Fitness seems to often get associated with weight loss or bodybuilding. Aside from athletics and performance, I prefer the general public view fitness as care and maintenance of the body. It may or may not be enjoyable. Some of us enjoy cleaning, or cooking, while some of us don’t. We do it because it has to be done.
You may only do the basic maintenance to your car, while your neighbor is meticulous and spends free time doing…whatever car people do to cars. But just because cars aren’t your thing doesn’t mean you don’t keep yours in good working order.
Fitness is the same. You don’t have to love it, you certainly don’t have to want to change your physical shape, but you do have to keep up with maintenance of the machine that keeps you alive.
Training for function is training for the movements required of everyday life. Movements like bending, lifting, strength, and agility. Think of every physical demand placed on you on a daily basis.
Carrying enormous bags of laundry upstairs, pushing a double stroller, not tripping over toys on the floor, avoiding falls every time a kid or a pet is suddenly underfoot. Quickly grabbing a toddler bolting in the parking lot. Carrying a 40 lb kid with bloody knees and their bike a mile back home. Possibly also while pushing a stroller.
Training for function means you regularly take the time to practice movement patterns - squatting, lunging, bending and lifting, rotating, pushing and pulling - so that you can perform them automatically.
During pregnancy, the body is changing daily. When I say “functional fitness for pregnancy,” I’m talking about managing that changing body through those ADLs (activities of daily living). Think of this as “practical movement.” There are your normal daily movements: walking, standing to sitting, sitting to standing, bending, lifting, carrying. Pregnancy adds an increasing weight load in the chest, which pulls the upper body forward putting strain on the upper back and shoulder muscles, and in the front of the body which puts strain on the lower back and muscles of the pelvis. Balance becomes challenged. Then there is this additional weight that could be putting stress on joints in the lower body, especially if all the muscles aren’t doing their job in supporting the weight.
Functional training exercises in pregnancy should involve:
strengthening the shoulders and upper back to keep good posture as the chest gets heavier
building strength in all the abdominal muscles to prevent diastasis, support the spine, prevent back pain
building strength in the muscles of the hip and pelvis to prevent hip pain and support the integrity of the pelvic floor
natural lower body movements such as squats and lunges
balance exercises to become familiar with changing load and equilibrium in a controlled manner
developing some stamina in preparation for labor
Parenthood requires a significant amount of physical ability, and at any given moment. The best way to be able to respond to demanding or repetitive activities of daily living without injury is to have practiced doing them in a controlled manner, where you have the opportunity to do them deliberately and correctly. That’s training, that’s a workout.