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"Fun-ctional" Training For Everybody

by Greg Mihovich

Functional training is training with a purpose in mind and could be best
categorized by the actions performed, such as pulling, pushing, rotating and
squatting. In other words, using your whole body in a natural way. Some
exercises mimic the actual movement patterns found in your daily life, like
deadlifting, for example, is picking any object from the floor. Others might be
somewhat unique to the gym setting, yet very beneficial for any type of activities
outside of the gym. Functional training teaches you to handle your body and
external objects in all planes of movement simultaneously. Although, created with
your specific goals in mind a movement-oriented training program can
dramatically improve performance in just about anything you do, its main focus
remains to keep you injury free and healthy.

A new revolutionary view on muscle function and body movement slowly making
its way in the fitness community is based around the concept of a kinetic chain.
Just not so long ago, anatomy taught how a single muscle moves an isolated
joint. Today, the kinetic chain concept describes unrelated multiple groups of
muscles and joints working synergistically as a team to create movement. Or,
simply saying, a movement that involves more than one joint at a time forms a
kinetic chain. It is just a natural way for the body to do things.

In modern health clubs and gyms throughout the world a typical routine consists
of extended aerobic sessions on fancy elliptical machines and dozens of
isolation movements, performed sometimes on a stability ball to make it more
"hip". The public has been misguided by fitness community and a majority of
trainers that curls, leg extensions, front raises and the like along with forty five
minutes on a stationary bike will lead to some sort of great fitness levels.

When you train muscles instead of functional movements, your applicable, real-
world strength becomes handicapped. If you train with only one plane of motion,
your body becomes… one-dimensional. Of course, you might be able to curl
large amount of weight, but your body will simply loose its ability to operate as
functional unit. Injuries will become much more frequent, while your daily
performance will suffer. When you train you should not isolate one muscle from
the rest of the body. It was not designed to move that way.

Functional, movement-oriented training on the other hand will improve useful
strength, core stability, flexibility, coordination, endurance and, ultimately, health.
You should train with exercises that target the entire body, guide you through
several planes of motion and challenge your core. It is simply the best way to
condition your body!

It is of paramount importance to achieve harmony through the saggittal, frontal
and transverse planes. Most conventional weight lifting exercises only train one
plain of motion. Real life movement takes place in three planes, hence the
necessity of designing a program that includes these movements.

Start your functional resistance training with bodyweight exercises. They will
dramatically improve your body control, kinesthetic sense and strength to weight
ratio. Some examples of the movements would include P ush U ps, S quats,
P ull-U p s, L unges, B ridges, V -Ups, Reverse Russian T wists and their variations.
Even after you will get a lot functionally stronger and some of the exercises will
start to seem too easy there are numerous ways to increase resistance and
keep you challenged. For example you can decrease the leverage, use only one
limb at a time, provide resistance with rubber tubing or any combination of the
above. The variety of bodyweight movements is astonishing and the reward will
be greater coordination, strength, balance and flexibility.

After you achieve some competence with that kind of training you can progress
to functional weightlifting. However, regularly plug in the bodyweight stuff into your
sessions and keep working on it all the time.

Lifts like Snatch, Clean, Squat, Deadlift, Weighted Pull-up, Press/Jerk, Windmill
and their variations should form a core of your resistance program. The benefits
include increased strength, power, flexibility, agility, coordination and balance.
These exercises, as well as hi-intensity interval training, produce a noticeable
neuroendocrine response, meaning that they alter you neurologically and
hormonally. It is like being on performance enhancing drugs, but completely
naturally and legal. And a lean athletic body as the only side effect! That
response is the one to blame for quick results you will get with functional lifting.

As for cardio, instead of four or five marathon-like sessions do only one
extended session during a course of a week, preferably at the end, for active
recovery and maintaining your aerobic base. Throughout the week do a couple
of anaerobic interval sessions -- keep those short and intense. Examples of an
interval session could be alternating sprinting between two telephone poles and
jogging twice that distance or alternating between rowing for five hundred yards
(keeping a quick pace) and doing a set of kettlebell Snatches. Properly
structured intervals will take care of both your aerobic and anaerobic
conditioning, preserve your strength and hard earned musculature, dramatically
decrease body fat levels and all that in so much less time!

Interval training has some obvious real life application. Very rarely you will have
to display your strength or stamina separately of each other and in a slow pace.
Usually, there are numerous high intensity bouts separated by less strenuous
activity. As a cop, for a example, when chasing a suspect you need to be able to
flow without delay and hesitation from a sprint to drawing a weapon, to a
possible tackle and a restraining situation. As a fireman you might have to climb
a bunch of stairs, than look for survivors and carry them out. And you might have
to do it multiple times!

Think that your occupation does not require real-world strength & conditioning?
Think again! At the recent tragic events in Indonesia (Tsunami waves ripped
through the shore and killed more than a hundred thousand of people, most of
them tourists) it was reported by CNN that lots of people could not hold on to a
life-saving tree branch or get to a save place because of poor conditioning.
Some of them even had to let go of their children because of the same reasons.
God forbid you from any such trouble, but your body is dysfunctional it may
become a liability to you and your loved ones in a life-threatening event like this.

Of course, not everybody trains to become a world-class athlete, a SWAT team
leader or, even, to compete in any sport for that matter! But whether you will
compete or not, why not to make the best use of your training time and train with
fun and excitement, instead of just "doing your time and going through the same
motions mindlessly? Why not to develop your body into a well-sculpted, durable
and useful unit? What good is a fancy looking Corvette, if it cannot drive well or
breaks down every on you few miles? An increase in strength, power, flexibility,
coordination, agility, balance, cardiovascular and respiratory endurance are
each important to both a professional athlete and to your grandparents.
Obviously, your grandma does not need to squat with as much weight as a high
jumper, but, nevertheless, she needs to squat, even if only with her bodyweight,
because squatting is essential for improving your personal fitness and
maintaining functional independence.

Function dictates form, so when you become better at pulling, pushing, twisting
and squatting your body naturally adapts a lean and athletic look. Ironically, that
look is only a side effect of such training. Yet, when you only look for the form,
that is what you get - an optical illusion of a fit body that can produce some
limited amount of force only strapped inside a sophisticated curl machine or on a
smooth riding elliptical mechanism.

It is a common excuse to use that you just simply do not have enough time in the
day to do all that good stuff to be as fit as you would like to be. Certainly, you
have the family to take care of, bills to pay and a bunch of other stuff. Well, if you
do not find time to be fit and healthy, both physically and mentally, than make
sure to make time for weakness and being sick. How good of a care provider
are you going to be than? Oh, yes, and I forgot to mention - great level of fitness
are very reachable with only three to four hours of functional training a week!

Compound functional movements and high intensity interval-type cardio are less
time-consuming and radically more effective at achieving any fitness results
desired, primary because of their high neuroendocrine response. Functional
movements are also mechanically sound and therefore very safe. This is simply
not just a matter of my opinion, but a one of any serious professional in the field
and a solid scientific fact. My approach corresponds to what is being practiced
in any elite training program designed to produce results. Now you can become
that elite too.

Greg Mihovich
Performance Enhancement & Combat Arts Specialist
www.UndergroundGym.com

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