Functional training is defined by movement that is useful for your everyday life. When applied to a regular fitness routine, results tend to follow. For one client, I noticed extraordinary results after progressive shaping towards a functional training program.
An Aside On Resting Heart Rate…
Resting Heart Rate (RHR) is associated with decreased risk of dying from all causes and increased performance on fitness tests.
What We Did
For this client, we worked through several months of general repertoire progressions:
- Building a fitness repetoire of skilled movements
- A transition to individualized customized progamming
- A transition to the natural environment
Each transition slightly decreased resting heart rate as we will see below.
We pick up with this client after 6 months of coaching at goal #5…
Building A Fitness Repertoire of Skill Movements
Within this phase, we targeted learning the following skills: air squat, pullup, push up, hinge, and tricep dip. This phase laid the foundation for later phases.
Individualized Programming – New Workout Plan
Specifically, this client signed up for an adventure race 6+ months down the road. Thus, to best prepare her for this event, we targeted specific exercises to reflect what she would encounter during this race. She signed up for the Spartan Beast which includes running 21K and completing 30 obstacles. To say that she needed to increase her training volume understates the work that she needed.
Example workouts and targets included: accumulating total miles per week and mixing in functional exercises like burpees, pushups, and object carries.
A Transition To The Natural Environment
Progression through skilled movements and an individualized training program led her to ultimately joining a functional fitness gym. With the solid foundation that we built, the transition to a fast-paced group fitness training program was seamless.
The Results
This client recorded the average resting heart rate captured by her Fitbit. Through each phase, we observe the variation in her RHR. Over time, and across each phase, the average RHR decreased (she joined a gym named OpenBox Athletics).
When calculating the average for each phase, the average RHR decreased by 5 beats per minute through the most recent phase:
