Do you ever question why you go to the gym for exercise, but end up sitting down for half the time on various contraptions? Fitness centers are littered with rows of machines made of pulleys, levers, cables and weights that require sitting down in order to operate. People question why they aren’t burning the calories from last night’s pizza but coincidentally are the ones sitting down for half their workout. Machines over-occupy most fitness centers, but thankfully gyms are trading traditional strength training machines for functional fitness space.
Traditional strength training equipment includes the fundamental machines that dominated fitness centers for decades: leg press, chest press, leg extension and various single-muscle activators. These machines require an instructional diagram and don’t allow for variation. You sit down and perform the specific movement to raise the portion of the weight that is above the metal pin. Traditional training is outdated and creates gaps because of the restricted movements.
It might have taken some time for the reign of the machines to come to an end, but it’s better late than never. Machines seemed to gather more dust than patrons throughout the past few years while the popularity of CrossFit, circuits and high intensity interval training grew. Humanity’s common sense finally kicked in and questioned our outdated exercise methods.
The foundation of each new workout method is functional fitness. The functional style encourages people to push, pull, squat and naturally move their bodies while working multiple muscle groups.
To accommodate all this pushing and pulling, gyms are simply removing the machines and filling the space with nothing. Items to complement the new open space consist of 25 lb. ropes, sandbags, assortments of medicine balls and sometimes AstroTurf. The best example, and hopefully a role model for Carmichael Recreation Center, is Life Time Fitness. Half of its fitness clubs contain jungle gyms — and an incredible new two-story steel structure able to accommodate up to 40 members was built at its 106th club in Alabama, according to The New York Times.
Functional fitness enables you to get more out of every fitness center visit because of mass muscle activation. Not only are your muscles challenged but also your heart with whole-body movements. Utilizing more than one muscle at a time increases your heart rate because your heart has to pump blood to more than one muscle simultaneously.
An increased heart rate leads not only to more calories burned but to a healthier heart. During a day, the larger the difference between the lowest beats per minute your heart registers and the highest beats per minute, the better. I realize people have circumstances by which they need to abide, but you can’t be scared because unfortunately, while quadriceps, pectorals, deltoids and biceps commonly make up the muscles to be trained, the muscle in charge of the show is overlooked.
I understand that I look crazy when I am performing my various functional fitness routines in Carmichael. You can often spot me about to pass out in the mini gyms by the racquetball courts, and I don’t doubt peers often think to themselves that I look strange and foolish, but traditional methods never worked for me. Previously open gaps have been filled and my workout times are shortened due to the high intensity and short duration. Traditional methods might linger for some time and never truly disappear, but I am glad they are beginning to take a backseat to a more natural way to exercise.
