Up & Coming Weekly

February 15, 2022

Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.

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WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM FEBRUARY 16 - 22, 2022 UCW 17 e fitness industry continually evolves with apps, exercise equipment and the latest concepts in exercise science. e newest buzzword in the industry is "functional training." If you are not in the industry, you may ask what functional training is? Ask any personal trainer or group fitness instructor what functional training is, and chances are you will get a variety of explanations. Functional training done correctly has a huge carry over on the way we move in everyday life with benefits for everyone regardless of age or fitness level. Fitness centers have historically modeled their floor exercise stations with sectorized equipment that uses a singular motion for specific muscle groups, emphasizing muscle develop- ment based on repetitions and weight. e bodybuilding industry had and still has a significant influence on training and gyms filled with machines designed to target muscle isolation. Functional training enters the arena as an added approach to overall train- ing. Fitness centers are seeing the need for functional training and making entire additions for rooms or an area with selected equipment specifically for this purpose. Functional training is defined as training that relates to how we move daily. Functional training consists of five daily life patterns: bend and lift, push, pull, single-leg movement, and rotation. Our movements are multi- planar. e planes of motion incorpo- rated with the five-movement pat- terns are frontal (side to side), sagittal (forward and backward movement) and transverse, which is rotation. As an example, you go to the grocery store pushing your cart, back up for some- thing you missed, select items that are high and low on the shelves, take the items and place them on the checkout, put the items back in the cart, push the cart to the car and put the bags in. Drive home, take them out, carry groceries up the steps into the house and place them on shelves. You may not realize it, but this scenario involves all three planes of motion and all five movement patterns. You pushed, pulled, bent and lifted, worked in a single leg motion and rotated. How does functional training help you with this scenario? Func- tional training significantly impacts life outside the gym and gives an added advantage in the sports arena. Fitness centers add entire rooms or areas for training that are distinctively different in concept and flow. A room might include workstations that involve mul- tiple movements and unconventional exercises. Types of equipment might consist of a ski machine that works you in a forward motion like the move- ment of cross-country skiing using the triceps, back muscles, quads, glutes and core. A sled machine that requires you to push and pull from one point to the next, which involves the entire core and leg muscles to push and pull. A punching bag works the core, rotation, leg, back, arms and pectoral muscles. TRX equipment, weighted balls, row- ing machines, air dynamic cycles and treadmills. Versatile workstations and a variety of equipment that is fun and challenging. Functional training is also becoming part of group fitness classes, emphasizing compound movement patterns that include weights. If you are thinking about joining a fitness center or hiring a personal trainer, in- quire about functional training. It can improve your daily activities, sports games and recreation with strength stability, performance and movement patterns. Live, love life with increased movement and strength. FITNESS CYNTHIA ROSS, Personal Trainer. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910- 484-6200. DAN DEBRULER, General Manager, WCLN. Comments? Editor@upandcomingweekly. com. 910-484-6200. What is functional training? by CYNTHIA ROSS When we first meet someone, we're often taken by their accom- plishments, the way they dress or speak or even the way they enter a room. Rarely though, do we consider the forces of life and nature which made them this way. Similarly, when we see the beauty – or even the desolation – in nature, we rarely consider the long-term change or forces by which it was created. Consider for a moment the steep, multifaceted walls, stunning colors and sheer magnitude of the Grand Canyon. For as much beauty as it offers any beholder, it has obviously made it through a very violent past. It is living to tell the story of ice and raging waters, wind and time, which have made it the breathtaking beauty we see today. As humans, though our experi- ences alone do not define us, we are surely shaped, to various extents, by the waters of experi- ence that have flowed through us, and maybe more so by our responses to them. Every one of us has a past. Measured in hours, days or years, the events of our lifetime have gradually developed us into what others see today. Our tendency is to see objects we consider beautiful without any consideration for the process of its creation. I enjoy giving gifts to family and friends that extend from one of my many hobbies (many, because I am 'blessed' with a short attention span). One of the hobbies I particularly enjoy is woodworking. Rather than furniture or items that require great precision levels, I prefer to make small things where the appreciation value comes from their uniqueness. If I really dug into my psyche, I'd probably discover that this actually comes from a sense of inadequacy and that unique, one-of-a-kind gifts leave less room for judgment. But more than that, I believe there can even be a somewhat redemp- tive quality to woodworking. One year I wanted to do something special for the people I work with at Christmas and decided to make wooden Christmas ornaments. I first pulled a few pieces of fire- wood from the stack near the edge of our property. After clean- ing them up, I began shaping them into rectangles about eight inches long and three to four inches across. After some prepa- ration, I secured each piece on a lathe, which causes the wood to spin at rotations up to thousands of revolutions per minute. At first, they wobble. So, I spin them a little more slowly and introduce a large chisel to take off the rough edges, causing them to be unbal- anced. As the wood becomes a little more stable, I can increase the speed and use smaller chisels to begin the process of refining and shaping each piece into a defin- able shape. Eventually, I'm able to use sandpaper to make the newly formed shape smooth to the touch. is is us. is is the Grand Canyon. We are, over time, shaped with cuts both deep and shallow at the hands of a Cre- ator. And just as one can see the beauty in one, or the wonder in another, so is the beauty of our uniqueness. We have all lived a story worth telling, and when we do, we can point people back to the Creator, who had a plan from the beginning of it all. We have all lived a story worth telling by DAN DEBRULER FAITH Photo courtesy of Pexels Photo courtesy of Pexels

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