h time you reach above your head to put something away or get something down you are performing a press. The clean and jerk is a combination of a deadlift and press; it represents picking something up off the floor and placing it in/on a shelf above your head. Wouldn’t you like your training program to not only improve your appearance but also your efficiency and effectiveness in your day to day life? I know I would. This type of training also has a profound impact on general physical preparedness or GPP. GPP represents your ability to readily adapt to any given situation. This is unbelievably empowering as it allows you to explore the capacities of the human body. If you decide to take up kayaking, mountain biking, or tennis, you will be physically prepared and able to do so. IncreaseFunctional fitness is a method of training that not only improves strength, endurance, and body composition, but also functional capacity. Ok, I’ll admit it; my definition is about as vague as the phrase itself. Bear with me and I’ll try to explain more clearly. To me, fitness represents the optimal state of a human being. It is characterized by strength, endurance, flexibility, power, stamina, and optimal body composition among other factors. Functional is a term that refers to real-world applicability.

Based on these definitions, it should be blatantly obvious that the average approach to training is woefully lacking on both counts. Most training programs focus on only a few attributes of fitness to the detriment of all others and have very little functional value. An example would be the trainee who runs on a treadmill for an hour 3 times a week and does high rep resistance work on a machine once a week. Both cardiovascular and muscular endurance are being improved, but strength and power have been left to the wayside. This type of training also guarantees loss of muscle mass which results in lowered basal metabolic rate (metabolism) and as a result body composition is negatively effected. The program has next to no functional worth because it does not carry over into the trainees day to day activities. This is in large part due to the resistance work being done on machines rather than with free weights. The machines lock the human body into unnatural movement patterns and attempt to segment the body into individual pieces. Movements like cable crossovers and tricep push downs are never replicated in real life. To top things off, this type of training is incredibly monotonous and boring! A program geared toward functional fitness might have the trainee training a total of 3 times per week. Each session would feature a different combination of one or more of the following: bodyweight movements, compound free weight exercises, and intense yet brief bouts of cardio. The variation in the program keeps things fun, exciting, and challenging. Sets and reps would be varied so there would be increases in both muscular strength and endurance. Properly executed explosive movements like the Olympic lifts (clean and jerk/snatch) would give way to unprecedented power. Cardio would be approached from an interval perspective, which would improve both aerobic and anaerobic energy systems, and consequently cardiovascular endurance.

The high intensity short duration workouts, including a warm-up and cool-down, would only take around 30-45 minutes; yet they would burn large amounts of calories and elevate metabolic rate for hours after the workout had finished. On top of all this, the program would be extremely functional due the exercises and movements; squats, push-ups, deadlifts, pull-ups, presses, and clean and jerk to name a few. You have to squat to get on and off your couch, or toilet for that matter. A push-up is nothing more than a means of getting off the floor. Whenever you pick up anything from the ground you are performing a deadlift. If you’ve ever climbed a tree or had to surmount some object you’ve done a pull-up. Each time you reach above your head to put something away or get something down you are performing a press. The clean and jerk is a combination of a deadlift and press; it represents picking something up off the floor and placing it in/on a shelf above your head. Wouldn’t you like your training program to not only improve your appearance but also your efficiency and effectiveness in your day to day life? I know I would. This type of training also has a profound impact on general physical preparedness or GPP. GPP represents your ability to readily adapt to any given situation. This is unbelievably empowering as it allows you to explore the capacities of the human body. If you decide to take up kayaking, mountain biking, or tennis, you will be physically prepared and able to do so. Increased

ould be the trainee who runs on a treadmill for an hour 3 times a week and does high rep resistance work on a machine once a week. Both cardiovascular and muscular endurance are being improved, but strength and power have been left to the wayside. This type of training also guarantees loss of muscle mass which results in lowered basal metabolic rate (metabolism) and as a result body composition is negatively effected. The program has next to no functional worth because it does not carry over into the trainees day to day activities. This is in large part due to the resistance work being done on machines rather than with free weights. The machines lock the human body into unnatural movement patterns and attempt to segment the body into individual pieces. Movements like cable crossovers and tricep push downs are never replicated in real life. To top things off, this type of training is incredibly monotonous and boring! A program geared toward functional fitness might have the trainee training a total of 3 times per week. Each session would feature a different combination of one or more of the following: bodyweight movements, compound free weight exercises, and intense yet brief bouts of cardio. The variation in the program keeps things fun, exciting, and challenging. Sets and reps would be varied so there would be increases in both muscular strength and endurance. Properly executed explosive movements like the Olympic lifts (clean and jerk/snatch) would give way to unprecedented power. Cardio would be approached from an interval perspective, which would improve both aerobic and anaerobic energy systems, and consequently cardiovascular endurance.

The high intensity short duration workouts, including a warm-up and cool-down, would only take around 30-45 minutes; yet they would burn large amounts of calories and elevate metabolic rate for hours after the workout had finished. On top of all this, the program would be extremely functional due the exercises and movements; squats, push-ups, deadlifts, pull-ups, presses, and clean and jerk to name a few. You have to squat to get on and off your couch, or toilet for that matter. A push-up is nothing more than a means of getting off the floor. Whenever you pick up anything from the ground you are performing a deadlift. If you’ve ever climbed a tree or had to surmount some object you’ve done a pull-up. Each time you reach above your head to put something away or get something down you are performing a press. The clean and jerk is a combination of a deadlift and press; it represents picking something up off the floor and placing it in/on a shelf above your head. Wouldn’t you like your training program to not only improve your appearance but also your efficiency and effectiveness in your day to day life? I know I would. This type of training also has a profound impact on general physical preparedness or GPP. GPP represents your ability to readily adapt to any given situation. This is unbelievably empowering as it allows you to explore the capacities of the human body. If you decide to take up kayaking, mountain biking, or tennis, you will be physically prepared and able to do so. Increase

d tricep push downs are never replicated in real life. To top things off, this type of training is incredibly monotonous and boring! A program geared toward functional fitness might have the trainee training a total of 3 times per week. Each session would feature a different combination of one or more of the following: bodyweight movements, compound free weight exercises, and intense yet brief bouts of cardio. The variation in the program keeps things fun, exciting, and challenging. Sets and reps would be varied so there would be increases in both muscular strength and endurance. Properly executed explosive movements like the Olympic lifts (clean and jerk/snatch) would give way to unprecedented power. Cardio would be approached from an interval perspective, which would improve both aerobic and anaerobic energy systems, and consequently cardiovascular endurance.

The high intensity short duration workouts, including a warm-up and cool-down, would only take around 30-45 minutes; yet they would burn large amounts of calories and elevate metabolic rate for hours after the workout had finished. On top of all this, the program would be extremely functional due the exercises and movements; squats, push-ups, deadlifts, pull-ups, presses, and clean and jerk to name a few. You have to squat to get on and off your couch, or toilet for that matter. A push-up is nothing more than a means of getting off the floor. Whenever you pick up anything from the ground you are performing a deadlift. If you’ve ever climbed a tree or had to surmount some object you’ve done a pull-up. Each time you reach above your head to put something away or get something down you are performing a press. The clean and jerk is a combination of a deadlift and press; it represents picking something up off the floor and placing it in/on a shelf above your head. Wouldn’t you like your training program to not only improve your appearance but also your efficiency and effectiveness in your day to day life? I know I would. This type of training also has a profound impact on general physical preparedness or GPP. GPP represents your ability to readily adapt to any given situation. This is unbelievably empowering as it allows you to explore the capacities of the human body. If you decide to take up kayaking, mountain biking, or tennis, you will be physically prepared and able to do so. Increase

obic and anaerobic energy systems, and consequently cardiovascular endurance.

The high intensity short duration workouts, including a warm-up and cool-down, would only take around 30-45 minutes; yet they would burn large amounts of calories and elevate metabolic rate for hours after the workout had finished. On top of all this, the program would be extremely functional due the exercises and movements; squats, push-ups, deadlifts, pull-ups, presses, and clean and jerk to name a few. You have to squat to get on and off your couch, or toilet for that matter. A push-up is nothing more than a means of getting off the floor. Whenever you pick up anything from the ground you are performing a deadlift. If you’ve ever climbed a tree or had to surmount some object you’ve done a pull-up. Each time you reach above your head to put something away or get something down you are performing a press. The clean and jerk is a combination of a deadlift and press; it represents picking something up off the floor and placing it in/on a shelf above your head. Wouldn’t you like your training program to not only improve your appearance but also your efficiency and effectiveness in your day to day life? I know I would. This type of training also has a profound impact on general physical preparedness or GPP. GPP represents your ability to readily adapt to any given situation. This is unbelievably empowering as it allows you to explore the capacities of the human body. If you decide to take up kayaking, mountain biking, or tennis, you will be physically prepared and able to do so. Increase

h time you reach above your head to put something away or get something down you are performing a press. The clean and jerk is a combination of a deadlift and press; it represents picking something up off the floor and placing it in/on a shelf above your head. Wouldn’t you like your training program to not only improve your appearance but also your efficiency and effectiveness in your day to day life? I know I would. This type of training also has a profound impact on general physical preparedness or GPP. GPP represents your ability to readily adapt to any given situation. This is unbelievably empowering as it allows you to explore the capacities of the human body. If you decide to take up kayaking, mountain biking, or tennis, you will be physically prepared and able to do so. Increased GPP removes the limitations most people place on themselves by following a sedentary lifestyle or allowing themselves to fall prey to health and fitness dogma.

Let’s recap what we’ve learned:

Training programs based on functional fitness are superior to “standard” training programs for many reasons including, but not limited to:
*Their ability to improve all parameters of fitness without sacrifice.
*Their beneficial effect on body composition (less body fat, more muscle).
*Their ability to carry over into the real world and improve functional capacity.
*Their ability to increase GPP and provide physical freedom.
*Their short duration and regular variation.
*The fact that they are fun!

In other words, by adopting a program based on functional fitness, you will be decreasing your investment (time), but increasing your return (improved fitness and function). You will also be opening the door to a world of possibilities that may have never existed for you. The question is – do you want to be functionally fit? In the next article I will introduce an amazing fitness program based on functional fitness that can be accessed free of charge! Stay tuned.