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So what is functional fitness? It didn’t actually hit me until two days ago when somebody asked me, “Hey, could you send me an article on what functional fitness is?” And then I realized I had not even talked about it anywhere on my blog!
But now, today’s the day we’re going to talk about it, but you can’t mention Functional fitness without getting a little science-y and mentioning the myofascial slings.
A myofascial sling spans your body kind of like a seatbelt, focusing on the density of your fascia from the torso to your arms and legs. Fascia is kind of like your muscles, in the idea it stores energy and holds strength. Science is showing that your fascia stores A LOT more strength than your muscles do, which is amazing!
We used to just think fascia was just that stringy-looking, spider-webby looking stuff that hanging out between every muscle, ligament, tendon and system in our body. And, for a long time, people would just kind of shove it aside, not even think about studying it because it looked so unassuming. But THEN someone realized, “Why is this stuff EVERYWHERE in our bodies if its not doing anything?” Now, we’re looking at the fascia and the myofascial slings, and the muscle groups as a WHOLE, and how they work together, instead of each one separately. These muscle slings are where the density and concentration of this fascia runs from your torso to your extremities. They run from your shoulder to your hip on both the front and the backside of your body.
There are names for them, but it’s not really that important for what we’re talking about right now. These myofascial slings are what bridged the gap for me, from working on just being a “regular personal trainer” to working on foot and athletic strength, and then into functional movement.
All four of these myofascial slings run through the feet. If there’s an imbalance in any one of these four myofascial slings, I could start at the feet and trace my way up a person to find what sling is out of whack, what muscle isn’t working properly, which ones were too tight, and then be able to correct that just based off of the knowledge of these myofascial slings and my background in personal training.
Functional fitness, or functional movement, means utilizing a program that focuses on moves, not muscles. Functional movements are designed to use your entire myofascial sling together as one unit instead of focusing on just one muscle group.
Let that sink in.
For example, let’s say you’re brand new to working out and Google search ‘workout program’. You’ll come across thousands of programs that look like Chest/Back/Legs, or Upper body/Lower Body splits. If you’re working out like that, you’re going to get stronger, right? Of course. However, you’re not using your full body as one unit. You are developing strength in one area of your body per day, which is fine, but it’s not using your body functionally.
Let’s use the analogy of the Power Rangers. We have the red Ranger, pink Ranger, yellow Ranger, black Ranger, blue Ranger and green Ranger.
Imagine if only one or two of the Power Rangers were super, amazingly powerful, but the other Rangers were just ignored and never trained. The Power Rangers can individually be strong, but they are only the strongest when they work together to become the Megazord (I had to look that one up). This is when they combine into the giant fighting robot to defeat whatever enemy that is destroying the city.
Imagine your body as the Megazord (whichever version you like the best). It needs all of its parts to be strong and working together in order to defeat the giant monster of the show, or in your case, to tackle the day without causing injury. You want to integrate functional movements that use your entire body, your entire myofascial sling as a unit, instead of just developing your one Power Ranger. You want to develop your whole gang of Power Rangers! Some of the best moves to easily incorporate functional movements into your workout routine are:
- Kettlebell swings
- Walking lunges, especially with weights,
- Single leg deadlifts
- Uneven squats
- Off sided get ups
- … the list goes on.
Yes, I still do strength training, but I will incorporate these moves into my strength program. It’ll look something like this:
I’m not letting functional movements take over my entire program unless I am actively sore, injured or sick. So why would you want to train this way? Well, a lot of the times, back to the Power Ranger analogy, you need all of the Power Rangers to be super strong and working together in order to operate correctly. You need all of them to work together because you need to make sure there is no weaknesses in any of the areas. Functional fitness has the ability to find and fix weak muscles, instead of exacerbating problems by just adding more strength training to the muscles that are already strong.
Also, you can avoid injuries you didn’t even know you were setting yourself up to have. I’m going to give you an example, of my friend Jimothy. This person was a cliche “gym bro”- anytime he went to work out, he would try to set new PRs each time, he only lifted heavy doing the four BIG lifts (squats, chest press, deadlift, overhead press). He never focused on recovery,
He would deadlift. He would squat. He was really only focused on getting stronger, getting bigger. He would only go to the gym with his other “Gym Bros”, people that would motivate him to lift heavier, go harder, do MORE.
“Come on, Jimothy, you got this!”
“No pain, no gain!”
…Um, yeah.
So Jimothy was caught in this self-imposed world of ego-lifting. He didn’t KNOW any better, that he was setting himself up for failure. He just was going through the motions of working out with his friends, and his friends were just trying to do the right thing by motivating him when it seemed he was holding himself back…
Fast forward a few months. Jimothy is about to break his own personal record for deadlifting. He reaches down to grab the bar, about to hit the 300-lb club with his friends! His hands wrap around the bar and he HEAVES. The bar moved half an inch… one inch… TWO inches off the floor! Then…
TWING!
His form went off just the tiniest bit. He just pulled something in his back. The weight dropped and he limped out of the gym trying to hide the horrendous amount of pain he was in.
For the next year, Jimothy nursed this back injury. He noticed that whenever he bent forward to pick something up off the floor, that forward-leaning action would immediately reaggravate his back. Jimothy was getting frustrated at being out of the gym and gaining weight from lack of exercise.
So does Jimothy seek out functional fitness training? No.
Jimothy buys a weight lifting belt. He notices that his back doesn’t ACTIVELY hurt when he’s wearing it, so it must have solved the problem. (If you could see me as I retell this story, I can’t help myself from face-palming a half-dozen times). Jimothy is temporarily happy because guess what? He can go back to deadlifting!
SPOILER ALERT: This does NOT fix the problem. This is the equivalent of putting a giant band-aid over the issue. In just three weeks after returning to exercise, Jimothy gives himself a hernia. Yes, a hernia. It turns out that his abdominal walls were too weak to undergo the type of weightlifting Jimothy was doing, and without that targeted strength training offered through functional fitness, his core was left wide-open to injury.
So, not only does he have a bum lower back, he also has a hernia. Fast forward again, another few months. It takes Jimothy another month and an adductor (inner thigh muscle) strain until he goes to a physical therapist. Jimothy is baffled and thinks he’s just getting old, that he’s falling apart, he might as well throw in the towel… This is when he sought out a personal trainer (aka me), luckily, I am a functional fitness trainer.
Slowly but surely, he got better. We stepped away from weight lifting for 6 weeks and focused on muscle recruitment and proper alignment. We realized that the main problem the WHOLE time was not his lower back or his weak leg muscles – the whole cause of all of these injuries was a weak core.
Jimothy: “Awful”
Trainer: “Great! 10 more.”
Yes, strength training is awesome. No matter what, you should be working out in some capacity. BUT, you need to be strengthening your whole body as a unit, not just focusing on single muscle groups. Functional fitness programs can be easily integrated into regular workout routines, only calling for one day a week to show proven results.
I only entered the functional fitness world when I realized my weak ankles I had my whole life was actually caused by weak feet. You can check out my Foot Strength Video Here.
If you want more information on how to get started on functional fitness programming, you can schedule a free consult with me here
Follow me in Instagram @BarefootTrainer
Thanks for joining me. And I look forward to seeing you same time, same place next week! Happy New Year!
Amanda
If you liked this episode and would like to join our functional fitness family, use the code BAREFOOT for 3-months of 15% off our normal personal training rates! This means heading into 2025 not only with your New Year’s resolutions, but also with a plan and a guide as well. If this was an epic fictional adventure-tale like Lord of the Rings, this would be the equivalent of leaving the Shire not only WITH the goal of getting the one ring to Mordor, but also with Gandalf, your entire entourage of sword-slinging, arrow-shooting buddies, a detailed map of the entire world your crossing, and also on the back of one of those giant eagles to fly across the land because walking takes entirely too long.
So go ahead and start your adventure out right! use the code BAREFOOT for 15% off 3-months of personal training at untamedpersonaltraining.com . Hope to See y’all soon!
