With over 10 years of personal training in Newington CT experience I have seen a lot of fad training come and go. In the past few years one of the new buzz words in the industry has been “FUNCTIONAL Training”. Now, I don’t have an issue with the concepts surrounding the idea of functional training, I have an issue that it has become a “specialization” and sales tactic for unsuspecting clients.
Functional Personal Trainer in Newington, CT:
I would love to believe that any QUALITY personal trainer in Newington CT out there, would use the basic principles of program design and individualization to create program that is functional for the client. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t inexperienced, uneducated, trainers out there who have no clue what my last statement even means; and it is those trainers that are going to preach to clients the need for specialized functional personal training in Newington CT.
But what does functional personal training in Newington CT actually mean? The idea of functional personal training is that you are going to create a personal training program that supports the everyday needs of the client (or the on-field requirements for an athlete). This is great! And when this is done correctly it is extremely successful and extremely beneficial to the client. So, what is wrong with this you ask? Well let’s take a look at what is generally done by these functional personal training junkies.
Typically when a trainer talks about “functional training”, more often than not you are going to see them pull out a bosu, TRX straps, or a physioball to demonstrate the newest parlor trick they have learned. But as Newington CT’s top Personal trainer, I have never understood how standing on an upside down bosu rubbing your belly and tapping your head is considered functional. Less experienced trainers love to preach the necessity of personal training in Newington CT on unstable surfaces to create “stability”, but when has the average client ever regularly been on something as unstable as a bosu? How about you acclimate a client to the stability demands of their every day life! It really boils down to risk verse reward…. Why would any quality trainer ever put the average client at risk for a parlor trick exercise, that has no bearing on improving their everyday life?!
As the top personal trainer in Newington CT, I do firmly believe in training clients in a truly functional manner. There are a few set movement patterns that are necessary for the average client. For the sake of clarification I will refer to these movements as Fundamental and Foundational movements. Movement’s that every client would benefit from, and would truly improve the functionality of their everyday life. These movements are a squat, a lunge, a hinge, a push, a pull, and a carry. In the subsequent articles in the series I will elaborate and define what, why and how these functional movements are beneficial and how they should be implemented!
The next installment of this series we will discuss the fundamental movements of the upper body you personal trainer in Newington should be using!!
