Functional fitness is different from taking the fitness test and showing that on a fitness test I can do, I can do push ups and I can do jumping jacks and I can do ups and I can do various fitness kinds of activities.

So the question becomes, okay, that's all well and good, but what does that have to do functionally with what you do everyday life?

So in other words, it's it's you know, we tend to do rather task specific kinds of things, like if you live in a two storey house, you have steps to climb.

How well do you climb the stairs?

Okay.

As you get older, oftentimes what happens is that and when my mother would visit, I would make her climb stairs like, oh my goodness, she would just be beside herself.

She'd be screaming at me and using foul language and I'd wake her up.

And I say, Mom, we're going to climb stairs.

And I have to climb stairs.

Because you know what?

If you don't climb stairs, the day will come when you can't climb stairs.

All right.

Because here's what happens.

Okay.

Just functional fitness, climbing stairs.

All right?

Something in everyday life.

The typical pattern in our society is that after a while, as I begin to age, what I find is that climbing the stairs in my house is becoming more challenging because I'm getting weaker.

Human nature being what it is is if it's becoming more challenging, I do less of it because I don't want to be challenged.

So in the old days, I might be up and down the steps 20 times doing whatever.

Now when I find myself doing this, Oh, I need to go upstairs.

I need to take this upstairs.

Well, maybe I'll just put it on the front on the first step.

Oh, I need.

Oh, no, I'll just put it.

Okay, I'll.

I'll wait until I have two or three things.

So I only have to make one trip up.

So now I am walking upstairs.

Less the less I walk upstairs, the weaker I get.

So?

So it started with getting weaker in the first place.

Challenging.

Now I avoid it.

So I begin to get weaker still because I'm avoiding it more so you can see this downward spiral.

I walk up the stairs less, I get weaker.

As I get weaker, I walk up the stairs even less.

As I walk up the stairs, even less, I get weaker.

It gets to the point where I can't climb stairs anymore.

I've got a friend whose next door neighbor it was in exactly that position.

They just moved.

Why?

They had a perfectly nice condo.

Two storey.

She couldn't climb the stairs anymore.

Okay, so why not?

She's too weak.

The other thing is, as we get older, our immune system tends to not be as strong as it used to be.

So the things that we take for granted when we were younger that we can fight are we don't do it as well.