Functional strength training: The more natural approach

What is functional strength training?

Building functional strength is all about building strength that can be applied to everyday human movement, such as lifting heavy objects, climbing and building strength that can help you perform more effectively at a given sport. 

Many people spend hours a week sweating away in the gym performing countless reps of bicep curls and assisted chest press and building little functional strength in the process. The Primal Strength method is focused on preparing the body to tackle all sorts of physical demands, not only in building a better body composition.

Functional Strength exercises 

We believe that some of the strongest people in the world are powerlifters, gymnasts, and Olympic weightlifters. Therefore it makes sense to observe what makes them so strong and see where we have apply some of what they do to our own training. 

So we take the three powerlifting exercises - squat, deadlift and bench press and use them as some of our benchmark lifts (an exercise we use to measure an increase of strength). These exercises help you build a tremendous amount of functional strength that can be applied to everyday human movement. We insist that these exercises are performed using free weights so that the stabilising muscles are equally strengthened.

Olympic weightlifters perform two main exercises in competition, the clean & jerk, and the snatch. Because these lifts involve a very fast and explosive movement, there is great potential to improve ones speed and power when practicing these exercises. The power-clean for example (which involves explosively lifting a weight from the floor into a standing position) has become a staple exercise for many Olympic sprinters.

I consider gymnasts to have the most balanced strength attributes of any athlete. Take something like the Olympic Rings which require incredible strength, core stabilisation and explosive power. I would love to have the freakish strength of a high level gymnast, but their strength comes from years of training and most gymnastics require a great deal of technique, so we are limited to what we can borrow from there training. Pull-ups, other calisthenics and bodyweight isometrics are a a great way to challenge the body and provide a ton of core stability like a gymnast. 

Compound weight lifting - Exercises that recruit three or more body parts when performing a movement and are usually a multi-joint movement. An example of this is a deadlift, which taxes the legs, back, arms and core stabilisers and involves movement at the knee and hip. Most human movement requires multiple joint movement and uses more than one muscle group at once, imagine what is required to lift a heavy object up off the ground! For this reason I prefer compound exercises to isolated exercises (a single joint or muscle exercise e.g a bicep curl). 

Programme design:

Where traditional bodybuilding workouts focus on isolating different muscle groups, our functional method is primarily based around human movement patterns, for example splitting workouts in workouts that focus on pushing movement and pulling movements separately. Separating your workouts by body part groups is fine, however I prefer to group exercises that mimic a similar movement pattern.  

Here is am example of a strength functional strength programme:

Weeks 1-2

Focus on building core stabilisation and endurance:

Workout 1 (push emphasis) -

3 x 15-21 reps of dumbbell press using 50% of 1rm (1 rep max)

3 x 12-15 standing military press using 60% of 1 rm

2 x 12 bodyweight dips

3 x 15-21 reps of a squat variation using 60% of 1rm

3 x 20 steps of walking lunges using a light weight

WOD (circuit performed back to back without rest)

6 pull-ups

15 press ups

21 air squats

30 sit-ups 

400m run 

Complete the circuit 3 times round trying to maintain a steady pace.

Workout 2 (pull emphasis)

3 x 12 back extensions using bodyweight 

21, 12, 15 kettlebell swings

3 x 12 reps of bodyweight or band assisted pull-ups

3 x 15 Standing single arm cable row 

4 point stabilisation: front plank, side planks and hip bridge all held for a minute each

WOD - exercises to be performed back to back without a break

10 Renegade rows

10 Burpees

10 Inverted rows

10 kettlebell swings

Weeks 2-3 Strength focus

Workout 1 - Push emphasis

Squat 5 x 5 reps using 85-90% of 1rm

Bench press 5 x 5 reps using 85-90% of 1rm

Dumbbell Bulgarian split squat 3 x 12 reps each leg

Dumbbell floor press 2 x 12 reps

Push press 3 x 5 reps using 85-90% of 1rm

Handstand push-ups (heels touch wall) 3 x 6-12 reps

Military press isometric hold (hold a relatively light barbell above head) 30 second hold

4 point isometric hold

Workout 2 - Pull emphasis

Deadlift 5 x 5 reps using 85-90% of 1rm

Weighted Pull-up 5 x 5 reps of 1rm

Glute ham raise or back extension for 3 x 12-15 reps

Inverted row underhand grip 3 x 12-15 reps

Isometric leg raise from pull-up bar for 5 x 5 second holds with a ten second rest between reps

Weeks 3-4 Power focus

Olympic weightlifting workouts 1

Snatch 3 x 3 reps using 80% of 1rm

Snatch grip high pull 3 x 5 reps using 75% of 1rm

Overhead squat 3 x 5 using 75% of 1rm

Olympic weightlifting workout 2

Front squat 3 x 5 using 85-90% of 1rm

Jerk 2 x 3 reps using 80% of 1rm

Push press 2 x 5 reps using 75% of 1rm

Clean & jerk 6 singles working up to 1rm

Mixed power workout 3

Back squat superset 3 x 5 reps Back squat - followed by 10 box jumps

Bench press superset 3 x 3 reps using 90% of 1rm - followed by medicine ball chest pass 10 reps

Clean high pull superset 3 x 3 - into 10 medicine ball slams

Tabata interval training - 20 sec of max effort cycling or running with 10 second rests between efforts. Repeat 8 times around