Functional Training: Why Context is Everything

Online the debate between those that are for and against “Functional Training” is heating up.

Again.

It comes and goes every few years and it always confuses me.

You see, in my mind, words and language matter. Maybe it is having a Grammar school education and being made to study Latin for 3 long years, or possibly it’s my 35+ year long love affair with the work of Terry Pratchett.

However, to me if something works, it is functional, if it doesn’t, it isn’t.

Defining Functional Training: Does it move you toward your goal?

So with that in mind, any training that helps you achieve your goals is functional. Any training that moves you away from said goals, is non functional.

I’ve been having a discussion around this with my eldest Son, a keen hurler. He goes to the gym on & off, but when he does he uses a “Push-Pull-Legs” split made up of bodybuilding style exercises. When the off season was over, he was surprised to find that it didn’t help him at all when he got back on the field.

In his case, the training had been non functional. Now he hits up some hill sprints, and he’s starting to understand what is functional for his goals.

Why Context Matters in Movement and Strength

And that is the point no one wants to admit in the functional training discussion.

No one discusses context.

And without context, we cannot talk about training with any meaning, ever. To one person, bodybuilding type isolation movements are going to take them exactly where they want to go, but for the next person, it will not. To one person it is functional, to another it is non functional.

How this is hard to understand baffles me. But then again, those who take hard lines and talk in absolutes seem to make many times the income I make, so maybe i ought to change my tune and start telling you that if you don’t do as I say then all your hair will fall out and your dog will hate you!!!

But that isn’t my style.

Individualized Training: The Wild Geese Philosophy

My style, for those of you that remember the Wild Geese years, was to tailor to the individual as much as possible.

In the morning bootcamp, we might have had a fighter on the angle barbell, beside kettlebell sport guys, beside a Judo-ka lifting a sandbag, 3 people on rehab programs and the lads on the bootcamp program. Even in the group sessions in the evenings, lifts would be adjusted to suit the various individuals in the group.

What is functional training for you is determined by the outcomes you want to achieve, not by some numpty trainers biased marketing bollocks.

How to determine your functional training path:

Figure out the function: What are you actually training for?

Assess the starting point: Where are you right now?

Map the route: What is the specific training needed to get from here to there?

It’s that simple.

Simple. Not easy.

Dave

www.davehedges.net

Key Principles of Functional Training

• Context is King: Training is only "functional" if it directly serves your specific goal or sport.

• Avoid Absolutes: There is no single exercise that is functional for everyone; it depends entirely on the individual's needs.

• Outcome-Driven: Focus on the desired result (the function) first, then work backward to choose the correct movements.