Building the Complete Athlete Through Functional Training

Part One

As someone who is considered the father of functional sport training I think it is time to revisit the concept in order to better understand it - Where did it come from, how it evolved, where it is today and where it is going. Functional training is a label for a concept. As with any label it is subject to various interpretations. I originally conceived it as multi-lateral training integrating various training modalities (medicine ball, stretch cord, weight training, dumbbells, body weight etc.) to produce significant adaptation in specific performance parameters. Essentially to BUILD the COMPLETE ATHLETE by training all systems of the body while recognizing and respecting the wisdom of the body. The end result is a highly adaptable athlete who is able to perform without limitations in the competitive environment. Contrast this to biased one- sided training that results in adapted athletes who are inconsistent in performance and prone to injury.

The concepts came together and solidified for me in the 1980’s. I was alarmed at the biased one-sided training regimens I saw being imposed on athletes. We were trapped in a reductionist, mechanistic approach that segmented the body into parts and separate systems. We were creating robotic athletes that were good in a sterile training environment but had difficulty transferring training to the sport. It was also clear to that if you are doing too much of one thing then you are probably not doing much of something else, it was a zero-sum relationship. The result was an athlete fully adapted to that one component of training.

To thrive in the performance arena demands the polar opposite, a versatile highly adaptable athlete whose training is not biased, but reflects the demands of the sport and the needs of the individual athlete. The problem was the failure to recognize that for the body to execute movement, whether it is a sustained endurance activity, explosive bursts or fine motor skill that all parts and systems need to work together in harmony. Movement is s symphony not a solo. You can’t do a “cardio” workout, just like you can’t do a “neural” workout. You better hope every workout has a cardio vascular and a neural component, because all systems of the body work at all times with the demand on a particular system determined by the intensity of the activity. To continue the symphonic metaphor a section of the orchestra is featured or highlighted while the other parts of the orchestra are still playing, albeit in the background. Let’s also give credit to the conductor; the brain, the muscles and all systems of the body are slaves of the brain. It is the brain that drives, connects and controls movements to enable us to accomplish the desired task. To use Tim Noakes term the brain is the “central governor.” So, we can’t lose sight of the whole, the big picture in the desire to understand the parts and their relationship to the whole. The Complete Athlete approach & what evolved as functional training gives the body credit for its inherent wisdom and its ability to learn to link, sync, connect and coordinate in order to play the beautiful movement symphony we call sports performance.

At the time I had been coaching close to twenty years and been exposed to many ideas and methods of training, some of which worked and some of which failed. I was at a stage in my career where I thought there had to be a better way, I realized a better way was an eclectic approach that combined my interpretation of sport science research, study in methods and concepts of rehabilitation coupled with my practical experience both as a coach and as an athlete. Someone labeled it “functional training” and the name stuck; to me it is just common sense training.

I have never been reluctant to challenge conventional wisdom and it was conventional wisdom that was causing us to stagnate in training. It just was not getting the job done. I felt there had to more than max V0₂ and other artificial measurements of performance, more than just mindlessly running straight ahead, more than excessive emphasis on heavy lifting, more than fancy machines that isolated body parts and more than static stretching. I leaned heavily on the work of Logan & McKinney and their classic text Kinesiology, Knott & Voss and their work on Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation and John Jesse and his approach to performance training and injury prevention. It was a move away from a linear reductionist segmented view of the body to a holistic, synergistic quantum approach. In so many ways what evolved as functional training taps into old tried and true concepts and methods that were once the norm and then fell out of favor for various reasons. The saying that everything old is new again could not be truer.

Unfortunately, the concept of functional training as it has evolved and been co-opted by the “fitness industry” has been bastardized and compromised into a weird amalgamation of crazy exercises without any logical progression or justification. It is more than exercises; it is a systematic sequential and progressive approach to training for the rigors of competition. There is no magic or mystery, just application of basic principles that are proven and have stood the test of time. It is more than just a bunch of exercises thrown together that are different; it is variety with a purpose. The key to a good sound functional training program is progression. You must carefully assess where you are at the present time and carve out a step-by-step progression to achieve specific realistic training objectives. Know where have you been and where are you going. Then fill the gap with a logical functional progression that will move forward only when the previous step has been mastered.

In today’s high-tech world, it is easy to forget the basics. The human body is a beautiful finely tuned organism that far surpasses the most finely tuned high performance machine created by man. It is the ultimate high tech machine. Despite all its complexity the body is also incredibly simple. In order to take advantage of the body’s wisdom we must focus on how the body actually functions. We must understand the movements in sport in order to understand functional training for sports. A thorough understanding of function will allow us to design and implement a comprehensive training programs for each sport and athlete.

The body is a link system; this link system is referred to as the kinetic chain. Building the complete is about linkage – it is how all the parts of the chain work together in harmony to produce smooth efficient patterns of movement. Conventional academic preparation still focuses on studying individual muscles based on classical anatomy. This is where the confusion begins as to what is functional movement. We do not function in the anatomical position. The anatomical position is static; it provides us the perspective of mental convenience to arrange all the individual muscles for ease of study and observation. In order to truly understand functional training, we must get away from the focus on muscles and focus instead on movements. It is important to emphasize that the brain does not recognize individual muscles. It recognizes patterns of movement, which consist of the individual muscles working in harmony to produce movements required by the sport.

In order to completely understand function, we must understand the role that gravity plays in movement. The fact that we live, work and play in a gravitationally enriched environment cannot be denied. Gravity has minimal effect on the body in the anatomical position, but maximum effect on the body in movement. We simply cannot ignore gravity, it is essential for movement, and it loads the system. Therefore, we must learn to overcome its effects, cheat and even defeat it occasionally. Over reliance on machines for training will give us a false sense of security because they negate some of the effects of gravity. Gravity and its effect must be a prime consideration when designing and implementing a functional training program to prepare the body for the forces that it must overcome.