Rethinking Functional Fitness

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“How functional are your functional exercises if they cause dysfunction within the body?”

– Charlie McMillin

“Functional” is one of the biggest buzzwords in the fitness world today. But do people really know what it means or are they just throwing it around to falsely justify their choice of exercise?

The commonly held view…

In the fitness world, an exercise is generally considered functional if the trainer and/or client can think of a way the exercise would be useful in making everyday life easier. Often these exercises are ones that look like the life activities they are designed to make easier by using movement patterns that are the same or as similar as possible to the life activities. “Functional fitness” may also be comprised of bodyweight or free-weight exercises, and most likely are done standing or with one’s balance challenged. In other words, “functional fitness” is believed to be anything that mimics a real life movement.

Is this an accurate idea of what truly makes an exercise functional?

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Image courtesy of durangoorthopedics.com

If this were the case, wouldn’t the best and unquestionably most functional form of training simply be living life? Can doing dumbbell curls to presses really mimic putting a carry-on bag in the overhead compartment on an airplane more closely than, say, practicing lifting a carry-on bag over your head? If you are trying to get as “functional” as possible, why even go to the gym in the first place? It’s not like at the gym there are grocery bags to carry around, couches to practice standing up from, or buses you need to run to catch and then keep your balance on during the ride. Wouldn’t it be more functional (as close to the real life activity as possible) to just do all of the real life activities for sets and reps?

So what really is “functional”? And is mimicry truly the best way to train someone to function better relative to their goal(s)?

The truth…

A high level of mimicry does not make an exercise functional; appropriately providing a stimulus that creates adaptations that transfer into a greater ability to achieve one's goal does!!!

In other words, regardless of what the choreography of an exercise looks like when it is performed, the only way it should be considered functional is if the changes that happen within the body after doing that exercise improve an individual’s ability to achieve their goal.

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If a doing an isometric knee extension on a machine has a greater transfer than barbell squats to a person’s ability to get up out of a chair and the person wants to be able to get out of chairs better, in this case for this person, the machine isometric knee extension is more functional than the squat!!!

By simply focusing on the mimicry of an exercise, rather than its transfer into achieving someone's goal, many potentially valuable exercises, such as those performed on machines, are often completely avoided. For more information on the benefits of machines, click here.

Summary: Mimicry does not inherently make an exercise functional, nor does unrestricted motion, unstable surfaces, choice of equipment (or lack thereof), or training environment (within a gym vs. outside, etc). An exercise that appropriately stimulates the body, providing the opportunity for adaptations to occur that improve one's ability to achieve their goal(s) is what makes an exercise functional.

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