Aside from placing one’s body in a time machine and programming it to jump back 30 years, the process of aging seems inescapable. However, through appropriate functional fitness endeavors, the body can retain much of its strength, muscle mass, agility, and functionality as we enter the latter stages of adulthood. In this article, we delve into the premise behind functional fitness, the research that supports anecdotal evidence, and how we can recapture some of our youthful energy and abilities.
Understanding Stealth Muscle
If a client seeks out the assistance of a personal trainer, expressing a desire to increase strength/power/muscle mass, the first line of questioning might include some of the following:
- Age
- Current fitness level
- Current lifestyle/ADL movements
- Goal: function versus aesthetics
A 40-year-old client seeking a purely aesthetic transformation will require a very different mode of training than a 75-year-old client seeking to retain or recapture functional strength. In the case of the first client, a prudent trainer can set about designing a program consisting of such isolation exercises as bicep curls, bench presses, squats, and weighted pull-ups.
However, for the older client, the truth behind what they seek involves cultivating stealth muscle, the net strength gains that come from dedication to building those muscles that help one thrive in everyday life. We can think of stealth muscle as behind-the-scenes workers; over time, they will improve movement, agility, strength, and promote healthy longevity.
Defining Functional Fitness
To find success in building stealth muscle, clients must enter the world of functional fitness. The focus of this mode of training rests upon creating the best version of one’s body, enabling it to participate in real-world movements/activities. Such training takes into account the physical processes involved in lifting, squatting, reaching, bending…all movements that we do automatically every day but fail to consider, until that one day when we realize we can no longer execute these basic maneuvers.
Functional fitness allows a client to move more easily, feel empowered, gain strength, and lessen their risk of injury/falling. Such workouts build upon common movements: lunges for when one bends over to tie shoelaces; deadlifts for lifting grocery bags from the trunk of the car; and the farmer’s carry for holding suitcases when traversing the airport.
The Basic Principles of Functional Fitness
We can think of functional fitness in terms of seven major components, each of which plays a key role in an effective exercise program:
1. Improved Mobility/Agility/Flexibility
Functional fitness workouts improve flexibility and mobility around the joints, both essential for maintaining ease of movement throughout daily life. Having good mobility helps maintain independence later in life.
2. Better Balance and Coordination
By integrating upper body and lower body multi-joint movements, functional fitness promotes better balance, enabling the body to move smoothly as a single unit.
3. Enhanced Strength for Everyday Activities
Functional fitness focuses on the strength necessary to carry out daily activities without the added risk of strain or premature fatigue.
4. Reduced Risk of Injury
By improving overall movement patterns and enhancing stability, functional fitness helps lessen one’s risk of falls and their ensuing potential injuries. It can foster better body alignment and balanced muscle development.
5. Improved Posture/Core Strength
Strengthening the core helps improve posture, minimizes back pain, and trains the muscles to support the spine. If a client envisions themselves continuing to participate in sports as they age, functional fitness can lend itself to improving athletic performance.
6. Better Mental Health
Functional fitness can transcend the physical realm; by encouraging the release of endorphins, regular exercise can mitigate many mental health concerns, such as anxiety, stress, and even mild depression. Just the simple acknowledgment of having mastered a particular set of functional exercises can create a boost in one’s confidence and self-esteem.
7. Sustainable Fitness
Unlike aesthetic-based weightlifting, which can easily lead to overuse injuries, functional fitness serves as a highly sustainable endeavor. Instead of pushing extreme amounts of weight, functional fitness encourages more gradual progress and values consistency, making it something in which many older adults can engage well into their senior years. Clients may wish to aim for at least 2-4 sessions every week, depending on goals and fitness level. Consistency, combined with gradually increasing intensity and/or weight, will lead to noticeable improvements in strength, mobility, and overall functional ability.
Science Supports Functional Fitness
Decades of scientific research demonstrate that the process of human aging typically aligns with skeletal muscle atrophy and functional impairment (sarcopenia). Data points to mitochondrial dysfunction as a major contributor to sarcopenia. One research study sought to evaluate whether healthy aging is directly associated with a transcriptional profile reflecting mitochondrial impairment, and whether resistance exercise might reverse this profile to one approximating a younger physiological age. Scientists utilized skeletal muscle biopsies from 25 healthy older adults and 26 younger adults, male and female. 14 of the older adults had muscle samples taken before and after a 6-month program consisting mainly of resistance training. Before exercise training, older adults were 59% weaker than their younger cohorts; but after 6 months of training, strength values in the older adults improved significantly, such that their strength only ranked as 38% lower than the younger participants. The researchers concluded that while healthy older adults showed evidence of mitochondrial impairment and muscle weakness, partial reversal at the phenotypic level seemed achievable, while substantial reversal can potentially occur at the transcriptome level (RNA molecules) following 6 months of dedicated resistance training.
Less Muscle Mass Leads to Diminished Force
In the absence of functional fitness, two conditions often present simultaneously in an aging body: osteoporosis (low bone mass) and sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass, strength, and, therefore, function). The termsosteosarcopenia, coined specifically to describe this comorbid condition, reflects how a loss of muscle mass diminishes one’s ability to exert force on the bones; eventually, weakness follows.
As our population continues to age, experts predict that 50% of women and 20% of men over the age of 50 will sustain an osteoporosis-related fracture at some point during the remainer of their lifetimes.
Primary versus Secondary Aging
The average adult can expect to see a 40% decline in muscle mass at some point between the ages of 20 and 70. While experts previously viewed this as a natural consequence of growing older, we now realize the error of this assumption. The clarity lies in appreciating the difference between primary aging and secondary aging.
Primary aging describes the hard-wired process of maturation and subsequent physiological decline that renders older adults more vulnerable to disease, injury, and death. This happens to everyone all over the world. In contrast, secondary aging refers to an age-related deterioration of the body as a result of lifestyle choices, toxins in the environment, injuries, and illness. Such a process varies greatly depending upon how an individual chooses to conduct their life.
As Professor Stephen Harridge of King’s College, London explains in his lecture entitled “The Older Muscle: Aging or Disuse?”, the decline does not always follow linear regression; rather, when older adults fall prey to illness or injury, the decline can seem quite rapid.
Can We Reverse Aging or Merely Slow its Progress?
Choosing to participate in strength training/functional fitness versus leading a sedentary lifestyle can establish the difference between older adults enjoying functional independence or crossing the threshold into disability.
Disability practically guarantees the loss of power that our muscles can produce. Muscular power decreases at more than 2x the rate at which muscular strength diminishes. The fact that strength training dramatically reduces this plunge in power output can add years or even decades of function. While this may seem as if functional fitness reverses the aging process, the truth lies in its ability to prevent the predictable decline in bodily abilities, enabling the body of a fit senior to function as it always could.
One research study revealed that the average 80- year-old elite master weightlifter had the capacity to generate the same amount of power as an average healthy but sedentary 55- year-old. That reflects 25 years of functional fitness gains, providing a strong argument in favor of remaining functionally fit.
Designing the Optimal Functional Fitness Routines
As mentioned earlier, the best functional exercises focus upon primary movement patterns that copy real-life activities. Personal trainers typically break these down into the following categories ~
- Push Moves: builds strength in the shoulders, chest and triceps, for ease in opening doors, pushing grocery carts, and successfully standing up from sitting on the floor or in a chair.
- Pull Moves: strengthen the biceps, back, and rear shoulders, to help with movements such as opening drawers or lifting/carrying packages.
- Squatting/Lunging Moves: builds strength in the legs, hips and glutes, facilitating the climbing of stairs or picking up objects off the floor. Lunges help improve stability and balance.
- Hinge Exercises: cultivates strength in the body’s posterior chain — glutes, lower back, and hamstrings — for ease in bending to tie shoelaces.
- Rotational Exercises: improve core strength and flexibility, aiding with movements like twisting to reach for something, rotating the torso during sports, or carrying heavy objects while turning.
As a trainer embarks on functional fitness program designs, he must take into account the client’s specific goals: balance, stability, injury prevention, strength, and power. Once established, he can set about designing the workout.
Keeping in mind the above five categories, some basic moves might include:
- Push-ups
- Dumbbell rows
- Squats/Jump-squats
- Lunges (forward, rear, lateral and walking)
- Romanian deadlifts/Single-leg deadlifts
- Russian twists
Whatever moves the trainer selects, he should keep in mind the need for mobility/stability exercises, a prudent warm-up (5-10 minutes in length), and a dedicated cool-down (again, 5-10 minutes in duration) for flexibility and stretching to aid in recovery. In addition, adding variety helps keep clients interested and engaged, as well as providing opportunities for ongoing challenges. Include exercises that train in multiple planes of motion (forward, backward, side -to- side) and incorporate different movement types, such as low-impact bodyweight exercises, or more dynamic choices such as jumping or sprinting.
Final Thoughts
What sets functional strength training/functional fitness apart from ordinary resistance training lies in its primary goal: improving daily movement. According to Anthony J. Wall, the senior director of global business development and professional education for the American Council on Exercise (ACE), “For some people, this involves training movements that help improve activities of daily living. Others use functional strength as part of sports-specific programs to improve athletic performance.”
Given the fact that regular exercise can offer multi-system anti-aging effects, perhaps the future of research might focus not on the quest for better pharmaceutical agents to target the aging process, but rather on gaining insights into the molecular mediators of the benefits of exercise, and on implementing effective exercise interventions for our ever-growing elderly population.
Finally, as all personal trainers inherently know, we must encourage our clients to first and foremost listen to their bodies. Functional fitness, while challenging, should not invoke pain. Keep an eye out for improper form or a client who seems to push themselves too hard. Make adjustments, encourage rest days when needed, and ensure that each client progresses at an individual and appropriate pace.
References:
nature.com/articles/ncomms1890
theback.coach/post/how-to-gain-years-or-even-decades-of-functional-strength
inbodyusa.com/blogs/inbodyblog/how-to-use-functional-fitness-to-shift-focus-from-aesthetics-to-stealth-muscle/
delawarefitfactory.com/blog/move-better-feel-stronger-live-longer-your-functional-fitness-kickstart
pliability.com/stories/functional-strength-training
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4340807/
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12205185/
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17520024/#:~:text=However%2C%20following%20exercise%20training%20the,months%20of%20resistance%20exercise%20training.
link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12603-021-1640-4
paulogentil.com/pdf/TREINO%20DE%20FORÇA/Treinamento%20com%20pesos/P55.pdf
