En-er-gy: 1: The capacity for work or vigorous activity. 2: an imaginative lively style. 3: a healthy capacity for vigorous activity.
Plat-form: The basic technology of a system’s hardware and software that defines how it operates.
Functional training involves exposing your body to a training program that produces load or stress to the body in a fashion that not only mimics the stresses you encounter on a daily basis, at work, or at play, but is also of sufficient intensity, duration, and frequency to produce a measurable and noticeable training effect. In order to achieve such an effect, it is necessary to expose the body to an overload, a stress which is greater than what you regularly encounter. Miraculously, your body will respond with a breakdown of stored fuels (fats and carbohydrates) and specific cellular components (eg. muscle tissue), followed by an overshoot or correction that creates increased muscle size and strength, improved cardiovascular function, and improved efficiency of motion.
There are three major fuel sources available to your body. These three systems represent our Energy Platforms. We have devised an exercise program to enhance your ability to use these fuel sources efficiently and effectively. By doing so, you will improve your fitness level and train your body to use fat as the primary fuel source. This will provide the additional benefit of reducing your overall body fat as you use it to supply energy to your muscles.
Your muscles burn three kinds of fuel all day long…sugar, fat, and high energy Phosphogens (ATP). Approximately 70% of the energy comes from the carbohydrates and Phosphogens, and 30% from fat. High intensity exercise creates a greater need for sugar energy, but we can only sustain the sugar burning for short bouts of exercise. There are basically three routes available to us to create the chemical energy necessary to perform daily functions..
- Phosphagen system: ATP and CP are utilized anaerobically (without oxygen).
- Glycolysis: The breakdown of carbohydrates to create energy.
- Oxidative systems: An aerobic (with Oxygen) process in which fats are burned as fuel.
If you have trouble getting rid of fat, then your aerobic system is not working well. You don’t need a diet; you need to train the aerobic system to raise your fat metabolism. In order to burn fat, you need well functioning fat burning enzymes and oxygen for the enzymes to function well. Exercise builds up the enzymes and increases the muscle’s ability to take up oxygen. To speed up your metabolism, you need to speed up the aerobic energy system. The aerobic system also speeds up metabolism after exercise. As you continue to breathe hard, oxygen is combined with sugar and fat to make the necessary energy to replenish ATP. The muscles use O2 to help replenish glycogen. The aerobic system is the only one working after exercise to help you recover, and that’s why the recovery period helps you burn fat.
The Center for Functional Fitness will provide you with customized cardio programs to help improve your ability to efficiently utilize your Energy Platforms. You will improve your cardiovascular fitness level and improve your ability to use fat as a primary fuel. This is the key to improving the efficiency of your cardiovascular system and reducing your body fat.
