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Functional fitness is a buzzword now in the health and fitness industry. Like most things though, in the health and fitness industry, they took a really good concept and they convoluted it and combined it with a bunch of unscientific and really dangerous activities. Functional fitness means you want to function at your best, but the activities they show you on the majority of these videos are stuff, and I’m seasoned, probably wouldn’t do one because it makes no sense. Two, because you’re that far away from just totally destroying your body. So stay tuned because I wanna talk about functional fitness, what that really means for you and your body, and how to do it properly. Greetings, I’m a Kim eo. I’m the owner of So Core Fitness, where we have a personalized online program. We also have in-house therapy and in-house training, both individual and in classes. And if you’re interested in working with me, then stay tuned toward the end of this video and checking description for opportunities to, uh, work with us.
So I’ve been in this field for almost 30 years and I’ve been in a, a so therapist and so trainer, which are degrees four and three year degrees underneath the osteopathic model. For the past almost 17, 18 years, there’s been some really great advancements in the health and fitness field, but unfortunately there’s been a lot more crazy making really stupid, unfulfilled stuff that’s come out. And it’s dangerous for you is use a layman, go out and wanna find information on things, and people are giving you at best partial information that doesn’t work at most dangerous information that doesn’t work for you. So I wanted to put out really good information on the best way to treat your body, which is a holistic method. So if you wanna hear more about holistic method, if you like what I’m saying, then go to that button down below, subscribe, click that bell to be notified, where I’ll put out videos about once a week. Functional of or having a special activity, purpose or task relating to the way in which something works or operates to be practical, practical and useful rather than attractive.
That’s gonna come back in a little bit that’s functional. And so functional fitness is you wanna function in your life. You want what you do in your life to be with the most ease, to be fluid, to be strong, to be mobile, you wanna just go through your life and feel good. And so people have taken this concept of functional fitness and they started with a good idea. Okay, well how could be people be functional? And when they first started, they started, okay, and we’ll talk about that in a little bit, but now it’s transpired into circus tricks. Holding a kettlebell, kneeling on a ball where you have a cable to the side, kissing your wife. That’s not an exaggeration. Or taking a, uh, a a bar, one hand snatch where you’re on one leg and you twirl around and rub your tummy. That’s a little exaggeration, but it’s not far from the truth.
That’s what you see in functional fitness. And for people looking for functional fitness who wanna function in their life, that is by far the worst thing you can do. It is dangerous, flat out dangerous if you wanna function in your life and you have to do things that make your life better. There are three basic functional training categories. Life, sport work. We’re gonna start with sport and work first. So if I want to be a really good runner, the functional training I need to do, because that’s gonna allow me to function better as a runner would be sports specific training. So in my training, I’m gonna go to a track or go outside and practice the different distances I need to do for running and the studio. I’m gonna work in the main muscles I need for running my quads, my hamsters, my caves, and I’m gonna train them in whatever range of motion I need relative to sprinter or long distance to become more functional, to become better at my running. At my work, I’m gonna try to become better at my work.
So let’s take, uh, construction people, right? If I wanna be a better painter and they come into my studio, okay, I’m gonna learn to train them how to be better in this movement. I’m not gonna train the whole body. I’m gonna do some complimentary exercises, but I’m mainly gonna work with the different ridge and motion with the elbow, the wrist, the shoulder, uh, all the spine, all that stuff, the neck to become a better painter. That’s functional, that’s functional for them because they wanna function better in their sport and life. The ironic thing though, with sport and life functional fitness training or sport specific training, you can say is it actually, it’s detrimental to the, to your life. So you become less functional in your life, the more sport and work training you do, because like I mentioned a second ago, when you do those, uh, workouts for sport and work, you’re detracting from other things you could be doing for your life to become more functional, but you don’t care.
Or in this case you don’t care because your goal is to win, to become a better job. That’s functioning for me, that that works for me. So for them, that’s functioning. They don’t care about the life part. For those of you who wanna be functioning in life, there’s two basic aspects that you wanna work with. The first will go basic. If I wanna be functional in my life, I need to be able to perform the seven primal movements properly. Those primal movements are walking, running, gait, squatting, bending, pushing or pulling, lunging or twisting. If I can become good at those movements, then I am going to function really well in my life. Because when you’re out of the studio, out of the gym in life, you do those same, those seven movements by themselves or or together all day long. You sit down in the toilet, you, you lunge to, to grab something, you bend to pick something over, you push something away, you grab something and pull it down.
All these are functional. So if you wanna be functional life, you need to get to the point where you can work on those. But that’s not where you start to be functional means my body knows how to process information and send it out into my body properly. That means I need to work my PIT muscles repair and imagine, think muscles. These are my deep muscles, namely transversospinalis. But my deep hips, my deep shoulders, all the muscles deep to your body because the signal from my brain to your body goes to the deep muscles first. Then I also need to train my DAM muscles. <laugh>, I mean do active move muscles, right? These are more the external muscles that everybody knows, biceps, triceps, quads, all that stuff. But for me to function with these, do active, move, move muscles, I need to have good information.
So to be functional before I train the seven primal movements before I train my quads and all that stuff, I wanna train my deep muscles. Because if I don’t have good information coming from my brain to my body and my body to my brain through these deep muscles that prepare, imagine thick muscles, I will never, never function properly. But you don’t see that in these, these workouts ’cause it’s hard for people to understand how to train them. It takes time to understand these muscles and to how to solicit them. Because all training is not the same. If I do a squat, it doesn’t mean I cover everything with my legs and my torso. If I do pushups, it doesn’t mean I’m doing everything with my arms. You need to be specific with the different things you do with your body to get a specific result.
Structure dictates function. Andrew Taylor still, I don’t know exactly when he said that, but he lived from the mid 18 hundreds to early 19 hundreds. So within that time, so a long time ago, that’s a very important phrase if we understand, if you try and be functional with functional fitness. But even before that, Leon da Vinci who did the vitruvian man, who my logo is based on centuries ago, knew about good body position, good body mechanics, and functioning well. So this is not, I know it’s a new fad, but this is not a new idea. Way back then they knew that if I work my body, then it functions, it best functions at its best. Excuse me. That’s what osteopathy what I’m involved in. It’s whole idea. If I can work with the structure, everything’s function properly. It’s not just how well I move. Sure, I wanna do seven primal movements, but I want my brain to function, my heart to function, my digestion, my elimination, uh, my hormones.
I want all that to function. And a big part of that is how, how well the structure of your body is built. It’s been called bio integrity recently bio integrity is a, uh, it’s taken from tensegrity, which is um, from BuckMeister Fuller, an architect. So we are tensegrity. But it’s bio, you know, ’cause we’re human and put together. So if I can balance my body, bio tensegrity, I dunno, that’s a word. functions at my, at my best. That’s true function. So what does biotensegrity? So quick in a nutshell, we got a bunch of bones, muscles, joints, visceral organs, all held together by fascia. You can say if we have one fascia that’s split into a thousand diff di, different directions that holds us in place. And it’s that dis distribution of force throughout our body that holds everything in place. A good example is that I’ve been taught, if I cut myself at L 3, my belly button,
Wow,
Sam just cut me <laugh>. I have no bones there to hold me up. I got L 4, L 5. So they’re sitting like that, but they’re not holding my whole body up. They’re not stacked upon each other. I don’t have a column, a real column in my body. I have a true spinal column with curves. So that’s not holding me up. So what’s holding me up? Well, it’s the tension and compression strength, mobility of my structure via fascia. So if I wanna really be functional, I wanna work with my fascia. I wanna work with my fascia, uh, to make sure it’s balanced through things. From my standpoint. Myofascia stretching ELDOA, uh, using therapies like pumping W T L S, all all things that respect the way the body designed bio tensegrity to be functional also means you understand what parts of your body need to be strong.
Again, we’re still talking about functioning life. What parts of your body need to be strong? So your body functions at its best. I’ll give one example. It’s called Pauwels balance. I’ll put the, uh, I’ll see if I can find a link and put in description and I’m sure I just had an edit right there too. So Pauwells balance says that if I’m standing on one leg, that this glute med, my hip muscle needs to be a certain strength to keep myself balanced. So I don’t do funny things like my hip pop out or my hip compacts or, uh, I fall forward. So I need to have a certain amount of strength to make sure that my hip is strong. So if I wanna be functionally strong, I need to train this hip muscle. And it’s three fibers because there’s three separate fibers, 1, 2, 3 separately. So that that hip can function properly so that hip can do its job and allow me to function properly.
That is functional fitness. Did you, did you dive in on a functional fitness training? Did you look up some YouTube videos or some crazy things in a magazine and try ’em. I’d love to know your experience, what you did. Just put ’em in the comments and let me know. So when you go through and train your body after deciding what type of function you wanna want, there’s some aspects that you can work on and you are fitness. You can get stronger, you can increase mobility, you can increase flexibility, you can increase strength. Uh, I say strength already. You can increase, increase, endurance, speed, balance, and a whole bunch of other extra things. But each one of these takes time. Just because I stand on one foot during exercise for a while doesn’t mean that my body’s gonna adapt to it. That session, it takes repeated time, time after time to tell the body what you wanna do.
It takes time, six months, 12 months to really integrate and aspect into your body. So if I wanted to become a long distance runner and I wanna train functionally to become more of an endurance runner, I should expect to train for years to finally become an endurance runner. I don’t go for a 5 K for a couple times a year and expect that I’ve totally increased my endurance. I’ve increased my endurance relative to what I already have, but I haven’t increased it relative to the function I need to become an endurance trainer. So each time you go to a workout, if you’re doing different types of training in one session, strength, mobility, flexibility, all that stuff, you’re actually getting none. You’re getting zero. You know, they talk about the master of all as a master of none. It’s the same thing. You can’t tell your body to do a bunch of things and have it adapt to each one perfectly each time.
Choose one. So when you’re going through, if you wanna be functional, start with first body structure. Is everything in place? Do I have a good plumb line? Do I have a good gravity line? Right? Then work from, do I have good flow through my body? Am I fascial tubes, uh, healthy and hydrated and floating around? Is my visceral working properly? Am I functioning properly in my body? Okay, great, you got that done. Now are, do I have proper muscle solicitation? Do I have enough workers in my body in all the different segments of my muscles to perform functional movements? Okay, now do I have good neuromuscular education to teach those muscles? To do what? To do? Okay, good. Now I can go on to strength. I’ll take about three months to work on strength, then I work on mobility. You can increase different aspects only through time, under tension, time, time doing right, consistency.
Don’t think because you kneel on something and you do a press right here that I’m getting balance and strength and mobility at once. THats BS, you’re performing an act and if you want perform an act like you wanna get good at that, act, great. Have at it. But don’t think that you’re increasing the different functional components of your body. To recap, you, you need to decide what it means to be functional in your life. What are the activities you perform? Mainly if you’re just looking for health and longevity and a good life, then focus on working up to those seven problem movements. But work up to ’em. Make sure you have a good structure first. Your body’s bounced. Take some time to do that. Then work up to, you know, working. Make sure that your, the flow of your body’s good. Work up to that.
Then to solicit the muscles you need, work up to that. Then start to work on the different functional movements. Work up to that a year. Think about a year. This is for life though. Fitness is for life, right? So if you, if you view fitness for life, then a year is nothing, right? And then once you accomplish that functional basic training, the functional foundation, you’ll keep it relative for the rest of your life as long as you stay active and come back to it every once in a while. So give yourself some time, each time to accomplish each one. Decide what you want and give yourself some time. If you want more information on help, how to do this, then I have some resources for you. So first and foremost, if you’d like to learn by doing, by interacting, then I have a free Facebook group.
And so Core Fitness, my business, uh, strength, mobility and flexibility for active people, it’s all about how to take this holistic type training and help it increase your life and different aspects you need in a safe, holistic, sustainable way. If you don’t want to participate, you’re not into Facebook, whatever the case may be, then have a a, a free ebook. It’s how to move better, get outta pain and live the life you want. Again, same idea, a bunch of information and how to holistically adjust your body so that you live your best life and your body can keep up with the life you wanna live. But if you’re ready to go, if you’re ready to start working, if you wanna work with me, then just reach out for free. Consultation free. There’s no obligation. We’ll sit down and we’ll talk first, we’ll talk about where you are, what you want, your challenges, and even if you don’t work with me, I’ll give you valuable information to move yourself forward once we find how you wanna move forward. If that includes working with me, then I’ll offer you a spot in our online program or if you’re in Santa Fe or in-house program. But I hope this is beneficial. Please use one of those resources. All the information’s down in the, um, description and thanks for watching. I appreciate it.
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