1.) If your sport requires you to spend most of your time sitting or lying down, then you should sit or lie down in training. If your sport requires you to be on your feet, you should spend most of your training time on your feet.
2.) Functional movement begins at your core and then moves out to your limbs. If the movement doesn’t generate most of it’s power at the core, it’s not functional.
3.) Functional movement must improve your ability to run, jump, climb, throw, punch or play your sport. Doing the pec deck fly at your local gym does none of these.
4.) Functional training should spend some time at the duration and intensity of the sport. If you cage fight for three-five minute rounds, it would be effective to do intense functional training in three five-minute rounds. Going for a slow sixty minute run has nothing to do with training for your sport at all if you fight for three five-minute rounds.
5.) Mix up your functional movements. If you are a wrestler, you need to push, pull, and squat in the course of a match. Training should include all of those at the same time. Doing circuits of pushups, pull-ups and squats is more like the actual demands of your sport than doing bench press one day and pullups the next. Have you ever had a wrestling match where you only needed strength in one direction?
6.) Training should be intense. Most sports require intensity their performance. Training should mimic that intensity.
7.) Intense workouts cannot be long workouts.
8.) Your body adapts when it rests. When you workout, workout hard. Then when you rest, rest completely. If you’ve hit a plateau, you’re probably overtrained.
9.) If you try to mimic the actual movements of your sport during weight training, you are going to fuck up your skill training. Skill training for your sport and weight training are totally different things and you should train them separately.
10.) Variation is your friend. Deadlifts, swings, snatches, and push presses are all “the same but different”. They all build on each other synergistically, and doing all of them trains your body to adapt it’s strength to different situations, and reduces the chances of overuse injuries.
10.5) Functional traning is hella fun. Try it and you’ll be stoked.
By Josh Hillis
National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer
Russian Kettlebell Challenge Certified Instructor
Russian Kettlebell Challenge Combat Applications Specialist
CrossFit Level II Trainer
and
currently studying National Academy of Sports Medicine Sports Fitness Specialist
www.joshsgaragedenver.com
© Joshua Hillis 2005
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