If I hear one more trainer, or read one more article telling me I must train functionally I swear I’m going to vomit! What does functional even mean? From what I can tell from most of these so called “experts” is that “functional training” is akin to precariously perching yourself on an unstable surface whilst balancing a broomstick on end in one hand and whipping yourself silly with a ‘bodyblade’ with the other hand!
Pardon my foray into the sublime for a moment but seriously, it seems the more creative and weird the exercise many trainers come up with the more ‘functional’ they claim it to be! Guess what I say? SHENNANIGANS!! (bet you didn’t see that one coming?!)
Functional training isn’t about how silly you can make an exercise look. It isn’t about how many Bosu balls you can jump up and down on. It isn’t even about working your ‘core’ whatever the heck that is! ($20 bucks to the first person who can point to their ‘core’ muscles!) Functional training is really whatever exercise you do that makes you better at whatever it is you want to do! In other words if your personal ambition is to become better at standing on an unstable surface in the gym while balancing odd paraphernalia in your hands and whistling Dixie all at the same time, and you train this particular ‘skill’ then you my friend are training in a functional manner! However if you think that doing so will somehow translate into increasing your ability to play football for example, then you might want to lay down and have a nap, I promise I’ll wake you when the circus comes to town for your audition!
Often times we confuse balance training with functional training. Somehow, somewhere, someone figured that training on an unstable surface might have some real world transfer to sports. While this idea in and of itself isn’t necessarily wrong, there isn’t a heck of a lot of research to support this contention. But since lack of evidence rarely stands in the way of a ‘good idea’ the silly trend of balance boards and half balls and other implements began.
Here is my take: Since most sports performance improves with greater strength your training efforts should likely be focused on increasing your strength. Pushing off an unstable surface in say a squat or a lunge position actually limits your ability to generate force. Limiting your force output means you likely are not generating enough effort to produce strength gains. Now you might possibly be increasing certain elements of muscular endurance but I ask “What’s the point of having endurance if you have no strength or speed to endure?” (Credit to world renowned sprinting coach Charlie Francis for that one.)
Is there a benefit to unstable surface training? I think so, but I’d likely reserve it for rehabilitative applications. I really don’t see a tremendous benefit to so-called balance training or ‘over-speed’ training for most athletes. Our CNS simply doesn’t work that way. Your body will always do what it can to get the job you’re asking of it done. If you’re asking your body to balance on a ball it will do it’s damndest to do just that. However, if an imbalance in muscular force production exist somewhere in your body, this weakness to strength ratio disparity will only increase! Your body will compensate with the stronger active muscles and continue to bypass the weaker muscles which haven’t been turned on yet. Even worse since the larger more powerful muscles can already handle that reduced level of force production they really aren’t benefiting much from such activity. Indentify these weaker or ‘off’ muscles, get them activated and watch your performance increase.
Next instalment we’ll look at the other side of the Functional Continuum by examining so-called ‘isolation’ movements and see why there really is no such thing and how you can use a simple concept to ‘turn on’ those lagging muscles.
*Credit to my lovely wife Deyra for the idea for this instalment.
Tags: balance training, Bosu ball, core training, functional training
[...] uses less integrated movements (see my Functional Continuum Part I and II articles for examples). Therefore some exercises might be easier to learn for [...]
Which ever ass hat who decided that it would appropriate to have a client with a fresh hip replacement on a bosu ball to help stabilize a joint should be shot. This article is extremely important to anyone who considers themselves to be an exercise professional. Despite the fact that bosu ball training is not realistic for any sport, it is insanely unsafe! Next time you decide to be a hero and place your client on a bosu ball, stand in front of them and look at everything. Pull out your University Kin book and look at the active ROM for every joint in every direction. How is your ankles lateral movement look on that bosu ball? Oh no so good, well maybe you should toss a 8lbs medicine ball at the person on the ball to help make it better. Oh, now your 35degree inversion is now a 45degree inversion… well at least they are stretching, right?
This guy has some great input and some great resources. Thanks for the fantastic article.
Nice site. I have trained my abdominals hard over the years and I have discovered that the single most excellent exercise for me to strengthen the core muscle groups was the standard plank and side plank, I can now retain the position for 3 minutes which is great for me!
2. Outstanding information once again. Thumbs up.