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Episode Transcript
Functional fitness is important for everyone, and it really is important, especially as you age, because you might not have the capabilities that you did when you were younger.This is the Health and Wellness Podcast brought to you by Sanford Health. The conversation today is all about functional fitness—what it is and why it’s beneficial as we age. Our guest is Charlotte Stier, a physical therapist with Good Samaritan Society – Sioux Falls Village. Our host is Alan Helgeson with Sanford Health News.Thank you for joining us today. We’re gonna be talking about a topic, functional fitness, but before we get there, Charlotte is here because Charlotte works at Good Samaritan Society – Sioux Falls Village. In your role as a physical therapist, what are some of the common things that you see and that you might do during a normal day?Well, a really common one is balance. That’s a big common theme, especially in the older adult population that I work with. What I do specifically is, I am in charge of the outpatient realm that we have. So I go to more of the independent living, the assisted living facilities. I go to them, to their home, and I do their rehab there, or I ask them to come to the gym where we’re at.Alan Helgeson (host):Why is it that as people get older there are more issues with balance? What happens to us physically that changes? Charlotte Stier (guest):
Balance incorporates not just how you’re moving, not just your feet, it incorporates your vestibular system and it incorporates your eyesight as well. So it could be a combination of factors for, say, someone that has neuropathy for whatever reason, maybe it’s from diabetes or Parkinson’s, that impacts their footwork and how that works. So it could be from that reason, it could be poor eyesight—you know our eyes age as we get older—your vestibular system inside ages as well, and so it just starts to decline and if we don’t work on it, we lose it.
Alan Helgeson (host):
That explains things very well. I was curious about that and I appreciate how you answered that. Thank you. Well, we’re here today to talk about something and I’ve been in health care marketing for a good number of years, and the last several years you hear more and more about this topic. And I’m excited to learn about functional fitness. What is it?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Yeah. Functional fitness. I love this topic. Functional fitness, in my own words, is any movements or activities that directly translate into your everyday lifestyle, whether it be putting dishes away into the cabinet or it could be a sport even. It’s how you walk, how you move, just whatever is important to you that you do throughout your day-to-day life.
Alan Helgeson (host):
So when it comes to functional fitness, is this an example? I know I look like I might be a certain age, but really I’m about 22.
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Sure. Yeah. <Laugh>.
Alan Helgeson (host):
But I hear that I have arthritis in my thumb, and it hurts like heck when I try and open a pickle jar. Is showing me how to do some of my things with my fingers and my thumb and stuff like that, an example of functional fitness?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Yes, definitely. You would relate it directly to that. So I would make goal of opening a jar without pain, and that’s how we would train and that’s how we would focus on that.
Alan Helgeson (host):
And it’s different for everybody, right?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Exactly.
Alan Helgeson (host):
Okay.
Alan Helgeson (host):
And you go out and meet people where they are in a variety of settings?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Yep.
Alan Helgeson (host):
Okay. So it’s good to hear about that, and that it’s a service that’s offered for folks, and we don’t have to settle as people age and just go, “I can’t do that anymore.”
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Exactly.
Alan Helgeson (host):
How does functional fitness differ from a regular gym workout?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
That’s a great question. Functional fitness focuses more so on incorporating the whole body movements a lot of times. Not always, but a traditional gym workout you would see someone train your biceps, you’ll go train specifically your quads or whatever it might be, whatever muscle group you wanna work on at that time. Functional fitness, you’re looking at what movements do we need to incorporate to make squatting down to use the restroom per se. That’s always a very common example, especially in our older adult population. So we’re gonna train some squats that directly relate to exactly what you want to do. We’re gonna work on the form, we’re gonna work on the strength, the speed, coordination of that movement, and that directly relates to their goal.
Alan Helgeson (host):
It sounds like with functional fitness, it doesn’t take the place of a traditional workout, right?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Right. You can incorporate—sometimes it depends on the person and how they present in that specific scenario—and say, okay, this muscle is weak, so we need to work on that. But we’re also gonna incorporate that into a whole body movement.
Alan Helgeson (host):
Now, why is it particularly beneficial for seniors?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Well, seniors typically don’t care about how much weight they can lift, right? They’re not caring about getting a 500 pound deadlift anymore, like some of us younger folk might be. They care about, can they lift their grandchildren up into the air? Can they put dishes away into their high cabinet that they have a hard time reaching? Things like that. And so functional fitness–we’ll go back to the example of lifting their grandkids up into the air—one thing that directly relates to that in the gym is actually a thruster, and that can be functional fitness. Okay, you need to squat down, pick up your grandchild, and then lift them with your arms up into the air. So we train that specific movement, and that directly relates to their goal.
Alan Helgeson (host):
If I were to go to a gym and I’m talking to my personal trainer and I said, as part of my routine, I need something that acts almost as a functional fitness for this. Are they likely to understand what that means as well? Or is that something different?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
I would say so, yes. I think that’s very common now, especially in today’s world. In the workout realm, we really look at functional fitness more so. I used to be a CrossFit coach and I love CrossFit realm personally, and a big part of it is functional fitness, is why you’re working out. Is it to play with your kids? So that you can play with your kids all throughout your life, or your grandkids or whatever it might be.
Alan Helgeson (host):
So truly anything you’re doing in the gym really is functional fitness.
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Right.
Alan Helgeson (host):
That’s a good way to explain that. Let’s get to the “sciencey” part of this. What is some of the science behind this and why does that really matter?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Yeah, that’s a great question. So specificity really matters in functional fitness because it directly translates into your goal. That’s actually one of the 10 principles of neuroplasticity, which we could go down a whole rabbit hole of that realm of getting into stroke rehab and neuro rehab and that realm. But that also translates into any sort of functional fitness, in my opinion. You know, that specific task needs to translate into what their goal is. If their goal is to walk again, it’s hard to just say, “Okay, do these seated quad exercises and you’re gonna walk again.” You need to actually practice walking. You need to practice that specific movement and help them in however it works best for that patient at the time to do that.
Alan Helgeson (host):
Very important that we understand that, because that is what you need to know in order to go through this. Let’s move on here to the actual movements themselves, because I know people wanna know, what are some of the things I can do? So talk about examples of functional fitness movements and the types of equipment we would use.
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Definitely depends on the person’s goal, what you’re gonna do. But I’ll use the walking example again. Say a person had a stroke. Their left arm and left leg are both affected. So in order to help rehab that, you’re gonna strengthen both of those muscle groups on both of those sides, but you also want to directly practice walking. So we have ways where we can help them into certain positions so that we’re assisting their limb as they’re walking, but then their body is actually doing most of the work. That makes that neural connection to the brain: “Oh, I can do this. I’m remembering how to walk again.” That’s where a big part of that specificity comes in. Other moves: my favorite one is the squat. We have to do that all the time. Right? We’re sitting, we’re standing, all throughout our day. The squat directly relates to that.
Alan Helgeson (host):
Are there certain types of equipment that, with those two things you talked about, or with the walking, let’s talk about the walking. Is there some equipment that you might use specific towards that?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
One commonly is the parallel bars that we use a lot. That’s just the most helpful. They can use their hands on both sides. Then there’s also a barrier there so that if they lose their balance, they’re not gonna fall one way or the other.
Alan Helgeson (host):
Let’s go to seniors and that age group. I know it’s hard to talk about in a general sense, but if you’re talking to the senior population, are there movements that benefit seniors the most?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Well, if you’re gonna make me choose one, I would say the squat <laugh>.
Alan Helgeson (host):
Okay.
Charlotte Stier (guest):
It always depends on the person’s goal, but the squat, and I would say overhead lifting, are kind of that thruster motion of where you’re squatting down and then you’re doing a shoulder to overhead movement. That one is really probably one of the best ones because our shoulders start to really decline as we get older too. There’s just a lot of structures in a small space in our shoulders, and they have a hard time as we age with that. To keep the shoulders healthy, as well as being able to squat down to your floor, to the chair, whatever it might be, and then to pick something up, lift it up into your cabinet, that’s one of my favorites personally.
Alan Helgeson (host):
A few months ago I talked to one of our experts at Sanford Sports and he wasn’t the first one. We hear this all the time anymore. The word modifications. And you’re shaking your head yes. Modifications, I’m guessing, can be based on someone’s capabilities, right?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
A hundred percent, yes. Definitely. You see that a lot of say, someone maybe can’t lift their shoulders overhead for whatever reason. We would modify that to, okay, we’re only gonna go to halfway and we’ll just make that work with—so maybe they do want to put their dishes away, still into their cabinet, but they really struggle with, there’s maybe something wrong internally with their shoulders and they can’t, it can’t be fixed—and so what you do is, okay, let’s take a stool, a step stool, for example. We’re gonna work on your balance, your strength, your agility. We’re gonna directly do some stair stepping to work on that safely, in order to be able to help them achieve that goal.
Alan Helgeson (host):
I think the word modifications might be one of the most important words these days because it lets people know that if you have—like I do—a bad knee, that shouldn’t keep you away from anything. Right?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Definitely.
Alan Helgeson (host):
You guys can make anything work. And you will. Okay. How can physical therapy aid seniors in functional fitness?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
It’s what we do as physical therapists. I can come in and look at a person and go, “Okay, I’ll test all of your different muscle groups. We’ll see what’s weak. We’ll test your balance, see what we need to work on there.” But the biggest part is what their goal is, and what they want to get back to doing. And so then we can take that goal and say, “Okay, great, now we’re gonna work on, we’re gonna combine those.” So you’re weak in this area, say it’s your squats—easy example—and you wanna be able to squat down to your chair, or be able to get up from your chair. That’s the goal. Okay. We’re gonna directly take that, we’re gonna relate that, and then we’re gonna do movements that will achieve that goal. And you get creative. Like you said, it’s fun. Because physical therapy is not black and white. It’s very much gray. It’s a very much gray realm of, you have to be creative because there’s no black and white answer.
Alan Helgeson (host):
Well, my shoulder pain is different than your shoulder pain, than person C. Right?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Exactly.
Alan Helgeson (host):
That’s where the fun part is, and the expertise is. Because you see what the variance is and come up with the right solution. For someone listening to this today and they hear about the term functional fitness and they go, “Oh, I need that.” Probably the next thing they’re gonna do, they’re gonna go to Google, they’re gonna go to ChatGPT, they’re gonna go to YouTube, start looking up things and looking at videos. So my question is: is functional fitness something I can do on my own, or do I need an expert to teach?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
In my opinion, you need someone to teach you. It’s very hard to see where your specific weaknesses are. Even myself, who, I’ve been in the fitness realm for a long time, and I really love it. I still need someone on the outside, a coach. Someone telling me, “Hey, no, actually this part is weak and you need to work on this,” where maybe I might know that, but I don’t wanna actually work on it <laugh>. And so it’s best to have someone to teach that for you and to show you, “Hey, this is how you do this safely and this is how you do this well.”
Alan Helgeson (host):
So you said the term “safely.” Is there a risk if you try to watch Jane or John on YouTube and see a video, is there a risk that you could find greater injury in something?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Yes. There’s always that risk for sure. If you aren’t taught properly how to move. We like to break movements down into step A, B, C, D before you actually do the full movement. Because if you start—if you try to just do the full movement—you might think that you’re doing it, but unless you have someone watching you or you have a mirror or a video, and saying, “No, actually you need to engage this muscle instead of this one,” you might get injured in that.
Alan Helgeson (host):
Alright, so Charlotte, we’ve listened to this, we’ve heard about functional fitness, and I’m hearing that I need that. That’s gonna help me do what I need to do. What’s next?
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Well, you can start by going online if that works best for you. You can go either through Good Sam or Sanford Health. Either website, the main websites, good-sam.com, and under their services tab there is a rehab therapy tab, and then you can look at all the options on there. I believe there’s a phone number that you can call and look into it. There’s also a resources tab underneath the rehab therapy and there’s some articles in there. There’s one article on fall prevention tips, things that you can do around your house to help with that in that main rehab therapy page. You can look up the number, you can get in contact with a physical therapist or occupational therapist—whatever best fits your needs—and go from there. Sanford Health, the main website, I believe it’s sanfordhealth.org, you go to medical services tab and then click on physical therapy, and this lists out all their rehab specialties within Sanford and you can find a location and a physical therapy that meets your needs.
Alan Helgeson (host):
As we’re coming to a close here, Charlotte, this is some great information. Things that we never knew about a term that we hear a lot about. We thought it was a super high specialized thing, and it really isn’t. What are some of your things that you’d like to leave with us as parting thoughts about functional fitness and what we should know? That big takeaway that you want us to have.
Charlotte Stier (guest):
Yeah. Functional fitness is important for everyone. Anyone can do functional fitness. Anyone. And it really is important, especially as you age, because you might not have the capabilities that you did when you were younger. So you need those goals that will directly translate into your specific moves, your lifestyle, and maybe you don’t have access to a gym or certain equipment, that’s just fine. That’s what we as physical therapists are here for.
Courtney Collen (announcer):
This episode is part of the Health and Wellness series by Sanford Health. For additional podcast series by Sanford Health, find us on Apple, Spotify, and news.sanford health.org.
