Functional Training: An old concept with a new name

By

Juan Carlos Santana, MEd, CSCS

The hottest phrase in the fitness and conditioning field is “functional training” (FT).  FT has been to the 90s what “Plyometrics” was to the 80s, a buzzword that everyone used, but few understood. This article will discuss the basis of FT and give fitness professionals a rational for its use and a direction of focus.

First let’s try to describe what “function” is.  Function can easily be defined as “performing a duty for which a person/thing is intended for”, “a normal or characteristic action of anything - a duty, utility or purpose”.  Function is how the body moves everyday.  Therefore, FT would be to train the body for the movement it is intended for and performs everyday, or exercise that more closely mimic normal body movements – not necessarily a a muscle developing exercise

FT is not a new concept, it has been around since the beginning of time.  If one wants to get better and stronger at an activity, one would instinctively rehearse the activity, or at least parts of that activity.   In sports we always say, the best functional training for a particular sport, is that sport!  Although this is an oversimplification of the concept of functional training, it is its essence.   As my colleague Vern Gambetta points out, “FT trains movements, not body parts”!

Sounds easy enough, it is common sense, right?  One would think so, but “the problem with common sense is, it’s not so common”.   One look into any gym and you will see 99 percent of the people training in a non-functional manner.  In fact, many gyms spend as much as 75-95% of their equipment investment on non-functional equipment.  Next time you go into your gym, check out how many people are doing machine leg extensions, machine leg curls, machine seated-calf raises, machine rowing, machine pressing, machine everything!  These pieces of resistance-training equipment are the most popular in most gyms, and the gauge by which many people evaluate the “productive worth” of training facilities.  “The more machines the more better”!  Why is this happening?  Believe it or not, it may be due to “too pure of an academic view”!

At first glance, functional biomechanics and academic anatomy do not always coincide.  For example, in an anatomy class you are taught that the quadriceps extend (i.e. straighten) the knee and the hamstrings flex (i.e. bend) the knee.  Therefore, every time we look at a movement where the knee is being extending, we think the quadriceps is doing it.  Conversely, every time we see the knee flexing during a movement, we think it is the result of the work of the hamstrings. What they forgot to tell us in the anatomy class is that the quadriceps extend the knee and the hamstrings bend it only when the foot in hanging in mid air; not planted on the ground.  Other than your occasional seizure, or brake-dancing episode, the foot is in contact with the ground during almost all “functional force production”! 

Take running/walking for as an example.  During the “swing phase”, the knee extends and flexes.  According to our anatomy class, the hamstrings would perform the flexion and the quadriceps would perform the extension of the knee.  However, they do not!  During the swing phase, the knee is mostly extended and flexed by momentum.  Then, as Gary Gray, PT says, “when the foot hits the ground, everything changes".

Without getting into a complex biomechanical analysis of running, let us look at basic quadriceps and hamstring function during forward locomotion (i.e. walking, stair climbing, or running).  The quadriceps’ primary role in running is to decelerate the leg’s collapse (i.e. the system’s pronation) during the plant phase, stabilize and accelerate propulsion (i.e. the system’s supination), and decelerate hip extension at the end of propulsion. The hamstrings decelerate hip flexion and knee extension during the swing phase, and stabilize and accelerate propulsion.

This oversimplification does not accurately depict all of the tri-planar rotational, stabilization and counterbalancing components involved in locomotion.  Nor, does it represent the complexity and importance of the entire kinetic chain, and its loading and unloading mechanisms (referred to in functional terminology as “pronation and “supination” of a system).  However, it does illustrate the shortcomings of an exclusive single joint approach, as a means of enhancing an integrated movement. Probably the most important observation one needs to make is that, human locomotion is a “ground-based, one- leg, tri-planar, counter-balanced” event.  That is, only a single leg is in contact with the ground, and the body is simultaneously counterbalancing and moving in all three planes.

Now, with better appreciation for the functional nature of locomotion, would you select a leg curl to condition or rehabilitate the hamstrings, or a leg extension to condition or rehabilitate an ACL?  I hope not!  If these exercises were functional and effective, hamstring and ACL injuries would not exist.  Most athlete performs leg extensions and leg curls.  Yet, athletic training rooms across the country are plagued by these injuries!   You can isolate all you want, but if you do not soon integrate the move into its functional pattern, you will cause faulty neural recruitment that could actually lead to an injury.

This is just one example of the discrepancies between the traditional academic view of rehabilitative-anatomy, and the practical approach of functional biomechanics.  FT follows functional biomechanics, not academic anatomy.  This is modern concept orthopedic and rehabilitative medicine still grapples with.  Leg curls and leg extensions are still part of ACL rehab protocols, despite the detrimental (i.e. dysfunctional) shear forces research has demonstrated they impose on the knee.

FT revolves around two very basic principles.  The first is the “kinetic chain”, which simply illustrates that the body never moves a single joint in isolation.  Rather, the kinetic chain is a series of joints working synergistically through multiple planes.  Rehearsed, multi-planar movements, such as a golf swing, are engraved in our brains as neural patterns, not isolated muscle movements.  By design, we are functionally, integrated beings.
 The second main principle of FT describes the physical world it deals with gravity, ground reaction forces and momentum.  These three physical factors act upon all movements and thus training.   Gravity is the basis of resistance training.  Everything we do requires that we overcome, or at least neutralize this force.  For most activities, ground reaction forces are the genesis of force production, and thus power.   For ground based activities, all power comes from the ground and we must capture, and transmit it, through ground contact.  Momentum is the result of overcoming inertia (i.e. the tendency of an object to stand still until a force acts it upon).  Momentum allows the body to move its parts with minimum energy requirements.  We saw this phenomena in the flexion and extension of the legs in the running example above.  We constantly use gravity, ground reaction forces and momentum to “load systems” so that we can generate power, such as in a jump or a throw.
Now, lets look at some important considerations we need to take into account when we are implementing functional training.  You will see that all of these points deal in one way or another with the kinetic chain principle, gravity, ground reaction forces or momentum.  Functional training must:
1)    Be specific, or mimic, the target activity.  This includes all of the appropriate joints, as well as the speed and amplitude of movements.  The principle of specificity dictates that you “train like you play/live”. 
2)    Not be restricted or supported by external means.  No machines or artificially stabilized positions.  If you are going to isolate and support for the sake of improving isolated strength (“your means”), integrate it ASAP and regularly into its functional/integrated role (“your end”).
3)    Eventually integrate a significant amount of controlled chaos into the training.  Sports, and life in general, are chaotic and unstable in nature.  The more chaos an individual rehearses, the better they will react under unrehearsed-play conditions.
4)    Deal with multi-joint, multi-planar movements.  In real life, especially sports, movements do not occur along a single joint or a single plane of motion.  Therefore, the kinetic chain must engage all three planes simultaneously. 
5)    Approach loading and development from the inside out.  Load the system internally (i.e. bodyweight) first, then add external resistance.  Develop the core of the body first, then develop the extremities.
6)    Have “causative cures” as a rehabilitative, or conditioning goal.  That is, the cause of an injury must eventually be part of its cure, or prevention.  For example, if planting a foot and rotating to change direction injured the ACL, then, planting and rotating must eventually be part of the conditioning program to prevent the injury from reoccurring. It is specificity at its simplest form.
7)    Have an evaluation criterion that is incorporated into the training.  That is, the tests must be part of the training and the training part of the tests.  This way a “test/evaluation” is merely seen as training by the athlete.  Again, specificity of testing and evaluation!
8)    Be progressive in nature.  Basic conditioning and skill acquisition before advanced conditioning and skill execution.  Slow and controlled to fast and chaotic.
9)    Be fun and make sense.  If it is not fun, then compliance will suffer and so will results.  If it does not make sense, chances are it’s not functional and not optimally effective.
Functional training is the most effective approach to performance enhancement.  However, not to the exclusion of all other approaches to training. YES, this includes bodybuilding and machine work. Everything has a place in the overall training scheme.  Functional training must dominate that scheme within an integrated paradigm. Remember, train for go - not show! Go for function and you will never go wrong!

Juan Carlos Santana is the CEO of The Institute of Human Performance (IHP) in Boca Raton Florida.  To contact Mr.Santana please visit www.ihpfit.com.