Six ways Functional Training can boost weight loss

Providing you with the strength, stability, and power that you need to thrive, Functional Training has been used as a buzz word in the fitness world for many years now. It's ability to treat the body as an integrated unit and utilise exercises which train it for the activities performed in everyday life and sports, Functional Training will not only enhance your overall performance, but will allow you to achieve your goals in a safe and orderly fashion.

To help us understand why we need to be incorporating Functional Training into our fitness plans, Head Trainer for F45 UK, Jade Pearman (www.f45training.co.uk) offers her expert advice, focusing on how this form of exercise is your best option for boosting weight loss.

It Works More Than One Muscle Group: Functional exercises tend to be multi-point, multi-muscle exercises. Rather than sitting on a bench press machine and just targeting one muscle group, for example, a functional exercise might involve the elbows, shoulders, spine, hips, knees and ankles and brings in multiple muscle groups into one exercise. This type of training, properly applied, can make everyday activities easier, reduce your risk of injury and improve your quality of life.

A Great Way To Burn Fat, Fast: The main element of Functional Training and a great way to burn body fat is variation. It is easy for your body and muscles to adapt when you do the same exercise over and over again, making your body used to it and therefore no chance for you to see progress. In an F45 session, we use HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) and Functional Training to help our members achieve their goals whilst ensuring that no workout is ever the same. You are kept on your toes with different workouts and rest times, and these changes of exercises and different formats of stations are what help maximise growth and ensure progress. As well as this, studies have also proven that doing steady state cardio can actually produce the fat storing hormone, cortisol and increase appetite. For this reason, Functional Training is far more efficient and when you use muscle metabolism acceleration, you'll tap into your anaerobic energy system while increasing lean muscle tissue, which will help you increase your metabolism even during at a resting state.

Fun Factor - Despite its degree of difficulty, most people will put their hand up and say Functional Training is fun. If you are doing an F45 class, the workouts are done and dusted in a short 45 minutes, with the exercises constantly changing and leaving you no time to look at the clock. Exercise is all about training, not just the body but your brain as well. By working out, our brain naturally releases neurotransmitters that will actually result in making you want to train more and before you know it, you are completely addicted. So, the fun element of Functional Training helps to lure you in quicker than ever, putting your weight loss goals in clearer sight.

You Can Do It Anywhere - Functional Training workouts would normally involve Ropes, Sleds, Kettlebells, TRX, Dumbbells, BOSU, Swiss Balls, Sand Bags, Hurdles, Cones or Chin-up bars, but can also be done with no equipment at all and be just as effective. So, if you do have that little mad moment when on holiday and want to counteract the cocktails and ice creams, a quick Functional Training session can easily be done in the corner of your hotel room and leave you without that sluggish feeling when you arrive home.

More Bang For Your Buck - You have probably heard this expression before, especially on the gym floor, but when it comes to Functional Training, it could not be more accurate. You use your entire body as a unit in the way it is intended to move, rather than a Strength Training session which treats the body as separate parts and attempts to train them individually. This results in more muscles being recruited and more calories burnt, especially when getting the big muscles involved and throwing in some plyometric lunges!

Your Body Carries On Working - Another one of the great things about Functional Training is that it enhances EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen), the element that turns you into a fat burning machine. At F45, when we combine Functional Training and HIIT, we're inducing an 'oxygen debt,' as this type of exercise can increase your metabolic rate for up to 16 hours after you train. So, when you are done with working out and just going about your day, your body is still looking to consume fuel sources for the oxygen it needs to restore itself to a resting state of equilibrium. The great news for us humans is that it does this naturally, primarily through raiding fat stores.

Steady state cardio is still great to combine in your weekly program to enhance recovery and strengthen your heart. However, when it comes to getting rid of some body fat, nothing works like functional circuit training to manipulate the speed at which your metabolism burns and get you seeing results in no time!