REAL Functional Training

     Functional training gets thrown around A LOT lately. It usually just means easy physical therapyish movements for a couple sets of 15 reps. You will see functional training being performed on bosu balls, with tiny rubber bands and 3 lb. weights across the country. OR you might think of CrossFit, which is a Frankenstein's monster of a training system that combines heavy lifting, Olympic lifting, and "conditioning", in this case conditioning means flopping around and contorting your spine for 10 minutes doing various "functional" movements. The purpose is to make you ok at everything, but GOOD at nothing. So you end up an injured mess by the end of your CF "career".

    The real functional training is simply training NATURAL human movement patterns. Everyone should be able to pick something heavy up off the floor with proper bracing and keeping their spine straight (deadlifts). Everyone should be able to crouch down until the hip crease is just below the knee and stand back up (squats). Everyone should be able to lift something heavy over their heads without blowing out a rotator cuff (overhead press), and everyone should be able climb over a wall, or at least have the back and grip strength to attempt it (chin up). I also throw in a horizontal push (bench press), and a horizontal pull (face pull), to keep everything balanced in the shoulder girdle, but these movements aren't quite as "functional" as the first 4 movement patterns. It isn't too often you have to push someone off your chest through a friggin wall, but it's nice to know you could. 

    IF you get done with a round of physical therapy, come see me, and can't perform any of these basic human movements, the training the PTs put you through was a waste of time. I feel like physical therapy is a blanket term for a type of training where the goal is to prevent you from performing any real exercise that gets results to give your body time to heal up. Then the therapist will send you on your way like they accomplished something. 

    Allow me to give you an example. You injure your shoulder in a football game. It hurts like hell so you stop into your local physical therapists office to have an x-ray and an MRI. Looks like you have a minor tear on your rotator cuff. First they tell you not to lift anything over 10 lbs. (looks like the groceries are staying in the trunk). Then you might receive a prescription for a pain killer. Some of the therapies will involve "working out" and this will include internal and external rotator cuff work with a very light band. But here's the thing: YOUR SHOULDER DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT. You can not "fire" a rotator cuff without some of the muscles in your shoulder working as a system to move your rotator cuff. Your body functions as a system, and when you break it down into tiny little muscles (rotator cuffs and and the psoas muscle are very popular ones) and try to train those muscle in isolation, it just won't work. You will not get as much mobility back as you would if you simply started overhead pressing again with 5 lb. dumbbells for a couple sets of 20 with a full range of motion (ROM), and slowly increased that weight over time. 

    The beauty of the human body is that, as long as you use all the ROM you can on basic human movements, the body will learn to work as a system again. Do you really think deep squats will cause damage to your psoas? Do you legitimately believe that not being able to raise your arm above your head but having JACKED rotator cuffs is a good thing? 

    So start functional training today! Deep squats, properly braced deadlifts, full ROM shoulder presses, and dead hang chin ups will make you basically bulletproof, and you don't need to do one external rotation or try to "fire" your psoas muscle. 

    Functional training should be basic barbell and dumbbell movements, with the occasional cable work mixed in. The reps should be performed nice and slow with no momentum or bouncing, and with a full or exaggerated ROM, that's it. That is functional as hell if you ask me, and not a bosu ball in sight!