39 The Dangers of Functional Training

The InForm Fitness Podcast

Episode 39 is inspired by the Functional Fitness Movement and for those who subscribe to the notion we should train and strengthen our bodies in ways that mimic the activities of our daily life. Adam Zickerman, Mike Rogers, and Sheila Melody discuss the dangers of participating in this form of exercise.
Joining the conversation is InForm FItness client and filmmaker David Carlson. David has produced several amazing videos for InForm Fitness: Intensity - www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ca4DoWh8A Mobile Gym - www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHXsL635i8U Testimonials: www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9cXf1R68-8 www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL6OoBRtwko
Adam mentioned in this episode that our old friend from Episode 19, Bill DeSimone, has a series of videos regarding congruent exercise: www.youtube.com/user/CongruentExercise

To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.com.
To purchase Adam Zickerman’s book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon: bit.ly/ThePowerofTen

39 The Dangers of Functional Training Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

workout, exercise, deltoid, people, lifting, inform, muscle, david, carrying, functional, joint, adam, heavy, movement, strengthen, fitness, talking, lever, weight, aware

SPEAKERS

Sheila, Tim Edwards, Mike, Adam, David

Adam 00:05

Because what people are doing in these functional training gyms is doing the things that you would do in your backyard carrying stones and weakening you and weakening a joint and compromising the joint in this very insidious way time after time workout after workout and then you go to actually do something like that in your backyard. And that's when the straw breaks. And you're thinking, Oh, I don't understand, I was preparing for this and now I get hurt. Or you get hurt in a gym before that even happens. Because the thing is when you're not doing things in a biomechanically correct way you're wearing away and you're weakening the joint and functional training is serving to to screw you up.

Sheila 00:50

Episode 39 of the inform fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman is about to begin, heyy inform nation. Thanks for joining us. I am Tim Edwards with the inbound podcasting network and a client of inform fitness. Adam, Mike and Sheila will be with us in just a minute. And they'll be joined by a longtime inform fitness client, David Carlson. The discussion today is based off of a blog post written by Adam a few years back titled gyms have become dangerous playgrounds for grownups. The blog post stems from the functional fitness movement, and for those who subscribe to the notion that we should train and strengthen our bodies in ways that mimic the activities of our daily life. So what are the dangers of participating in this form of exercise? Well, you can read the blog post for yourself at informfitness.com. And we begin the discussion right now here on the inform fitness podcast.

Adam 01:44

Yes, so you know, we talk about we talk about theory a lot, and a lot of, you know, academic things from time to time, and it's always good to just come back to, you know, where the rubber meets the road and talk to people that have actually experiencing this and this type of workout. And when we have talked about functional training in the past, and how this, you know, my opinion is that you strength train to build muscle, and then you and you do that in the safest way possible according to muscle and joint function as best as you can. And not necessarily try to mimic everyday life in the gym, which is what a lot of functional trainers are doing doing things that you kind of do in everyday life and but in the gym, you're doing with weights or extra resistance. And I've always said that that's dangerous for the joints, and the way you incorporate your life, or the way the way exercise helps you in your life is by again, safely strengthen the muscles according to its as best you can, according to its its function, and not to try to get fancy. So I was reminded of this when I was talking to David, client, longtime client, David's here with me right now. Hello, David.

David 02:59

Hi. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Sheila 03:01

Now. Now, Adam, before you bring David in as a longtime client, let's also let our audience know that David also has produced several videos for you over there on the East Coast.

Adam 03:12

Yes, David is very well aware of our workout. He's intimately aware because we he is producing videos with us. And he obviously he's getting a technical background and all this stuff, obviously in order to shoot it properly. So yeah, he's a client and he just keeps learning more and more about it. And we were having a conversation yesterday about how he was doing some work in his backyard, and all this kind of stuff. And it made me think exactly of the point we've been making all this time about separating everyday life activities, and not necessarily trying to mimic those activities in the gym. And David is pretty much living proof of how this works and is based on what he was telling me yesterday, that current prompted me to invite him here today with us. So David, tell us what you were talking about yesterday.

David 04:01

So I have this house in Pennsylvania. And it's really great because I think this I you know, I do yard work. The one thing that I keep on, I'm reminded all the time of how effective this workout is. So last week I was in in Pennsylvania and I was harvesting I don't know these big stones to make these paths stones on my property and they're probably like 50 65 pounds each. They're pretty heavy. And I know that you know I'm in pretty good shape because I've been doing this workout for probably about four and a half years. But still something like that. You know, it really it made me think like you got to be really careful about this because you're picking up a big piece of stone from the ground, you're lifting it up your back isn't you know, could be in real trouble. But of course because I do this work now I'm actually even more focused on these kinds of things when they come into my world. So, you know, I like held my stomach and I picked it up and I did this all day and it was like I could do it but it was really really they were really really difficult. At the end of the day when I had the stones laid out I thought to myself, you know I'm really lucky I do this work workout because If I had not done this workout, I think this whole day would have killed me, you know, just just laying out those stones. And the funny thing about it the end of the day, I was a little sore, because it was a little awkward, you know, the, the positions I were in was in a couple of times, and, and I felt it, but I didn't feel destroyed. And I thought to myself, Man, if I had done this,...