Functional Fitness: Ask the Functional Fitness Trainer
We asked Willemien van Zyl, a functional fitness trainer and owner of Mix It Up with Miena, a few questions on the benefits of functional fitness.
How did you come about your inspiration for movement?
“I have always been fascinated with movement. I wrote my first exercise program at age 7 and whilst captaining sports teams, naturally lead groups of people from primary to high school. Movement has always been about variety and exploring different forms, styles and systems and that is why I have taken part in everything from athletics, hockey, tennis, netball, gymnastics and even swimming. I was either always designing hockey or gymnastic routines, or running on the beach and using the steps and whatever else was available, in a circuit. I knew from a very young age – I wanted to help people unlock their potential and improve their quality of life, through movement.”
Meet Willemien van Zyl.
How does functional training link in with our daily lives?
Functional training by definition is a system of exercises or movement which helps any individual to perform daily activities better. Those who move in a balanced way, use functional movement patterns like pushing, pulling, hinging, rotating, lifting, bending, throughout the day without even thinking about it. Therefore functional training is a structured way of exercising/training/moving where all of these movement patterns are incorporated into the training session.
I love using the following statement when it comes to exercise in general:
“Put your mind to the muscle and use your muscle for movement” – Miena
“Put your mind to the muscel and use your muscles for movement.” - Miena
What are the ways in which functional training can benefit people?
The true power in functionality or functional training lies in the movement that the individual needs to do more of on a daily basis or is not doing enough of, and this may be different for everyone. A painter needs the strength of his arms and shoulders more than a farmer, who will be doing a lot of walking among the vineyards – who will probably need his legs to be stronger..
Our bodies become or react to the way we move. The muscles we do not use in a healthy way – we will lose over time.
“Our bodies become or react to the way we move.”
What are the long-term benefits of a functional fitness regime?
The biggest problem in our modern society, is the fact that we sit too much. This causes the muscles of the posterior chain (back of the body) to become lazy and the muscles of the anterior chain (front of the body), overly tight, or overworked, but not necessarily strong.
There is a greater risk of creating muscle imbalances now than ever before and if we do not start moving in a variety of ways, we will lose the way the body was meant to move - freely and in different planes.
The three different planes of motion are sagittal, frontal and transverse planes. Sagittal plane cuts the body into left and right halves focusing on forward and backward or up and down movements. The Frontal plane cuts the body into front and back halves focusing on side-to-side movements and the Transverse Plane cuts the body into top and bottom halves focusing on twisting or rotational movements.
Good functional training programs will make sure the clients constantly mix up their workouts, use all of the planes of movement and incorporate a great variety of functional movement patterns.
The three different planes of motion.
