Functional Fitness for You!
What do Olympic athletes have in common with exercise beginners? These two groups – as well as everyone in between – can reap the benefits from a type of exercise that will not only help them excel at their designated activities, but enable them to perform functions of daily living more easily and safely.
Whether you are a gym regular, a weekend warrior, or are completely new to exercise, functional fitness is for you. At the most basic level, functional fitness can help someone more easily stand up from the couch. At its most extreme, functional fitness can help Olympic athletes bring home the gold medal.
“For some, functional training may involve movements in strength that enhance a person’s ability to perform daily activities. Or, it may be used to improve an athlete’s performance in their designated sport, or even to build a better relationship between the nervous system and the muscular system,” said Dan FitzSimons, owner and trainer of CrossFit Pittsburgh Personal Training. “No matter how you define it, functional training is an important part of exercise and should be included into a person’s routine.”
According to Dan, functional fitness is not a new concept; neither are other types of training such as core training or interval training.
“CrossFit Pittsburgh has been incorporating these necessary exercise components into our clients’ workouts for years,” he said. “We love all types of training, especially all of the reasons why a person should train.”
The newest component at CrossFit Pittsburgh that will help enhance a person’s functional training routine is the Industrial Athletics Functional Training System, which enables Dan and his team of trainers to bring functional fitness to a whole new level. “The Industrial Athletics is a great addition to our arsenal of functional training weapons,” Dan explained. “The accompanying fitness tools provide us with a huge array of exercises that have our clients performing compounded moves that will help them develop as an athlete, a homemaker, a weekend warrior, or simply just help them to move around more easily.”
Dan noted that the Industrial Athletics is the foundation and framing for enhancing the overall function and performance for ANYONE who uses it.
“CrossFit Pittsburgh trainers are extremely knowledgeable, motivated and enthusiastic about their jobs and our equipment. Because of this extensive knowledge, we are able to train anyone who is interested in developing a healthier lifestyle,” Dan said. “Our functional training tools have many applications in real life, like working with children to develop gross motor skills, to someone who wants to increase their core and overall strength, to elite athletes who want to achieve performance goals. These tools also help individuals who simply just need help getting up and down stairs, in and out of the car or to simply live a better quality of life.”
Industrial Athletics is a company that cares as much about individuals being able to achieve healthier lifestyles as CrossFit , according to Dan. “We have seen a real need for functional training in our lives and have gone above and beyond to fulfill that need with our clients. Our ability to understand this philosophy, absorb the knowledge and develop the skills required to perform on this equipment will have a direct impact on our clients.
“Functional training has always been a big part of our foundation, but it just received a major makeover. As one of our clients said, ‘People come here for all of the right reasons.’”
