FILEX PRESENTER
WATER FITNESS
TRAINING THE
7 FUNCTIONAL MOVES
OF DAILY LIFE
By programming movements that mirror those used in the activities
of daily living, we can deliver truly functional workouts that help
participants maintain their independence, writes water fitness
specialist Marietta Mehanni.
unctional training has become
one of the most popular
buzzwords in the fitness industry,
and if one can claim something as being
‘functional’ then the activity seems to be
instantly validated. But what actually is
functional, and how is an exercise classified
as such?
For most people, ‘functional’ means the
functions they need to perform in their day-
to-day lives. Activities of daily living (ADL)
have been defined since the 1950’s as a set
of activities necessary for normal self-care.
These activities are: feeding, bathing, dressing,
toileting, continence and transferring, which is
the ability to move from one activity to the next,
for example, getting out of bed, or standing up
to move to another space.
F
What has exercise got to do with ADL?
ADL’s have been broken down into seven
different movement patterns and these are:
1. Squatting – both feet are in contact with
the surface
2. Lunging – shifting weight from one foot to
the other
3. Pushing
4. Pulling
5. Rotating
6. Hingeing – bending at the hips
7. Bracing – holding still.
In analysing ADL, several, if not all, of the
seven patterns would be incorporated and
are usually combined to perform an activity,
for example, getting out of a car. This simple
activity, which would be deemed an ADL,
demonstrates six of the movement patterns.
First, there is the pulling on the door handle,
then the pushing the door away, the lunging
out of the car with a hinge, the rotating to
move away from the car, and finally a brace
action to hold the body still as the second
leg steps out from the vehicle.
As trainers, we can use these basic
movement patterns in our workouts to
ensure that clients can maintain their
independence and self-care. Land-based
training has a more functional role, as this
is the environment that we live in, but we
can certainly implement these movement
patterns in an aquatic environment to
maximise the opportunity to enhance
quality of life.
Aqua exercise that uses 7 ADL
movement patterns
When considering how to transfer land-
based ADL movement patterns to the
water, buoyancy and resistance have to be
factored into the equation. For example, the
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