By Christine Cunningham

(This article originally appeared in Personal Fitness Professional magazine, April 2000. Reprinted with permission.)

Personal trainers are talking about how to use it. Clients are beginning to ask for it. But just what is functional strength training? With advances in equipment design and increasingly diverse populations participating in strength training, functional strength training is rapidly evolving and attracting a lot of attention.

Functional strength training is becoming more popular because everyone needs strength simply to perform the activities of daily living (ADLs). Whether it is to lift a bag of groceries, stand up from a chair or get into a car, every task depends on functional strength for successful execution. Training specific to improving functional strength is focused on more than just improving the force-producing capacity of a muscle. It is training that enhances the working relationship between the muscles and the neurological system.

What is a Functional Exercise?
Functional strength training means performing work against resistance specifically in such a way that the strength gained directly benefits the execution of ADLs and movements associated with sports. In other words, the goal in functional strength training is to transfer the increase in strength gained in one movement to improving the performance of another movement by affecting the entire neuromuscular system. For this reason, training the movement control is as essential as training the individual muscles involved in the movement.

Hence, to improve a client’s ability to rise from a chair, squats improve lower body strength and neural control better than knee extensions and result in a higher transfer of strength from the exercise to the goal movement. For any goal movement, careful consideration of the training exercise is essential to get maximum transfer of the strength gains. The key concept for defining a functional exercise is transfer.

Research on transfer of training is extensive in the areas of motor control and learning. Various principles on how to maximize transfer have been identified and can be applied to the development of functional strength programs. Understanding the principles of transfer of training can give personal trainers the ability to design successful functional training programs that can be applied effectively to ADLs and sports.

Transfer of Training
Studies have shown that while transfer of training can occur, oftentimes the actual amount of transfer is small. Even a well-designed strength training program will lead to a limited increase in functional performance. One of the undeniable facts of human performance is the effect of specificity of practice: no one can become an expert at a movement by training only with similar movements, as repeated practice of the exact movement is required to excel.

Similarity is the primary criterion for ensuring the maximum amount of transfer, although it is difficult to determine which parts of the movement must be the same in order to foster transfer.

For strength exercises to effectively transfer to other movements, several components of the training movement need to be similar to the actual performance movement (e.g., the squat and getting up from a chair). These components are coordination, range of motion, type of contraction and speed of movement. Each component must be considered as only one piece of the entire movement. The best functional exercise to transfer is one that is essentially similar to the goal movement in all four areas.

Components to Insure Functionality
Coordination: Coordination refers to the client’s ability to coordinate the timing of contraction of all the muscles involved in the movement. For most ADLs and sport, the entire body must be coordinated to successfully perform the movement. Strength training for isolated muscle groups may not be the most effective way of increasing functional ability because of the lack of coordination training involved in isolated exercises.

For the improvements in a strength exercise to transfer, all body parts involved in the goal movement must be trained to coordinate in the movement. If you want to train the shoulders for an activity such as reaching for items in a cabinet above the head, the training has to be done standing so the legs and trunk muscles are taught to coordinate their contractions with the shoulder muscles. This is a more effective way to train for this activity than a seated exercise, such as the overhead shoulder press.

Range of motion: In general, it has been accepted that gains in muscle strength are greatest in the range of motion (ROM) through which the exercise was performed. Intuitively, then, for strength gains to transfer to another movement, the training must include a range of motion equal to or greater than the goal ROM. During training, each joint involved in the movement should progress through the same ROM as the goal movement.

Type of contraction: Also important to transfer is training which uses the same type of muscle contraction. Isotonic and isokinetic training transfer best to activities that utilize the same type of contractions. Because it is theorized that the motor control mechanism for eccentric contractions may significantly differ from those of concentric contractions, transfer may not occur here. However, it is important to use concentric (shortening), eccentric (lengthening) and isometric (stabilizing) contractions during training specific to the demands of the goal activity.

Speed of movement: Strength will transfer best to movements that are performed at the same speed as that at which the strength was gained. Research indicates that training at high speeds improves performance on dynamic movements, such as a vertical jump, better than training at slow speeds. Differences between the timing of a training movement to a goal movement are detrimental to transfer and may result in negative transfer or a decline in performance of the goal movement.

Developing a Successful Program
Trainers should develop a systematic approach to evaluating goal movements. Begin by determining which joints are involved in the movement and the role of the muscles at each joint - motion or stabilization. Next, identify the range of motion of each joint. Finally, determine the speed of contraction at which the movement is functionally executed.

You should choose the appropriate equipment to load the movement and increase strength. Free weights, medicine balls, elastic bands, tubing and plate-loaded equipment are beneficial tools. Choosing the best tool requires finding a balance between simulating the goal movement and overloading the muscles safely. When inducing muscular fatigue, compromised balance and overhead lifts with free weights are considered extremely risky.

New advances in functional strength training equipment include ground base technology plate-loaded machines. This equipment from Hammer Strength allows exercisers to train with both feet on the ground, simulating the total body coordination, core stability training and muscular involvement of many movements for maximum transfer to ADLs and sports performance while providing a stable environment for overloading muscles. Selectorized equipment also provides a stable environment, but because most machines have the user seated, this is less suitable for functional strength training unless you are simulating seated functional movements.

Trainers should teach movements with an emphasis on total body coordination before focusing on increasing loads. Because functional strength training has to teach the muscles and neurological system to react to each other as they do in everyday activities, it is essential to train clients to move as if they were performing the goal movement. Teach the initiation of movements from the legs, transfer of balance, stabilization of the trunk and control of the arms, just like they are utilized in the goal movement. Add weight slowly and without compromising the overall coordination of the movement.

Functional training is still being studied and additional components essential to the transfer of exercise and principals of teaching are being discovered. Watch for the upcoming functional strength program sponsored by Life Fitness using Hammer Strength ground base machines.

By Christine Cunningham

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Christine (CC) Cunningham MS, ATC/L, CSCS, is a specialist in athlete development. She is the owner of perform ENHANCE sports performance training in Chicago. CC is a member of the Life Fitness Academy and a published author, industry lecturer and media consultant in training and sport performance. She is currently working on her Ph.D. in Exercise Neuroscience at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Originally appeared in the December 2000/January 2001 issue of ACE Certified News, an American Council on Exercise publication.