READY, WILLING, AND ABLE

PART E-GENUINE FUNCTIONAL TRAINING IS TRAINING FUNCTION

The most popular Fitness trend of the 1980’s and 1990’s was called “Functional Training”. At the “core” of this concept was the notion that, for “exercise” to be useful, it had to simulate the activity for which it was performed, allegedly validating its name, because that core value was what, ostensibly, made it “useful” i.e. functional. However, because it was taught and administered without regard for the physics of human anatomy, it begs the question; how truly useful was it?

It is quite evident that if this movement based kind of exercise is performed long and consistently enough, it is destined to result in skeletal harm. There is nothing functional about that. Nothing useful about it. It is only necessary to watch a person with an arthritic hip, or knee or ankle, take a step, to recognize the dysfunction. So, how is Functional Training, or any of its movement based cousins, functional?

It seems ridiculous to imply that something is functional when it ignores how things are “functioning” and/or causes dysfunction, and is impractical to expect a body that isn’t doing something well to do it better by making it more difficult to do what it isn’t doing well.

It does seem as though this inept ideology is useful because short term goals are achieved, and repercussions are imperceptible since they are most often not immediate. Joint erosion and skeletal distortions are actually so gradual that they frequently go unnoticed, until some other unrelated event transforms deformity into pain (the proverbial “straw that breaks the camel’s back”), all of which is preventable, not by avoiding the activities or tasks, but simply by preparing the body to tolerate the stresses they impose, adding long term orthopedic security to the short term benefits.

Even though the trend of Functional Training has passed, its ideology has survived. (The more things change, the more they remain the same.) Fitness educators continue to teach that exercise is useful or practical only if it includes multi-joint, “body weight exercises” and/or free moving i.e. unguided path challenges like dumb bells, kettle bells, medicine balls, etc. (because they can be guided along the path of body movement). Equipment that imposes a constrained path is considered useless i.e. non-functional, not only to “Activities of Daily Living”, but also to athletic performance. In other words, to everything.

Included in this belief, akin to a religious creed, is the claim that progressive resistance does not necessarily mean more load, but rather, to impose instability by training on unstable surfaces. However, increased complexity and increased strength are not consequential. In fact, they are most often conflicting.

Straining to maintain a path of motion against unstable support is supposed to increase strength and function? Efficiency is considered to be achieved by challenging as many body parts per moment as possible, simultaneously? That is supposed to be more functional?

Neurological factors reveal that this means of training cannot increase the contractile leverage of torque, and therefore, like rotational inertia seeking Power Sport athletes who do use more resistance to increase strength, exposes joints to orthopedic risk, if the performer does not possess the contractile strength and neuro-musculoskeletal coordination (skill of body/brain communication) to provide joint control (stability) against those unstable conditions. That is, if the person is not ready.

The question is, how do these forms of Functional Training improve function when they ignore the way the body is functioning, and why is this considered functional when the training leads to dysfunction?

Imposing instability and/or Balance Training are interesting and physically provoking challenges for those who are ready, willing, and able, but it is important to clarify the purpose and benefit. Which way will a muscle contract with more force? (1) If the brain needs to send impulses to the millions of fibers that control every joint in the body, or (2) to only the thousands that control one joint? Which of those is more efficient? Which will better increase contractile strength? Which is more useful to prepare the body, compared to which is more applicable to performance?

Which way does the anatomical physics conform to this neuro-logic to produce a more forceful muscle contraction? (1) If the resistance is scattered throughout the body, where many muscles share the torque or (2) if only the fibers of one joint (or pair of joints) are responsible for torque of mobility while the torque from all the others is conscientiously recruited to hold the remaining joints in place, providing stable internal support against which the independent “torque mobilizers” can contract. Which would seem to more efficiently (and effectively) increase contractile strength?

The former (1’s) are neurological and mechanical examples of performing exercises like normal, spontaneous tasks. The latter (2’s) are examples of how the genuinely practical use of exercise is unnatural and requires a “conscientious effort” to implement. (“Intention”, in the next essay.) The bottom line; exercise is not involuntary. It requires a “special” kind of effort.

When doing a push up with hands on a stretched out rubber tube and with feet on a Swiss Ball, the juggle of every joint in the body, induced by the instability of the supports, is supposed to be a more efficient way to strengthen the body, as a whole unit, rather than performing exercises for each individual joint, independently, with support that not only provides a firm base to contract against, but a base that shoves back against the contraction with its own reaction of resistance, increasing the demand for an even more forceful contraction to leverage the challenge?

One of the above builds a better body that can eventually tolerate unstable supports. The other simply makes joint stabilization more difficult without regard for the contractile strength required to provide control.

One builds contractile strength by challenging the length tension of each muscle group through the entire range of a joint’s mobility. The other only challenges each of the participating muscles within the limited range of their joints motion where they are already capable of contracting.

One requires a special sense of awareness. The other permits (and requires) a distracted focus. With regard to building a better body that can perform better, one of the above is physics. The other is fantasy.

The requisite contractile skill that could validate the “function” comes from the practice of challenging a muscle’s contractile strength through its full (short to long) lengths of its joint’s entire concentric to eccentric range of mobility (a.k.a. exercise), which cannot be accomplished in multi-joint motion challenges. The complexity makes it neurologically impossible. The anatomical physics makes it biomechanically impossible as well.

Balance, stability, control. They all require contractile strength, and not only at the moments of a joint’s range where they are innately strong and capable. It is mandatory to train muscles to contract all the way to the ends of their joints’ function, where they are weakest, even if the event does not involve that much mobility, because the ends of the muscle tissue manage the entire range of the joints’ function, regardless of how much mobility is required to perform the task, and even if the task does not require mobility.

This is because, even though impulsive tasks require only a portion of their range, joints always stop, either to remain in place, or return in the other direction. It is at that moment of impulse, where the ends of all the musculature involved must be capable of torqueing against the incoming assault. If they cannot torque at that moment (wherever it may be within the range), then the passive tissues (ligaments and cartilage) become stressed to hold everything together.

The attachments of contractile tissue are the first line of defense for our joints. Yes, the passive tissues can hold our bones together, but, because they don’t contract, they don’t produce tension (independently), and, therefore, have no leverage. Their purpose/function is to check the path that the contractile tissue is imposing, to assist in guiding the joint, to keep the joint surfaces slick and most able to accommodate healthy mobility, and only, if contractile tissues fail, to prevent their joints from slipping off course.

The problem with depending on non-contractile tissues is, there is nothing to stabilize the bones of the joint. Ligaments will certainly hold the bones together, but are not capable of maintaining the end range, or holding it steady. Those “end range” responsibilities require torque, and without it, the bones will simply fall backward from the concentric end until the joint relapses to a place where its muscles are accustomed to accommodate the torque of a challenge, and can catch hold of it (if there is any intension is to stop them to begin with). 

There is no torque to maintain a path that is congruent with the shape of the bones or with the path of the resistance at the end of the joints’ excursion, because the active fibers that can provide it are not sufficiently prepared i.e. strong enough, and they are not strong enough because, in impulsive situations of distracted intent, they are never challenged there!

That is the reason why it is inappropriate to perform exercises in the same manner as ordinary “Activities of Daily Living”. It is why exercising with the distracted standards of extraordinary performance is fallacious. It is why genuine exercise and Performance Training are not synonymous. It is why “Functional Training” was, and its descendants are, dysfunctional. It is why genuine functional training requires a special intention i.e. attention to the functional state of the anatomical physics.

That’s the preparation. That’s how to build a better body. That’s how to increase the stress threshold for work. That’s how to “ready” a person who is more willing, with comparable effort to be able, for each moment, and for the entire event. It is why exercise is virtually the opposite of all involuntary challenges, and the means to endow in those who are typically more willing than ready, equal ability to perform.