What Is Functional Training Really?

Functional training has become the new buzzword in the fitness industry but is a very grey area which is filled with peoples opinions and guesswork. The word gets thrown around and has become way too over complicated. Some people have no clue what it is, some think they know what it is, and only a few, really know what functional means. In this post, you will finally understand what functional training really is and how it is broken down.

What is the definition of functional training? A quick search on google gives you a quick result by Wikipedia that defines Functional Training as “a classification of exercise which involves training the body for the activities performed in daily life”. This is not wrong, but is not entirely true either. Quite simply, a functional movement is made up of our fundamental movements (squat, lunge, push, pull, rotate, locomotion and bend) which are the simplest movements in any exercise. So lets keep it simple. The definition of a functional movement or functional training can be ‘anything that has a crossover to that persons goals or training needs’.

Now that we know the definition of what functional is, we need to have a look at what makes up a functional movement or training session.
There are 6 key factors that make up a functional movement or functional training session.
They are:

Tri-Planar

Our bodies are divided into three segments or planes. The Saggital plane, which cuts our body into left and right halves and includes any movements forwards or backwards, up or down. The Coronal Plane, which cuts our bodies into front and back and includes any movements that are left or right, up or down and our Transverse Plane which cuts our body into top and bottom halves and can include a variety of different movements. For a functional movement to be functional, it has to be working in at least two of the planes with any given movement.

Integration

This simply means all the segments of the body need to be working together in a movement to create an outcome. An isolated movement would not be functional because you are isolating one muscle or joint. We need to integrate many muscles and many joints to work throughout our whole kinetic chain.

Proper Gravity Orientation

Apart from a few exceptions most movements in general should be performed in a standing position to improve balance and to utilise our muscles for the movement in the most efficient way possible. This means we need to be lifting the load through the centre of gravity as much as we can. Proper Gravity Orientation just means how well we can do this.

Proprioceptively Enriched

Say that ten times fast. We speak about increasing the proprioception of our environment. This includes how dynamic the exercise is, what tools we are using to complete the exercise and what other intrinsic and extrinsic factors are occurring at the time of an exercise or movement. A great way to understand proprioception is two take two exercises. One dynamic, and one not so dynamic. A leg extension on a machine for example isolates one muscle group and only uses one joint. There is not much to think about other than having to extend your leg. We do not need to think about stabilising the body as we are sitting down and there are pads stabilising the leg. A more proprioceptively enriched exercise would be something like a barbell clean. With the clean, we have a free weight which can move in any direction. We need to utilise more than one joint and muscle group to perform the exercise. We have to use our mental capacity to guide us through the steps in order to perform a good clean.
As an exercise become more proprioceptively enriched and more dynamic, the more functional the movement.

Ground Reaction Force

If you have ever owned or looked at a pair of Olympic lifting shoes, you will notice the sole of the shoe is a lot harder than our typical trainers. More recently Crossfitter’s shoes have also started introducing hard soles into their shoes because they have realised the importance of Ground Reaction Force.
“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”- Newtons Third Law. Ground Reaction Force basically means the same thing, but is translated into the world of lifting.
What this means that every force you apply to the surface you are standing on, an equal amount of force is going to return through your body in order for you to perform an exercise.
The more force you apply to the ground, the more force you will have to perform a movement. Simple!

Load To Unload

I want you to think of your muscle and tendon tissues as an elastic band. All these tissues have some elasticity in them.
Do an exercise quick. Stand up and place your arm loose at your side. Now look at your elbow. There will always be a slight bend, your arm will never be completely straight unless you are extending it with a contraction
This is because of the elasticity we have in our tissues. So how does this work for our training?
Again, think of a rubber band. When you pull a rubber band back, it has stored elastic energy and the only way it wants to go is forwards, back to the way it was. Our muscles do the same thing. An overhead tricep extension lengthens, or stretches, our tricep on the loading phase. Our elasticity in our muscles then help it to unload back to a neutral position.

These are the 6 core elements of a functional movement which can easy be translated into a functional exercise which can then easily be transferred into a functional training session. Remember, functional does not have to be complicated, if it is broken down and then built up again it can be a great tool to use in your workout arsenal.
Hopefully you now have a better understanding of what function is and you can use it to help yourself, or others.

Josh Dwyer- The Lifestyle Engineers