Functional training is a concept that’s becoming more and more popular these days.  Everyone has his own interpretation of what functional training is and how it is applied.  For some, it is to reproduce sport-specific movements, for others it’s to stand on unstable surfaces to do everything from core training to biceps curls, and for others it’s to develop physical qualities that are specific to the practice of their sport.

Functional? I have my doubts on this one…

No matter how you interpret functional training, there is an important line that people are crossing too often when applying exercise variations or specific tools in the gym.

Let’s face it: we all love variety.  We love to try new exercise variations, new tools (TRX, slideboards, stability balls, ropes, etc), and for a good reason; when you’ve been training for a long time (read: one year is not a long time) you might get bored doing the same stuff all the time.  But too often variety becomes what dictates your training program.  And too often at the expenses of proper form.  I think it is crucial to perfectly master the basic movement patterns before any attempt at progression and/or variety.

I’ve said in the past that form is everything when you lift.  When you lose perfect form, I truly think that whatever you do, isn’t functional anymore.  Period.  Whatever your definition of ‘functional’ is, it has to has be based around proper movement patterns.  Whatever exercises you use, whatever tools you use, there is only one optimal way your body moves and it is the same whatever you do.  It doesn’t matter if you do your push ups on the floor, with your hands on a bench or on a TRX; the movement at your shoulders and the stability you present with the rest of your body should be the same for all three of these variations.

Sorry. Not for everyone.

If you can’t master a reverse lunges with dumbbell in your hands, why would you do a reverse lunge with a bar on your shoulders or with whatever crazy unstable surface you want to use?  If you can’t do a front plak with perfect form for more than 30 seconds, why would you do it with your elbows on a stability ball?

Variety sells.  Especially when you’re a personal trainer; it’s a good way to attract new clients.  But no matter how boring the basic stuff is, it needs to be done.  And it needs to be done for as long as you’re not doing it perfectly.

Variety shouldn’t exist until you master optimal movement patterns.

You’re welcome.

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Functional training is a term used quite a bit these days. Functional training might have totally different meanings depending on who you talk to. It can also be used for a variety of training methods and exercises. One that is refered to a lot as “functional training”, and in my own opinion is just a load of crap is unstable training surface.

This is probably the stupidest thing I have ever seen:

And don’t get me wrong, this is not just because I dislike it; unstable surface training is totally useless and counterproductive from a performance training standpoint. Before I get too much hate mail about this, I am just going to prove my point.

- First of all, I don’t know of any sports that are played on a surface that is unstable and/or moving under you (with the exception of alpine and water skying).  As far as I know, sports are played on floors, grass and ice which are all really stable surfaces. 

- From a safety standoint, I am not sure how safe it is to perform this kind of exercise in training.  There is a significant risk of falling off the stability ball, Bosu or whatever implement you’re using.  Keeping in perspective that my first two goals as a strength and conditioning coach are to avoid hurting my athletes during training and preventing their risk of injuries, I want to stay away from anything that ressembles loading my athletes with weights on a very unstable surface.

- Performing exercises on unstable surfaces require extra stabilization at the joints involved (mainly the hips, knees and ankles for lower body training).  At first, more stabilization might sounds interesting, but consider this: while performing an exercise on an unstable surface, your antagonist muscles are required to activate to take care of the unstable demand placed on the joint(s).  On the other side, if you’re trying to improve strength and power in your athletes’ program you need the exact opposite; you need the antagonist to relax as much as possible if you want to improve the force expression at the involved joint.  So right here, we have two totally conflicting situations and different goals.  Why not improve both at the same? Well, the bad news is that studies have showed that incoporating as little as 5% of your total training volume in unstable surface training decreases maximum force output in trained athletes. Doesn’t sound too good to me.

I don’t think I need to go much further; if you’re looking to improve speed, power, strength and overall performance you might want to reconsider using unstable surface training if it is unsafe, totally non-sport specific and decreases force production.

The only valuable use unstable surfaces might have is to reestablish proprioception in people who had ankle sprains, as there is sufficient proof in the litterature to support that, but that is pretty much all it is good for. 

As for as training for improved stability, I am all for it; but I think it should be done in a more sport-specific context.  For example, single leg exercises might have tremendous value in a training program as almost everything in sports happen on one leg at the time, for example running and skating.  Using single leg exercises like the reverse lunge will take care of all the stability you need.

But I won’t go into more details about this, as it could be the topic for a whole other blog post.

If you want to learn more about the use of unstable surface training, you need to pick up The Truth About Unstable Surface Training by Eric Cressey.  Eric goes into great details on everything that touches unstable surface training.