Certain terms used in advertising exercise programs are so overused that they have ceased to make sense. If you see them, it's a good sign that you need to be going somewhere else.
Exercise expert Christian Finn is not a fan of the term "functional exercise."
As Finn notes in his blog MuscleEvo, advocates of functional exercise, who want you to plunk down your credit card and sign for their gym or their training system, seem to imply that your friends will be unable to conceal their amazement at your muscle growth after the completion of their program. Hugh Jackman will call you at home demanding to know why his picture has been replaced by yours on the cover of Muscle and Fitness magazine. Top movie studio producers in London and Hollywood will offer you a multi-million dollar deal to serve as the stunt double for the star of the next Bourne Identity film.
Finn's point, of course, is that references to functional exercise are so numerous that they don't have any real meaning to real people.
What Is Functional Exercise, Anyway?
The idea behind functional exercise was that movements you don't do over and over again work out muscles you don't train over and over again. There can be more value for fitness, for example, in moving the sofa up three flights of stairs to your apartment than in doing a bench press of an equivalent weight. Moving odd-shaped objects, such as pieces of iron from a metal shop attached to ropes, or waterballs, or sandbags, works out muscles in a different way than going to the same Nautilus machines at the gym three times a week. Working out with a Russian kettlebell might be considered functional exercise. Working out with a barbell probably would not.
The problem came about when the promoters of this one-time relatively new method of training tried to dissuade fitness fans from using the more traditional programs offered by their competitors. If a gym or a trainer offering functional exercise wanted to compete against a gym or a trainer who did not, the pitch might be "The bench press has no relevance to physical activity in the real world." The truth is, there aren't that many times that most of us are called on to lift a thin, evenly shaped, heavy metal cylinder off our chests.
That doesn't mean, however, that there is no positive transfer of strength from one activity to another. Upper body strength is of great value in many athletic and real-life endeavors.
What If You Want An Exercise That Closely Imitates An Athletic Function?
Training expert Jason Ferrugia has been pondering the questions of training for athletic competitions for a long time. For instance, he talks about the appropriate exercise for an American football lineman. Football players on the line never push a weight off their chests (well, not while the clock is running, anyway). They always push forward while standing on their feet. What a lineman (or, in a very few settings, a linewoman) needs is an exercise that starts with him coming out of a three point stance. Then it should explode upward. Next it should violently push the player forward while contracting his lower back, his abs, and just about every other muscle in his torso. What would be the perfect exercise for a center, guard, or tackle who wants to hit the other team harder?
Ferrugia comments, "Oh! I've got it! Football practice!"
One doesn't always need functional exercise. Sometimes one needs just to go to the function.
Other Buzzwords In Athletic Training
Christian Finn complains that to call an exercise "functional" ignores the fact that the real functionality is determined not by what goes into a training session, but by what comes out of it. It isn't about what you do in the gym. It's about what you can do on the field, if you are playing sports, or the changes your workouts make in your general health.
What are some of the other sports terms that are tip offs to marketing over substance?
Core Muscles
Most people think of the core muscles that make up your six-pack (or, if you are like me, are hidden underneath your keg). The fact is, however, that Mother Nature did not endow us with muscles just to impress people at the beach. The "core" muscles are a larger set of muscles that support the lower spine so it can maintain its naturally curved state. Because most trainers are unclear on what the core muscles are, most exercisers don't know what to expect from their exercises, or how to recognize improvements that are not necessarily obvious when looking into the mirror.
Extended Warmup
Just how extended is an extended warmup? Is it 20 minutes of stretching and 20 minutes on an exercise bike followed by a shower and a drive back home? If you trainer insists on an "extended" warmup but can't tell you why, maybe you need to look at your choice in trainers more closely.
Prohormones
Prohormones aren't hormones that have lost their amateur status. They are substances the human body can transform into the hormones it actually needs. Sometimes prohormones are offered in the gym because loopholes in the law make them legal while the actual hormone is not. Be aware that a prohormone can have serious (sometimes beneficial, sometimes detrimental) effects on your health.
High Intensity Interval Training
What's "high" intensity? Is it running so fast your chest aches? Is it pedaling three miles an hour when you ordinarily pedal two? What is an interval? Is it 10 seconds, or 10 minutes? "High intensity interval training" is a term that is so overused that is has lost its meaning.
Overtraining
Muscles that are pushed to their limits need time to recover, rebuilding the fibers that give them power and restoring the glycogen that "pumps them up." How long muscles need to recover depends on age. Teenaged muscle might recover in less than 48 hours. Adults not yet age 50 might need a full 48 hours. Adults 50 years old and up might need 72 hours or more.
Failing to give your muscles adequate recovery time is known as overtraining. However, it is easy to mistake a natural decline in performance (regression to the mean) after a really heavy workout as "overtraining." If you are giving your muscles time to rebuild themselves and you are working them out to their maximum performance, either in terms of load or number of repetitions, chances are that you aren't overtraining. You're just tired.
Sources & Links
- Christian Finn. The Most Loathsome Term in All of Fitness. https://muscleevo.net/functional-training-made-simple/. Accessed 4 August 2015.
- Photo courtesy of Meathead Movers (www.meatheadmovers.com) via Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/meatheadmovers/5346367887
- Photo courtesy of RightIndex via Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/leomei/2652108834