Most people don't move enough, which inevitably leads to misalignment and pain. In times of home office, this can even get worse. Even if you do sports, such as cycling or jogging, problems can arise if you lack body stability. Strength training is therefore essential in my view. The aim should be to get the body so stable that you can move without pain in the long term. In addition, having good muscles helps you burn more calories, making it easier to control your weight. I used to train in studios(Kieser or Venice Beach), but then at some point I stumbled across functional training1.
When training with equipment, muscles are targeted and also trained in isolation. You go to the lat pulldown to train the latissimus. You go to the leg press to train the thigh muscle and the large gluteal muscle. Etc. For many people, this is enough because they value shapely and well-defined muscles. But this will not help to get the body holistically stable.
This is different with functional training. The idea here is to build up strength using your own body weight or suitable aids in movement sequences that are close to natural or sport-specific movements. The exercises involve several muscle groups and joints. I have considered here so far:
- Body Weight Training
- Sandbag Training
- Kettlebell Workouts
- Slingtrainer
- Squats
I always alternate between these training approaches or mix them - on the one hand, to avoid boredom. On the other hand, to always provide different muscle stimuli (they otherwise also get bored and the training effect stagnates).
1 Michael Boyle: Functional Training. ISBN-10 : 3742301489, 2017
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