body can manage it.  This is functional fitness.

The secret to finding out about your own functional fitness requirements is to do a simple life audit and find out what you are asking your body to do. 

Think carefully about your goals.  What do they require your body to do for you?  Look at the list of functional fitness categories (and add any others that are important to you).  Then look at each of your goals and work out what you are asking your body to do for you in each of these areas and write out a list of these things.  You will end up with a list, hopefully not too long, of areas that your body must be capable in order for you to achieve your goals.  These then become your functional fitness objectives.  Pursue them diligently as they can propel you to your goals.  Forget about the other categories or at least give them lesser priority, because if they weren’t important enough to make it to your functional fitness objective list then they are probably someone else’s dream and not yours. 

So now you are free to tear up your gym membership if it doesn’t serve your goals, or cancel your next nail treatment if it no longer is a priority.  Only you can decide what is a important for you, but when you have decided, stick to it.

Ask your self:  What would your doctor say?

                          What would your coach say?

                          What would your friends or family say?

                          What would the media say?

                           What do your life goals say? - this is all that really matters

There is no point in devoting your life to the pursuit of the perfect body if it doesn’t carry you closer to your life goals

Thanks

Tom

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