Functional Fitness + Life Fitness Synrgy360

If you haven’t gotten into functional fitness training – now is the time! Don’t be afraid to get in the gym and tackle your functional fitness fears. Here are a few tips for doing so:

1. Do some research. Check out some basic functional fitness exercises that will give you some guidelines and reasons to do what you are doing.

2. Work with a trainer or take a class. Many gyms now offer specific group fitness classes that are based on functional fitness, this will help you get into it with a group of people working out to music. If one-on-one is more your style, set up an appointment with your trainer and tell them you want to focus on functional fitness. Ask them to design a program for you to follow.

3. Find a workout buddy. People who have a workout partner have great accountability and success with training than those who go at it alone. Find a buddy or a virtual partner to share plans with, gain motivation from and have fun working out!

First Off, A Review: What is Functional Fitness Again?

For those of you who don’t want to click back to the last functional fitness post, I’ll just repeat what they said at WebMD: the idea is “building a body capable of doing real-life activities in real-life positions, not just lifting a certain amount of weight in an idealized posture created by a gym machine.” And you’re generally supposed to use compound movements rather than working individual muscles.

Since I’m the last health blogger on the planet to think about getting more Functional, you probably are all way ahead of me on this anyway. But, for a little more info, here’s an msnbc article on functional fitness. You can also just google and get about a trillion hits.

Why Am I Finally Considering Functional Fitness After Stubbornly Ignoring This Trend for Years?

1. It’s getting more and more mainstream and I keep reading about it one everyone else’s blog and I feel left out.

2. I’m getting really, really, bored with my current workout.

3. Annoying Old People keep hogging my usual gym machines and I need alternative ways to exercise the same muscles. (When winter’s over and it’s time to move back to Provincetown MA, I won’t have to contend with Annoying Old People anymore! Instead I’ll be fighting with Annoying Circuit Queens).

4. Functional Fitness seems to involve toys, like jump-ropes, balls, bells, cones, and inflatable things. This sounds like a nice change from massive pieces of gym equipment and allows for a more portable workout.

5. Theoretically, I will be less likely to injure myself doing ordinary activities. As someone who once severely aggravated a back injury by bending down to tie my shoes, this might be a smart idea.

6.People who do lots of functional fitness exercises seem pretty kick-ass.

7. And speaking of kick-ass feats of functional fitness, did you guys catch that Whobody passed her SWAT test? Here are some of the requirements: “a mile and a half run in 12:18 or under…. Sprint 100 yards and drag a 160lb dummy with a weighted vest on in 28 seconds…” Editorial note: Accck!

8. Because cardio and strength training often happen at the same time, you can get more done in a shorter workout.

9. The final inducement? A friend of the Lobster is a personal trainer whom we visited when we were in San Diego. He knows his stuff, and he’s all about functional fitness. He was very persuasive! This also means that the Lobster is interested in functional fitness now, and the Crab has a workout partner to play with. Said personal trainer gave us a starter workout to try.

In every gym or home gym there are ways to add functional fitness into your training. But I was recently given the opportunity to learn more about the Life Fitness Synrgy360, a great piece of equipment for functional training and fitness that offers so many opportunities.

The new Life Fitness Synrgy360 combines several popular total-body, dynamic exercises into a system that gives exercisers fun, unlimited ways to exercise.

Synrgy360 can facilitate eight of the top 20 fitness trends of 2012, including:

• Functional Training

• Strength Training

• Core Training

• Sport-specific Training

Synrgy360 is also ideal for group training and can support up to 16 exercisers at one time. To check out a group session in action and see an up-close look at the equipment, watch this quick video.

Synrgy360 features eight unique training spaces, giving exercisers at all fitness levels unlimited versatility. Each space supports a distinctive training activity, and these diverse options help to keep exercisers excited and engaged. Synrgy360 is ideal for functional training and more “playground” style exercises. These total-body work outs can help shake up a fitness routine, and work muscles that might otherwise be missed with traditional cardio or strength training programs.

Some of the Synrgy360 zones and accessories ideal for functional training exercises include:

• 2 TRX Suspension Training Spaces

• 10-Handle Monkey Bar Zone

• Battle Rope Station

• Kettle Bells

• Cable Motion Space

• Rebounder Space