Functional Training: is it really the way to go?

Part of the fitness world for several years, functional training has become a mainstay in many training systems. It certainly has some big name proponents too, including guys like Mike Boyle and Mark Verstegen. But just because the methods become so widely accepted, that doesn't mean we should just accept them and use these methods in our workouts without some closer evaluation.

In this article I want to look at one of the sacred tenants of the functional paradigm, instability training. The idea behind things like Bosu balls, wobble boards, TRX, etc. is that training on an unstable surface causes the "stabilizer" muscles to fire, which allows the primary muscles to work more efficiently.

The problem with using an unstable surface to train the stabilizer muscles is that there are so many stabilizers that most of them will be resting at any given time. Unfortunately, such a large amount of rest means these muscles will not be stressed enough to create adaptation and build strength.

So the next question becomes, what is actually happening during instability training? The body is simply learning. It is learning the skill of coordinating muscles to work on an unstable surface, which does not necessarily transfer to better coordination on the court, ice, or field.

Training the stabilizer muscles is still important, however, and fortunately there are some excellent ways to do it. One is extreme isometrics. While aggressively pulling into position for a period of several minutes, the agonist and antagonist muscles (muscles on both sides of the joint) will alternate firing. The communication reflexes between these muscles will get very efficient. Balance in the real world is simply the ability to maintain our center of gravity over our base, and an agonist/antagonist pair that can work together more efficiently can make fine adjustments necessary to achieve such balance.

Also, the motor units (and muscles) being used will fatigue. As fatigue occurs, the body will keep calling on additional motor units to help perform the task of keeping the body in position. This continuous firing of additional motor units gives the prime movers and the stabilizers the activation that they need to adapt, and this type of adaptation will actually translate to better performance in real world activities.

There are other great ways to stress the stabilizer muscles enough so that they are forced to adapt. Some more examples that we use in our program include lifting high loads at high velocity and catching falling loads. As these workouts train all the muscles to absorb force and stabilize the body, they are also creating adaptations towards greater power, speed, and endurance. Since the body needs to use these traits together in real world activities, doesn't it make sense to use them together in training?

If you want to try out these methods, please take advantage of our offer to come in for a free training session so that you can experience for yourself the most advanced system of training in sports today.