10 Best Functional Exercises For Women

We all do a lot of routine chores in our day-to-day lives. From lifting heavy loads of dirty laundry and carrying big, fully-loaded bags of groceries to picking up different items from high shelves in the home, we challenge our bodies in different ways. But, is our body prepared for those challenging moves? Unfortunately, the answer would be a big no for most women. The good news is that introducing a few functional exercises into your workout routine will help prepare your body for such everyday chores.

Functional training refers to exercises that can help you perform your daily activities more easily. Typically, these full-body workouts involve multiple muscles to improve stability and core strength. You mirror activities of your everyday life in these workouts, such as reaching, squatting, or carrying heavy objects, to build functional strength and improve your quality of life.

Are you ready to give it a go? Here we have listed the 10 best functional exercises for women.

1. Farmer’s Walk

It’s the most basic functional training workout that targets your shoulders, quads, calves, and hamstrings while building grip strength at the same time. It’s a simple workout that tests how long one can carry heavy, awkward objects. Here’s how to perform it:

• Hold heavy kettlebells or dumbbells in both hands, with your shoulder blades drawn down and back for stability.
• Keep your head up, core tight, and chest elevated as you walk forward, taking even steady steps.

2. Glute Bridge

There are powerful muscles stacked along the backside of your body that play an important part in our day-to-day movements. Glute Bridge is a good workout to strengthen these muscles, giving your glutes, abdominals, and hamstrings a push.

Follow these steps to perform a glute bridge:

• Lie on your back, keeping your feet flat on the floor and your knees bent.
• Rest your palms on the floor and place your arms by your sides.
• Inhale and lift your hips and push with the soles of your feet, engaging your glutes, hamstrings, and core.
• Pause as you reach the top, and then return slowly.

3. Squat

From picking up those heavy grocery bags to sitting in your armchair, you often squat throughout the day.  Add squats to your functional training routine to build and maintain your functional strength as the workout hits your quads, hamstrings, abdominals, and glutes.

Follow the steps below to perform a squat:

• Stand straight with the feet shoulder-width apart, and arms left down at your sides.
• Bend your knees and push the hips back while bracing your core.
• Hold your chest proud, and don’t let your knees cave in. Stop as the thighs become parallel to the floor.
• Now, evenly push up through your entire foot back and reach the starting point.

4. Woman Maker

It’s a clever move that combines multiple functional movements and targets your quads, glutes, hamstrings, upper and middle back, lats, shoulders, and chest.

Here’s how to do it:

• Pick up dumbbells and hold them in each hand at your sides.
• Crouch to put them in front parallel to the floor.
• Keeping the hands on them, jump back to take your feet behind into a plank position.
• Perform a push-up.
• Holding at the top, perform a one-arm row on either side, with elbows close to the body.
• Perform a push-up again, and jump the feet back right underneath you.
• Stand up and pull those dumbbells up to the front of the body, shrug after reaching full extension and flip the elbows underneath, bringing them to your shoulder level.
• Drop down, perform a full squat, explode upward, and press the weights above your head as you end-up standing.

5. Sled Pull/Push

Pulling and pushing are natural human movements involving most of the body’s muscles. This combo uses a loaded sled and targets your glutes, hamstrings, quads, calves, lats, middle back, shoulders, chest, biceps, and triceps.

Here are the steps to do this:

• Take a loaded sled and secure a rope to one of its ends.
• With the rope extended along the floor, position yourself to face the sled and your feet shoulder-width apart.
• Holding the rope in your hands, bend your knees slightly while leaning away from the sled and pulling the rope tight.
• Start pulling the sled and bring it to your feet.
• Next, push it back to the starting point by placing the hands on its uprights and keeping your elbows bent and hips low. Make sure you take strong, steady steps as you push the sled.

6. Medicine Ball Squat With Overhead Lift

When you lift groceries and your kids, your back and legs play a key part besides your arms. This type of squat works great to strengthen your lower back, glutes, arms, shoulders, and legs.

Here’s how you can perform this move:

• Stand as you hold a light medicine ball with both hands right in front and your feet wide open.
• Squat down and move the rear back while ensuring your knees remain over the ankles. Take the ball to the floor and keep your back straight and your head up.
• Return to where you started and lift the ball up over your head.
• Repeat.

7. Knee Lift With Lateral Raise

It’s a good workout to improve your balance and core strength. It also targets your shoulders and tones them better.

Follow the steps below for this move:

• Start in a standing position with a 5-pound weight in both hands.
• Lift the right knee to hip level and lift the arms straight sideways, forming a “T.”
• Hold, and then lower your arms to the starting point.
• Repeat.

8. Torso Rotation Using Medicine Ball

If your oblique muscles are strong, you’ll avoid lower back injuries. Try this torso rotation workout for improving strength and ensuring your core muscles coordinate better.

Let’s see how to do it:

• Sit down on the floor with your feet flat and your knees bent.
• Hold a medicine ball with both hands, keeping it on your chest.
• Lean the torso away from the thighs so the angle on the hips increases.
• Maintain the angle and rotate the torso towards the right side.
• Return to the starting point, and then rotate to the left.

9. Crab Reach

If you often sit for long periods, crab reach is a functional exercise for you. It will strengthen your shoulders, back, hips, core, chest, and glutes. Let’s perform it.

• Bend your knees while sitting on the floor, and position the hands behind you as your fingers point backward.
• Lift the glutes by pressing on your hands and feet, taking your hips as high as possible.
• Take your left-hand overhead, reaching toward the floor.
• Return to where you started.
• Repeat with alternate side.

10. Jump Squat

Jump squat is a simple bodyweight workout that targets your quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings, shoulders, and calves.

Follow these steps below to perform it:

• Start in a standing position with the feet shoulder-width apart.
• Lower quickly to perform a squat and swing your arms right in front.
• Extending your hips and knees, jump as you reach the arms back to generate some height.
• Make a soft landing and immediately descend into another squat.

Functional exercises should be an essential part of your routine as a woman. They will prepare your body to perform better in your everyday life. The exercises listed above make a good starting point.