Functional training is “reactive” teaching muscles to “fire” in a pattern, with primary “moving” muscles and secondary “stabilizing” muscles working in sequence to execute movement. This integration engages strong, stable “core” muscles aiding in balance. The result? Your body attains equilibrium between strength and flexibility, between agonist and antagonist muscles, increasing functionality while reducing risk of injury.

The bottom line: you can either have a bulky, unfunctional body that is injury prone or a lean, functional one that is resilient. It also never hurts that functional training workouts are shorter, more effective, and more interesting than all those monotonous curls, leg curls, bench presses, etc.

Related posts:

1. The 4 Principles of Functional Training – Principle #3 Balance vs Bulk
2. The 4 Principles of Functional Training- Principle #4 Multi- vs. Limited Movement
3. The 4 Principles of Functional Training: Principle #1 – Isolation vs. Integration

Integration vs. Isolation -

Strength training on machines works muscles in isolation-although it’s rare that your muscles would be required to work in isolation in any other situation. Functional training, on the other hand, removes the support provided by machines, requiring the body to work multiple muscle groups in integration, as the body is intended to move, resulting in more balanced muscle tone.

Related posts:

1. Exercise Myth #1 – Fitness Machines Are Better than Functional Training
2. The 4 Principles of Functional Training – Principle #2 Reaction vs. Injury
3. The 4 Principles of Functional Training- Principle #4 Multi- vs. Limited Movement

1. They promote maintenance and improvement in Active Daily Living tasks
2. They promote spinal health and longevity
3. They mimic motor patterns that translate into daily tasks, recreational sports, and work activities.

Traditionally, when people exercise, they are working on “cosmetic fitness” – exercising to look good and working on surface muscles or those that we see. The problem with this is that it doesn’t help you in daily tasks. How often do you hear that someone hurt themselves reaching to the back seat of their car, turning quickly, or bending down quickly to pick up something? These are daily living tasks; therefore, it makes sense to train the muscles doing similar movements. You aren’t lying down most of the day doing crunches, yet your abdominal muscles are constantly working to stabilize your spine. So why not train them in a way that makes sense (i.e. standing, sitting, twisting)? That’s what core and functional training are about, and there are several methods you can use.

Related posts:

1. The 4 Principles of Functional Training – Principle #2 Reaction vs. Injury
2. Functional Training
3. The 4 Principles of Functional Training: Principle #1 – Isolation vs. Integration

• If people are not active in sports or physical education (in other words doing something that challenges their stability and ability of muscles to react), they start to lose balance at the age of 15 or 16.
• After the age of 70, nearly 85% of people die from complications due to breaking their hip.

If those aren’t reason enough to incorporate core and functional training into your exercise program, perhaps learning more will convince you.

What is Functional Training?

Functional training is defined as “activity that trains movement” and includes: balance training, stabilization training, core training, and dynamic movement training. The result of functional training is agility – improved reactionary forces where your body has the ability to compensate for changes in your center of gravity and can move quickly and efficiently. In other words, if you’re falling or suddenly caught off guard, your body is trained to react quickly, meaning you are less prone to injury. Exercises promoting core strength and stability improve or maintain posture and alignment as well as challenging balance and equilibrium.

Core training is different than just training your abdominals. Although the abdominals are an important part of your core musculature, true core training is a more integrated approach; it combines strength, balance, agility, and flexibility of the muscles that control the entire trunk and spine. Regular conditioning of the core muscles is essential to prevent injuries, correct posture, and making you more efficient with all that you do.

Functional training is about QUALITY of the movement, not quantity!

Related posts:

1. Exercise Myth #1 – Fitness Machines Are Better than Functional Training
2. The 4 Principles of Functional Training – Principle #2 Reaction vs. Injury
3. The 4 Principles of Functional Training- Principle #4 Multi- vs. Limited Movement

Eventually, I ran across an article by an interesting Russian fellow named Pavel Tsatouline. I remember being challenged in my thinking to the very principles that I had been using for years in my training. Could he be telling the truth? But everyone seemed to be training the same way I was….surely, we all couldn’t be using the wrong approach. Is there really a better way to train that would incorporate strength, conditioning, and mobility all in one package?

Seven years ago, I began lugging in this strange contraption to various gyms in Raleigh getting the strangest looks and comments from people like ‘you’re going to hurt yourself with that thing.’  

What is a ‘kettlebell’?

‘A cannon ball with a handle’  is the often used description of the now popular Russian Kettlebell. They certainly are not so strange anym0re, as they are seemingly popping up in every gym in America. The kettlebell goes way back, it first appeared in a Russian dictionary in 1704 (Cherkikh, 1994). So popular were kettlebells in Tsarist Russia that any strongman or weightlifter was referred to as a girevik, or ‘a kettlebell man’. They are now considered by many professional trainers and coaches to be the ultimate tool for extreme all-round fitness. “Not a single sport develops our muscular strength and bodies as well as kettlebell athletics,” reported Russian magazine Hercules in 1913.

What makes a Russian Kettlebell so special? Some may say it is the kettlebell design that inherently makes it better than other free weight and machine training, but I say it is also the quality of the teacher and the training system that is equally as important and beneficial to the kettlebell trainees success.

 Join me in my next blog as I discuss ’the whos’ and ‘the whys’ of Russian Kettlebell training.

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1. Exercise Myth #2 – It’s Best to Train to Failure
2. Functional Training
3. The 4 Principles of Functional Training – Principle #2 Reaction vs. Injury

Should I rest
between exercise sets?

We’ve all seen it at the gym – the big, muscular man that spends 30 seconds grunting, groaning and moaning to bench press a weight that we only dream about lifting. Then we watch him sit around for five minutes before starting another exercise. So in order to obtain large muscles and maintain fitness, we should do the same. Right?

Wrong!

Get the Most Out of Your Workout

One of the biggest excuses among Americans is that they just don’t have time to work out. Do you only have thirty minutes? The best way to achieve maximum results in a small amount of time is to reduce or eliminate rest between exercises. Choose an exercise that works one muscle group and then move to another exercise that doesn’t use that muscle group to allow recovery. For example, if you’re doing an upper body workout after you finish doing a chest press, move on to pull-ups or another exercise that doesn’t specifically target the chest.

For those of you looking to lose weight or excess fat, eliminating rest between exercises also has the added benefit of keeping the heart rate up which means you’re burning more calories and losing weight faster!

If you want a great workout to try, Barry Seneri has come up with one that’ll get you well on your way. Check it out below:

Stepping Outside the Box – “Flab Busting” Workout 1 with Kettlebells –

Immediate Download PDF

Barry Seneri explains how to “rethink” your workout for best results. Completely illustrated and laid out step by step, here are five simple, yet functional body exercises combined for a complete body workout. If you’re tired of the same old boring gym routine – this is a quick and effective way to spice things up. By practicing this routine, you’ll soon see how engaging all of your muscle groups will maximize fat burning for the desired lean body result. The demonstration works best with a set of kettlebells, but it can also be done effectively at home with dumbbells. 10 pages.

Price: Only $9.95

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1. Exercise Myth #1 – Fitness Machines Are Better than Functional Training
2. Training Myth # 3 – Moderate Exercise Is Best for Weight Loss & Fitness Results
3. Exercise Myth #2 – It’s Best to Train to Failure

Interval Training

Short bursts of intense intervals will give you the desired results in less time. It is important to choose exercises that get the heart rate up and make you feel slightly uncomfortable for a short period of time to achieve maximum weight loss and muscle tone.

Barry Seneri
practicing interval training on the treadmill

Kick Up the Training Intensity

The idea is NOT to go to the gym and run on a treadmill as fast as you can for as long as you can. Rather, you should choose some cardiovascular-based exercises or mix in some running intervals to get your heart rate into the uncomfortable zone every few exercises. If you are able to carry on a normal conversation throughout your entire workout, you need to add some intensity! Aim for exercises that use large muscle groups and more than one muscle group to burn even more calories in a shorter amount of time. All of the added sweat and heavy breathing from kicking up the intensity will get you the results you’ve been searching for.

Intense Interval Cardio Training

Interval Cardio Training is style of cardiovascular exercise in which the intensity varies for the duration of the session. ‘Intensity’ is defined by the individual’s perceived level of exertion. You can think of your intensity as a number that coincides with your effort on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the hardest. The scale can go something like this:

1- Extremely Easy - the amount of energy it takes to get up from a chair

5- Moderate Effort - activity that you can do for 30+ minutes

7- Challenging - you can do the activity, but it is difficult to sustain

8- Difficult - the activity demands some focus, and it’s getting hard to hang in

9- Very Difficult - the activity takes all of your focus, and you pray it’s over soon

10- Nearly Impossible (But Not Quite!)- you’re thinking of a happy place, which is just about anywhere compared to where you currently are…you can’t possibly push any harder

Simple. Right? You can apply this ‘perceived level of exertion’ to any activity. Take a look at the following sample workouts:

Warm up at YOUR Level 5 Intensity for 3 to 5 minutes before all of these workouts.

1. Go to Level 9 for 1 minute, then back down to Level 5 for 1 minute.
   Repeat 3 to 5 Times.
2. Start at Level 6 for 1 minute. Go to Level 7 for 1 minute. Go to Level 8 for 1 minute. Then, go to Level 9 for 1 minute.
   Repeat 3 to 5 Times.
3. Start at Level 7 for 30 seconds. Go to Level 9 for 30 seconds. Go to Level 10 for 30 seconds. Walk for 1 minute. Repeat 3 to 5 Times.

Related posts:

1. Exercise Myth #1 – Fitness Machines Are Better than Functional Training
2. Training Myth # 4 – It’s Best to Rest Between Exercises
3. Exercise Myth #2 – It’s Best to Train to Failure

Is Proper Form
missing in your workout?

Proper Form or Failure?

When strength training, many people want to ‘burn out’ every set or at least one set every workout. Some use the argument that you don’t break down your muscle enough when you stop before burning out. It’s ludicrous to think that your form will stay perfect when you reach the point of failure. Trust me, I’ve seen thousands of people do it, and it ain’t pretty. Many people often injure themselves by training this way. At the very least, you actually weaken your tendon and connective tissue strength and stability over time. This defeats the very purpose of ‘strength training.’ I can attest to this first hand.

Training to Failure and Injury

When I was in high school, I trained very hard in the weight room to perform better on the playing field. However, I trained by the notion that it was always good to train to failure. I often compromised the quality of the movement for quantity of repetitions. Over the course of 2 years, my strength dropped and my shoulders began to weaken by training this way. I could actually feel the weakness. I eventually had a complete dislocation of my right shoulder while playing football. Even though the actual injury occurred on the football field, I caused the shoulder weakness and stability problems from improper training, which led to the injury.

Work on Flawless Technique when Exercising

Thus, my advice is to focus on flawless technique when exercising or strength training, and put the weight down or stop the exercise when you are no longer able to maintain perfect form. If you don’t know what perfect form is, educate yourself or seek the help of a qualified personal trainer or strength specialist. Injuries stink, but most are preventable.

Related posts:

1. Exercise Myth #1 – Fitness Machines Are Better than Functional Training
2. Training Myth # 3 – Moderate Exercise Is Best for Weight Loss & Fitness Results
3. Training Myth # 4 – It’s Best to Rest Between Exercises

More and more top coaches and athletes are shying away from machine-based weight workouts and finding alternative training methods. Weight machines are often ineffective training tools because they focus on isolation exercises. Relying exclusively on machines for strength training may actually limit sports performance and increase injury risk.

Whether you want to ski better, play more golf or chase your kids around the park, you need better balance and stronger legs. Exercises that mimic everyday movements create functional strength; enhancing everyday activities, finally answering the question “what are you training for?”

Principles of Functional Exercise Training:

Integration vs. isolation -

Strength training on machines works muscles in isolation-although it’s rare that your muscles would be required to work in isolation in any other situation. Functional training, on the other hand, removes the support provided by machines, requiring the body to work multiple muscle groups in integration, as the body is intended to move, resulting in more balanced muscle tone.

Reaction vs. injury -

Functional training is “reactive” teaching muscles to “fire” in a pattern, with primary “moving” muscles and secondary “stabilizing” muscles working in sequence to execute movement. This integration engages strong, stable “core” muscles aiding in balance. The result? Your body attains equilibrium between strength and flexibility, between agonist and antagonist muscles, increasing functionality while reducing risk of injury.

Balance vs. bulk -

Concerned about developing large and bulky muscles? Functional training techniques help you create a leaner, tighter and more-integrated physique. Machine-centered training, and an isolated body-building style of training for 8-15 repetitions per set generally will cause what is known as sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, where the belly of the muscle increases in size, causing unnatural “bulking” of the muscle.

Multi- vs. limited movement -

Your body performs along forward, backward, rotational and diagonal planes of movement everyday. A lack of balanced strength along these planes will result in injury-such as a twinge in your back when picking up a suitcase or indulging in your first golf game of the season.

To be fair, machines do have a place in rehab and training, when muscle isolation, or the ability to control movement, speed, direction and intensity is desired. Machines are also useful for novice exercisers who may need a very structured program of movement to build some very basic strength. Machines can also have a role in “bulking” up the body with muscle for unspecified strength. Obviously, body builders will want as much muscle as possible, and aren’t as concerned with how that muscle performs precise, athlete movements. But functional training should be the core of a fitness program for anyone who wants to develop an athletic body along with strength, skill, agility and balance for sports (and life) outside the gym.

If you’re interested in the right kind of workout – functional personal training that will guarantee quick, effective and long-lasting results, contact us at The Organic Transformation in Raleigh, NC for a fitness consultation and let us design an exercise program for you that works!

Related posts:

1. The 4 Principles of Functional Training: Principle #1 – Isolation vs. Integration
2. Functional Training
3. The 4 Principles of Functional Training – Principle #2 Reaction vs. Injury