Every time I walk into a commercial health club these days I keep noticing a disturbing trend. Personal Trainers having de-conditioned individuals doing all sorts of dynamic movements and stability exercises all in the name of functional training. I hate the word functional. It is the worst thing that ever happened to the fitness industry. I say this because most of the people who have marketed products, equipment, and training methods with the word functional attached to them are actually moving further, and further away from true function.
Let’s look at the word function. Webster’s Dictionary defines function as the kind of action or activity proper to a person, thing, or institution; the purpose for which something is designed or exists.
So let’s relate this definition to a “functional exercise” and the average client. The average client is typically de-conditioned, overweight, and has a terrible diet. The average client has limited movement skills and for the most part has limited or no athletic background. To most trainers a “functional exercise” is an exercise that forces a person to move in more than one plane of motion, integrates multiple muscle groups and typically has some sort of a balance demand. So if the average client has the average client goals of weight loss, getting stronger, and feeling better and no have little no prior exercise experience one would assume that the most basic of starting points would be the best viable option. But this is not the case for most “functional” minded trainers. They want their clients to be doing the cool exercises they just saw online, or on a DVD. So instead of starting the client off with basic movement patterns like squatting, hip extending, pushing, and pulling patterns they are having de-conditioned people squatting on bosu balls, doing pushups with rotation components, and combining lunges with pulling motions. Now for a well trained athletic individual these movements may have some benefits. But for the untrained beginner these movements are the furthest thing from functional.
From my experience even the most coordinated people have trouble doing basic saggital plane movements properly. Just look around any gym. I would be willing to bet anyone that I could walk into any gym any moment of the day and not see one person pulling or pushing properly. And these are people who typically pull and push day in day out, year in year out. Now I am hardly an advocate of dinosaur bodybuilder style routines or training. But I think that there has been an overreaction to the whole “functional” training trend.
There is a reason why most of the top trainers nationwide still teach Dead lifts, Squats, Dumbbell Chest Press, Pushups, Lat Pull downs, Rows and other basic exercises first. As well as basic core stability exercises like quadraplex, bridges, and planks. And this is because these exercises build strength and teach people how to move load properly as well as teaching the core how to function. And no matter what your goal those three things are always functional.
