Functional Movement is Natural Movement- Babies Know What's Up

We hear the term “functional movement” all of the time but what is it?

Functional training is training that supports natural movement. It’s the strength that allows us to do the things that humans do in day to day life.

Isn’t all training functional? No. Many forms of training focus on one muscle group at a time and shorten muscles to “build” muscle. Other exercises focus on building muscles for one particular task (eg: cycling).

At Posture Studio, we focus on a functional movement training approach to Pilates. What that means is that we build exercises and instructions into the classes that support strengthening the body for daily movement tasks.

What does a functional movement class look like?
✨focuses on all muscles
✨improves range of motion
✨increases the ability to perform a range of dynamic movements
✨integrates movements that we use in daily life

Adding functional movement training to your other exercise routines allows you to continue to train for LIFE (daily tasks that require both simple and more complicated patterns in many ranges).

This comes to humans easily when young, yet we tend to stop practicing these patterns as we get older and stop playing/experimenting with movement.

How to integrate functional movement into your week?
-Get on the floor - often
-Crawl around
-Get up and down from the floor over and over again and play with slowly lowering yourself to the ground like gracefully catching yourself when falling.
-Practice balancing
-Do hip hinges to pick up things from the floor
-Dance around and mobilize those hips and shoulders

These are real life tools that help us live (and age) with greater ease.

Thanks to sweet Baby Beasley for sharing her knowledge. 🙌🏻 She knows what’s up! ❤️