Let’s Talk About Functional Strength

How Is It Different from Strength Training and Why Is It So Important?

I had a profound experience with my body’s ability to build strength about a year ago. Toward the end of summer 2022, when I was 72, I was bitten by a tick on Long Island and developed Lyme disease as well as babesiosis (a tick-borne co-infection). My immune system took such a huge hit that I landed in the hospital for 24 hours, and I was diagnosed with mononucleosis as well.

It took a month on antibiotics just to be able to walk around the block, let alone exercise the way I was used to. Initially I could feel the depletion my muscles and joints had undergone. As I moved around slowly, I realized that this was how many people live all the time. It took another 6 months to begin to feel as healthy as I am used to feeling.

Now, after lots of restorative strength and balance work, my legs are stronger than they have ever been. The effort I put in, in that depleted state, was rewarded with healing and strength.

Over a year has passed since that incident, but I am not resting on my laurels. I continue to work at keeping my body strong as I get older – this is an essential part of what I do every day. In addition to aerobic activities like Zone 2 and HIIT training, I practice yoga and use weights, strectch bands and gym machines to strengthen my muscles, tendons, fascia, joints, and bones.

Plus, I consciously take advantage of simple activities in daily life that can build strength, like taking the stairs or sitting on the floor, both of which keep my legs strong. Clearly, taking the stairs instead of an escalator or elevator is not a new idea. But try sitting on the floor and getting up with as much ease as possible – with no grunting! You’ll see why this simple movement helps to build strength.

Sedentary lifestyles in modern life rob us of our strength, because we don’t our muscles nearly as much as during most of our existence as human beings. This is compounded as we get older by sarcopenia, the natural tendency for muscles to shrink and joints to wear out. But sarcopenia can also happen at any age simply by not moving enough.

Staying fully functional is very important to me. By that I mean continuing to do all the activities I have enjoyed all my life. Other than running, which I’ve never been very good at, staying fully functional continues to be possible in these so-called golden years. I’m not only talking about sports activities like biking, walking for miles (rather than blocks), swimming, rowing, and paddleboarding in summer or even being able to go to the gym and enjoy a good workout. Enjoying full functionality in daily life is just as important. Walking up a steep hill without getting tired, carrying luggage or groceries, lifting other heavy items, gardening, building and fixing things, and even lugging my 350-pound sailboat up and down the beach in summer – these are just some of the activities I don’t want to give up anytime soon. The good news is that doing these activities continually builds my functional strength.

Building functional strength is different from what many people think of as strength training. Typical strength-training routines focus on building individual muscles. For example, you might hear people in the gym talk about a “leg day” or an “arm day.” These folks are focusing on building the big muscle groups, often for looks rather than function.

My strength training is designed to support and build my functional strength. It involves whole-body movements with twists and torque, not just individual muscles. This is what keeps me coordinated and able to build functional strength, using the myriad natural movements my body is capable of.

Our bodies were forged in evolution over millions of years, moving in all the ways our ancestors needed to survive and get food. Walking, running, throwing, pulling, pushing, climbing, and fighting were the core movements back then. Our bodies still crave these movements despite getting very little of them in modern life.

I have found that yoga is a good way to build functional strength. It involves using my whole coordinated body in most poses. There is no part of my body I’m not aware of, or concentrating on, more than any other. Except for the resting poses, each pose requires balance, strength, and flexibility. I can feel blood being pushed to circulate into every joint and pore of my body when I am practicing yoga.

Balancing activities also help to build functional strength. Balance requires many coordinated small muscles and tendons to work together to keep us upright and dynamically steady. These muscles also keep our joints strong. It’s not just the big, main muscle groups that are doing the work. When we just exercise the big muscles, the smaller ones never get the benefit.

I have a trainer friend who is passionate about turning conventional “single-plane” strength routines (the kind you would do with a weight looking in a mirror) into torque-driven exercises that begin with the legs and use that power to generate even more strength in the upper body. He has studied the body’s fascia system, the system of groups of muscles wrapped in tendon like sheaths that help them function as one coordinated system. This is how we naturally use our bodies, not the individual muscle “body-sculpting” that many weight routines emphasize. I will present some of these torque-driven routines in future posts.

Remember, building strength is a two-step process involving effort and recovery. Simply doing the exercise is part one. Healing from that effort, recovery, is the magic that makes you stronger. More on this to come.

Never Too Late

At many points when I was recovering from Lyme disease and mono, I was afraid that I would never fully recover and that this might be the new normal. Being weak and tired was a very low-quality state of being for me. I prayed that I would heal and get stronger. My body answered my prayers by giving me the motivation to put in the effort to continually work on my functional strength, so I could keep doing the activities I love to do. Nature did the rest of the work. Our bodies are wonderful friends, capable of wonderful things, but we must treat them to what they thrive on.