Why do so many gyms focus on functional training during Personal Training sessions?
I agree personal should be the main point of training. Weight bearing exercise should not be neglected. CardiO work should not be neglected either. Changing it up is also important but the time tested methods are cardio and weight bearing exercises. I undersand that functional training is better for older and arthritis patients or rehab patients. Also for other special populations functional training is more appopriate. Movements involving more then one muscle groups such military press, bench press, squats and other movements are more productive.
Functional movements improve everyday life for many of my clients, from those recovering from hip and knee replacement to collegiate athletes and everyone in between. I’ve also seen powerlifters, pre- and post-natal populations, and the average everyday working stiff benefit from such exercises. When I first began using functional training in my own workouts ten or so years ago, I found that my squat, bench, dead lifts etc. improved in terms of range of motion as well as strength. I’ve never looked back.
As several others have said, ‘functional training’ is a very broad term, but I’ll assume you’re refering to exercises using little or no weights. I include those exercises using unorthodox equipment like ropes, bands, med balls & yoga balls in the ‘functional’ category as well. I agree that cardiovascular fitness and weight bearing exercises as well as flexibility training are the foundation of any great workout program, but they don’t necessarily prepare us for real life. Most clients that I’ve trained post-injury were hurt during lateral, diagonal, or rotational movements (which are difficult to replicate using traditional weight room training). By teaching them to maintain their body alignment through some of these less popular planes of motion, many can prevent re-injury. I’ve also heard of functional training refered to as “Prehab”. That is, by incorporating movements like these the risk of injury is reduced, as is the “Rehab” that said injury would require.
A client’s goals are important. If they want maximum strength and hypertrophy, I’m going to have them lifting weights at a level that’s challenging for them. However, we live in tri-planar motion, so even a person who wants to get bigger and stronger can benefit from tri-planar training.
Personally, I’ve gotten away from “functional” training because it’s so over-used and generalized. I like to use the term “triplanar” training to indicate that I’m challenging each joint in all of the planes that it stabilizes and moves. Multi-joint, multi-directional. Not as challenging from a “heavy lifting” sense, but very rich in a proprioceptive sense.
