Functional Training
Functional: (Webster's Encyclopedia)
Capable of operating or functioning; capable of serving the purpose for which it was intended
Functional Training: (Wikipedia)
A classification of exercise which involves training the body for the activities performed in daily life.
Proprioception: (New World Encyclopedia)
One’s sense of the relative position of neighboring body parts in space.
Initially developed by therapist, functional training attempts to use exercises which allow you to
perform the activities of daily life more easily and without injuries. When we humans move, we are
generally standing, kneeling or crawling. When we are not moving, we are sleeping, unconscious or
deceased. Our specific movements involve deceleration, acceleration and stabilization.
The majority of exercises should be done standing, but attention should be paid to development of
the key stabilizer groups in the deep abdominals (transversus abdominis and internal oblique), the
hip abductors and rotators, and the scapula stabilizers. They can rapidly atrophy after an injury.
Some single-joint, apparently “nonfunctional” exercises may in fact play a critical role in helping to
strengthen these "weak links". This is one of the paradoxes of functional training.
Functional training can be a great supplement to a well-designed strength program. However, it
should never take the place of a structured strength training routine.
Brief history of the “Medicine Ball”
Medicine ball training was first referenced in Persia nearly 3000 years ago. Wrestlers trained with
sand filled bladders. The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates made his patients throw them for
injury prevention and rehabilitation.
In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the so-called "Four Horsemen of
Fitness" were the dumbbell, the Indian club, the wand and the medicine ball.
The Kneeling Power Ball Toss is currently part of the SPARQ (Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction and
Quickness) Rating system.