"The Roundtable Discussion"

"The word "functional" from what I can remember has a Physical Therapy Rehabilitation heritage. Years ago, when I saw someone in the clinic it was all about measuring the range of motion and strength like in sport training--a bench press and a sit and reach test--and never to apply those results to function. At times it may have been an insurance company, a medical doctor or a coach who was only interested in numbers and never cared about function. However, over the last decade or so this has changed and the numbers matter much less than the "function". How does one function in the home after a total hip operation? And how does an athlete function on the field or court? Which all appear to be more important than any given number.

In the past in rehab for instance, a person may have been discharged if strength was a 5/5 but a muscle grade number does not really matter, what matters is how she is functioning in her "playing environment” such as home, kitchen and bathroom. If one can’t function in those areas they will not be discharged. As for the athlete, I see it the same way. It is not always about how much you lift or how big your biceps are, but how your body functions to overcome the "bodily functions" of another athlete and the health of the functioning body.

Functional training and maintaining function of the bodily systems is truly the future in my opinion. In the years to come it will only get better as we become more creative in simulating sports with training theracises of the game and more scientific of the energy systems needed to perform, and mostly how to recover and nutritionalize the breaking down body. Also, functional training is about learning how to keep your body functioning healthy, enhancing the entire function of the body and all of it systems with control, efficiency, productivity, and safety.

In my opinion, this can be achieved with several tools. I feel we will see more Free Motion Machines, Body Weight, Bands and Ball training than ever before. Firstly, they are fun, easy, healthy, functional (mult-itask demanding and multi-dimensional), cost effective and appropriate for all athletes and for anyone who wants to improve their overall “good health function”. All of these tools don’t “fix” the body like many machines such as Cybex or Hammer Strength.  Aside from these tools becoming more popular because they allow gross compounding movements, they place healthy demands on the body (if executed properly). Also functional training is being driven by the science that has done a great job in both research and education on “HOW TO” functional train. Another force is the fitness industry advertisement terminology. I have seen us train our athletes advertising and using both the "body building" way…16 sets of static biceps curls, three times a week and the   ”power lifting" way…supine bench press, two days a week and every other week  one day of “negatives” to the present “functional training” way which is more of a "multi-task/multi-dimensional”  training way  placing more demands on all energy, nervous and musculoskeletal  systems. These tools get us out of the “fixed positions” and into  more “athletic positions” ;  more compounding integrated movements that focus on both fine and gross motor movement patterns.

John Izzo:

"I see the latest trend in fitness is group training or bootcamps. I think they can be effecient as far as training a group of people in an hour. I think they are great for building support, comardarie, and teams for others to achieve similar fitness goals. However, with the rise in bootcamps, especially in the summer months, I feel that they tend to draw away from individual attention towards the client. Well, I understand they are designed this way, but I am not in favor of "simply kicking your client's ass". I don't favor trainers acting as drill sargents and yelling at 250 lb sedentary clients and not recognizing the physiolgical effects this type of training can create. Injuries can occur through improper instruction...and let's face it, when you train 4-8 people, its hard to keep your eye on everyone--let alone give proper cvues and make sure they are followed through. It' sno wonder that every local news story I see on bootcamps by personal trainers, I alwasy notice in the footage the sloppy push-up form and the sloppy planks."

Matt Attanasio:

The trend that I see in our industry that can be a both positive or a negative is exercise videos.  How many are there? Thousands upon thousands.  Why?  Because we have a population of individuals in our country who want the next greatest exercise routine that will get “results.”  These videos are put out by so called “experts” in our field.  The positive is that it may get more people moving there bodies.  The negative is that not one routine fits everybody.   Many times the info on the dvd is outdated or poor technique is demonstrated.  Also the “expert” may not be as qualified, and I’m sure we all have seen videos that wouldn’t qualify as quality information.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m all for making money.  Especially if you have knowledge and can transfer that knowledge to people in our industry and the everyday world.
 Another positive I see is that one can get their training ideas out to the “world” and provoke new thoughts and theories. This can be profitable and educational, however, our industry is not regulated and anything can get on the market and be sold.  What we can do as qualified trainers is offer advice to these individuals out there who are buying them and hopefully they will take our advice.
 Also, we, as health care professionals and performance coaches should be aware of the latest training videos put out by our industry for our industry.  This industry that we all are in seems to be crying out for new ideas on a daily to weekly basis.  That’s why everybody is putting out a video/dvd.  Where there is a demand, then someone will take advantage of that and hopefully many of the rookies in our industry don’t get poor information in their heads about training and coaching techniques.  The words used like “Secrets” and “Do not miss out,” as well as “Ultimate” can be overdone at times as marketing phrases.  This can ultimately be costly, not only to the trainer, but, more specifically to the client who can get hurt because of these dvd’s/videos and the trainer who may inappropriately apply them.