Functional Fitness Considerations

The big thing in the fitness industry over the last couple of years has been to jump on the “functional fitness” bandwagon. Bootcamp, P90X and Crossfit style workouts have soared in popularity emphasising as they do “big-bang” exercises like Olympic lifts, tyre flips, kettle bells etc, etc. These are all great things, compound lifting, training movements rather than muscles and the integration of core strength are all laudable goals and things I can get behind with just one little caveat: It must be suitable for the intended recipient of the exercise program.

The functional nature of such exercise programs is both their best and most dangerous feature for the exerciser. It is precisely because these movements require such a high degree of coordination of joint movements and core stabilisation that you get a lot out of them if you can do them correctly. It’s also precisely why they can cause so much damage if you can’t. A problem with the sequencing of the muscular coordination or an imbalance in the relative strength of the muscles working together places huge stress on the joints in action and can lead to some nasty chronic injuries, let alone the propensity for acute injury.

A good example of such an issue would be the over-head squat:




It is a fantastic functional exercise when it’s done well. It promotes strength throughout the body with demands on the stabiliser and movement mechanisms. All good things.

However; if you have a sub-optimal restriction in the amount of extension your Thoracic vertebrae can move through it will have the affect of limiting how tall you can stand (keep your chest up) during the squat. You are still going to have to keep the bar over-head though so what is your body going to do? It’s going to hyper extend the shoulder causing the humeral head to compress the anterior capsule of the glenohumeral joint. This causes wearing away of the connective tissue and leads to inflammation and pain in the short term and arthritis in the long term. Not so functional!

The solution is obvious when you see it like that; you firstly promote the appropriate range of motion in the spine to allow it to take it’s fair share of the load sparing the shoulders. Tightness in the Thoracic spine is one of the most common issues that we see in the clinic. I’d estimate almost 70% of all the people we see have sub-optimal thoracic extension, which isn’t surprising given the amount of time we spend seated. So it isn’t that big a leap to assume that 70% of the population as a whole and 70% of all those people on “functional fitness” programs also have some problem with thoracic extension. And that is just ONE THING that can cause problems, there are as many potential injury causing imbalances as there are movements and that’s a lot!

The answer is what we like to call “corrective exercise”. This is helping the body get to a position of function where everything is in balance and works in harmony to execute movements with strength and stability. It’s the foundation of any well thought out exercise program and yet is often overlooked or skipped over in the false belief that it’s the harder, bigger, faster exercises that will get the results. Don’t fall into the trap of building your castle on the sand, lay strong foundations and go from strength to strength.

Neil and Sam specialise in the holistic approach to fitness and are expert in combining corrective massage and exercise to achieve fantastic results and set people up for a lifetime of pain-free, enjoyable health and fitness.