3 functional training lies, and how they're sabotaging your results

Functional training has become a major trend in health and fitness. It tends to promote a few very problematic 'truths' - which are keeping a lot of people in pain, lacking results, and spinning their wheels.

Here's the 3 big lies functional training promotes, which damage your results:

Functional trainers love to make things unecessarily difficult to load

1. "This exercise/movement is functional"

The lie:

The word 'functional' relates to something having a specific purpose. So 'functional' training means it is being done for a specific reason.

Therefore, anything can be functional, as long as we have a goal. Bicep curls are functional for bodybuilders. Deadlifts are functional for powerlifters, or anyone who wants a strong back.

Instead, functional training tells us that there are a specific magic set of exercises that everyone should do. Many of these involve unnecessary complexity and rigid ideas on what technique is acceptable. They also tend to utilise things like bands and unstable surfaces, which affect our ability to add weight and tax our muscles (the whole point of being in the gym).

How it affects you:

By only doing what you've been told are the 'right' exercises, you are robbed of being able to pick exercises that excite you and align most optimally with your goals. Many of the 'correct' exercises are inherently unstable and difficult to load in the long term, meaning your strength and muscle gains will suffer.

A false dichotomy

2. "Functional training prevent injuries"

The lie:

There is no way you can 100% prevent injury. No matter if you're a coach potato or an elite athlete, unfortunately shit is going to happen every now and then.

Most injuries occur as a result of loading beyond what the tissue can tolerate. Hence why jumping off a bridge will break your legs almost 100% of the time, but walking won't.

It then follows that the best way to reduce our risk of injury is to

1) get strong

2) not do too much.

How it affects you:

By following functional advocates, you'll end up avoiding the positions you're weak in, so you'll be much more likely to get hurt.

Both can be appropriate and safe, depending on the goal and the load used.

3. "Perfect form and symmetry is very important"

The lie:

The right form depends on who you are and what your goals are. For a bodybuilder, super deep squats with a lot of knee flexion are important to hit the quads as hard as possible. For powerlifters, breaking parallel and using the technique that maximises their strength is going to be the best form for them. There is no universal 'perfect form' for all people and goals.

Additionally, optimising technique once it's already 'good enough', pales in importance to things that functional trainers often omit discussing such as consistency, progressive overload, food and sleep.

As for symmetry, you have a heart on one side of your body. You probably have a dominant eye and hand. You also probably have one leg longer than the other. There is nothing symmetrical about humans, or high performers. The implication is that symmetrical movement and posture means better performance and lower injury risk. Yet we don't actually have research to back that up.

How it affects you:

Chasing the perfect technique, and trying to move in a way that doesn't suit your body, is a great way to derail your progress and spend time on a lot of stuff that probably won't significantly improve your results.