I'm not an expert but after analysing this video and all the contents , I cannot say anything because as I said in the beginning I'm not an expert . Thanks !

Don't bash functional training. When I walk into the gym and I see bosu ball squatters, I know the squat rack is free.

Goku trained with a heavy suit and he beat Freezer pretty easily.

Define functional training before you start arguing about it. The people who say they are for it and the people who say they are against it are rarely talking about the same thing.

I’m watching this thinking, “man it must suck for those people behind the white board. They can’t see anything”. It’s a mirror....

Took me 5 minutes to realize that it is a mirror behind him.

Don't bash functional training. Watching guys do lunges on a bosu ball with a 5 kg kettlebell in one hand and 10 kg kettlebel in the other is great entertainment for passing time during rest between sets.

I pretty much worshipped Mark and these guys for a long time... I still respect their content, but things changed when I became a firefighter and thought my strength training would be enough. I challenge any SSLP graduate to throw on gear, pack up and walk up a few flights of stairs with 50 feet of hose. You'll realize why "functional training" actually is REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT.

I don't know. That shake weight is certainly a most highly effective functional training method.

“How do you pick up girls?” You squat bench and you deadlift.

Nothing beats curls while doing weighted Kegels, standing on a Bosu ball. Should be the newest CrossFit Games event.

You can say functional training is not as effective as.. But you can't correctly say functional training doesn't make you stronger. Your quads don't know if you're standing on a balance board they just react to the force and effort applied to them

You need a combination of training. I learned that in wrestling and MMA. Having functional workouts allow us to build mobility and strength without putting on heavy mass. Doing strict weight lifting allows us to build explosive power. Doing both helps us become better athletes.

It looks to me like the movement pattern and skill developed here is fork to mouth.

I did P90X3 and other functional training for almost a year. I practiced speed, I practiced power, I practiced agility, I practiced balance. I gained about 10lbs and stalled out on literally everything after 6 months. I went through starting strength linear progression and then transitioned to the 4-day split. I increased my squat and deadlift by over 200lbs, bench by over 100lbs, press by 80lbs (hard time with press form). Speed came automatically, balance was better than ever, power increased on it's own, and agility came for free. During the 6 months of P90X3, I could have finished an Novice LP. Functional training wasted my time.

@startingstrength hey Mark! Want to know about your thoughts on Bilateral heavy lift restricting rotational movement as the T-spine is made to create rotational force as well ?

Was going to say that bodyweight exercises are good for learning how to move the body powerfully, or that hauling a heavy load upstairs is a good exercise/training for firefighters. The examples Rip chose were a bit cherry-picked. Still, I would like to see a study on guys who throw a 5% heavier ball for a month and see if they throw harder or have thicker tendons/ligaments.

But Rip, what about bricklayer strength!?!?

This is a story told in 9 minutes that could have taken 2 minutes.

Does this include kettlebell swings, cleans, presses?

Asking as a genuine question: Isn't strength being specific to a movement pattern the basis for greasing the groove?

Rip looks like the kind of guy who would walk into my clinic looking jacked, but having a BP of 170/95 on 3 medications.

How do you become stronger using all sagittal movements when the actions of baseball are Coronal and Horizonal planes? I am mean you twist to throw and bat(and run). What do I know?

If a man with a big fat stomach say this, I have to believe him.

If your training is helping you achieve your training goal, your training is functional.

I usually like Rip, but that first statement just seems wrong. Of course adaptation is movement-specific. You get better at deadlifts by practicing deadlifts. You get better at atlas stone carries by carrying atlas stones. Your muscles may not know the difference from a load applied by X or Y, but your ability to actually execute the movement (what I would call "strength") is absolutely dependent on the movement and how much training you have. Of course, most "functional" stuff is nonsense. But if you want to get better at X, you should practice X.

What about training explosive movements vs maximum force production?

Elite basketball players use sometimes heavier basketball for dribbling (a.k.a skills). It's not really black and white. Pull-ups are also a skill, you need to learn to control your scapulas and also do strength training but also control the body a.k.a functional training to be able to pull CLEAN. You can also attain this strength very well by deadlifting thus still need to do Pull-ups for the proper movement patterns to develop. Body awareness is also something that comes from functional training. I have seen it myself and with my clients that they tend to move better at their specific movement patterns (sports) when introducing functional training in their training regimen. It's all about the understanding of human physiology, movement and control in an environment. This is called athleticism and the more developed athleticism in various ways, the better control and connection in Any movement pattern whatsoever. My take after 20 years of playing, training and coaching. Anyways, some good points on this video still. :)

This guy preaches like he just smashed his shins doing box jumps

Training needs to be sports specific. Being a power lifter won't turn you into a gymnast or a UFC fighter. However the carry over effects of combining various activities can make a huge difference.

Where do the 30 minute butt blaster workouts you see popping up on YT fit in?

8:30 This man starts snoring while he's talking

Functional training, cardio, strength training whatever it is that you love to do just do it!!

Strong actually IS very specific to a movement pattern... A strong squatter isnt always a strong bencher.. A strong deadlifter isnt always a strong squatter.. A strong RFESS'er isnt always a strong squatter.. A strong Pendlay Rower isnt always strong at pullups.. And then theres the argument of Gymnastic strength, Strongman strength, Olympic weightlifting strength. In baseball, unilateral strength work would probably be more appropriate. Now I agree, "functional training" has gotten out of hand, and I'm a firm believe in starting strength for beginners. However, it is possible to make strength training for a sport as specific as possible, and the "Squat, Bench, Deadlift" isn't always the most appropriate.

The real question is, are we using the wrong definition for functional training? Should the definition be, Functional training is the combination of strength, conditioning, and activity specificity in a planned deliberate manner.

This video made me want to do a heavy one rep max deadlift, then eat pizza and ice cream then go to sleep for 12 hours. Have a big breakfast then go back to sleep

We talkin’ about PRACTICE.

I think he needs to clarify what he considers functional training. I consider kettlebells, weighted lunges, tire flips, and the like to be functional training. He seems to be referring to things like pitching with a heavier ball or swinging a heavy bat as a way to get better at those skills. I think he is probably right to say those exercises don't have the intended effect. I see functional training as full-body work, not practicing skills for a sport. I think everybody would agree the exercises I listed are not a waste of time.

What is the sound at 7:18

What about doing sprints & box jumps in a weighted vest. Pretty sure that will make you more explosive?

Hey Rip, bottom 3% of youtube commentors checking in. If what you're saying about functional training being a waste of time is true, then how come my squat went up 10 lbs from 165 lbs to 175 lbs, after squatting on a bosu ball with a kettlebell for 2 months?

“Functional Patterns“ triggered

Would a person ever want to train in a manner to not increase strength but potentially increase balance, hand eye coordination, reactive adjustment, endurance, stress response? I want to jump higher. Should i deadlift? Or practice jumping? Are the highest jumpers the one who deadlift the heaviest? Or is there something more specific to jumping higher that high jumpers excel at and or share in common be it physiological or psychological.

Kettlebell Russian get ups then are too useless for BJJ focus which is often advocated?

Everybody thinks the exercise routines they do are the greatest and most productive...and everybody on youtube wants to be a fitness guru...

If there wasnt a caption on this video, i would have thought this was a military seminar

So the understanding is that practicing the only 3 exercises he mentioned (one of them, press is basically only pectoralis) you get the strength needed for some sports ? Sounds kinda simplistic to me. What about training for power and speed which is practically in the courtyard of many sports ?

I'm new to the idea of Functional Training, and by no means an expert, but what he describes as Functional Training doesn't appear to be what I've read about. What he calls Functional Training sounds like what I would think of as sport specific strength training. Am I wrong?

I’m a fan of calisthenics and strength training. It’s very easy to get big while doing calisthenics you just need to be varying what you’re doing. Lots of variations of push-ups and pull-ups

Just because you can't see structural changes with your naked eye, it doesnt that there were no structural changes... at a cellular level.

if your theory is correct then the strongest man in the world should also be the fastest man in the world, also able to jump the furthest and also able to throw a ball the furthest... but there isn't because each champion in there chosen sport has functional strength that correlates with the sport, this video was so dumb

My friend do a press while standing on the fit ball...

Yeah, at 60+ I'm all for functional training. Can I walk, can I walk up the stairs, can I open a bottle. All these things aren't a problem at 64, at 74 they might be. My solution -swimming and strength training once a week. At 60+ it takes me that long to recover.Ha!

Literally the very first thing he said was wrong. Strength is absolutely specific.

Asking a question here are stabilizer muscles a real thing? I hear a lot of people talk about balance and agility movements for more sport specific training. IE Kyle Dake for wrestling and Bryson Dechambeau for Golf.

I strength train (5 x 5) 3-6x a week and crossfit 3-5x a week. one kind of cancels out the other, but i feel great.

I respect Mark, but kind of wish he had gone a little bit more in detail towards the end of his explanation. I used to train at a regular gym, typical bodybuilding program stuff. My numbers were decent in my opinion... 335 back squat, 225 bench press, 365 deadlift... I left that style of training because I wanted to do more so I started crossfit. Thankfully from my prior training I already had a good idea of proper body mechanics and what it meant to lift properly. When I was consistent in crossfit I got leaner, to the point where people could noticeably tell that i was smaller, but yet I got stronger. At my peak my back squat was 405, bench press 265, deadlift 455. And plus I had more endurance. So I wouldn't say functional training is totally worthless ,granted there are some pretty dumb stuff I see on the internet ( weird movements, bad form ect.) But I think with good coaching and proper mechanics, functional training can do a lot of good.

He is just clueless about what functional training is. Functional training is what works best for reaching a specific goal. It could be doing squats, deadlifts and bench press.

Pushing is a movement pattern, so is pulling, so is deadlifting, so is squatting. They are all movement patterns. Learning the movement pattern can help you with strength substantially since you know how properly recruit the muscles for that particular movement pattern.

I love this! Lifting improved everything in my life and made me better at any sport I competed in.

"Strength is not specific to movement pattern." Ehhh, it kind of is. That's why you list three exercises instead of one. Your bench won't help your squat, will it? Different movement, different muscles. Otherwise we could all just do one exercise and become strong all over. That's how it would work if strength were not specific to a movement pattern. "Endurance is not specific to movement pattern, although it is more specific than strength is." Contradiction. If the correlation is zero, then it's zero. Also, if there is no specificity, then something even twice as specific will still have no specificity, because zero multiplied is still zero. Furthermore, it's wrong on the very face of it. If we held a triathlon and didn't tell anybody until the start that we switched out the bicycle portion for wheelchairs, it would shake things up wouldn't it? But not if endurance weren't specific to movement pattern (except it is though). Find some twiggy marathon runner addict and ask her to hold out a weight at arm's length, she won't do it longer than some couch potato who's trained at just that for a month. Cheap speaking trick, throw out hyperbole at the beginning to make people think you've got something new and then proceed with standard material. That's after you use some needlessly technical nomenclature to make yourself sound scientific and then dumb it down more than necessary. "Now physiologic adaptation is not specific to a movement pattern, is it?" [pretends to wait for an answer to his rhetorical question] "'Strong' is not specific to a movement pattern." [Pretends to look disappointed with his audience's miniscule vocabulary, establishing dominance, lol]

7:18 what was that lol?

When a physical fitness expert tells me how to get in shape but his waist size is larger than his chest size......just sayin'

Tdah here, could someone summarize this, please ? I don't pratice sport to be an athlete but to stay healthy and exercise my balance and coordination, so I'm interested.

I wonder if the Engineers from Prometheus waste their time with functional training.

What if your sport requires agility, balance, coordination, endurance, stamina, flexibility, speed, or accuracy? 🤔

He stated that strength training produces structural changes to the body. I assume his belly is one example of it.

alguien me lo puede traducir porfavor :)

Comments here are completely missing the point of the video - this video clip is obviously aimed at strength guys - people who only want to increase their squat, deadlift, Press etc.... I'm sure the presenter would agree functional training may have a place for people with certain goals. For example, my goals are to improve strength, improve balance/proprioception, and work all the stabilizer muscles to be as prepared as possible for any random physical challenge and avoid injury. I don't care how much or little i can bench press. I want to be better at riding singletrack on bikes and motorcycles. I want to be able to save my own life If i'm hanging on the edge of a cliff. Doing these things is the best training, but thats unrealistic of course, so the second best way I can think of to train for those goals is with Functional training or crossfit .

But the thing is strong can be specific to a movement pattern, you may be very strong at Bench press but have never done a squat in your life and therefore very weak at a squat. A better example look at pro-arm wrestlers, they have immense strength in their arms mainly biceps and forearms, but can’t necessarily deadlift a lot; check the video where Devon Larratt (a pro arm wrestler) takes on Thor Bjornsson (the worlds strongest man).

"strength is not specific" I forgot about the time when my bench press raised my row

"Both accumulate a physical adaptation..." So it's not a waste of time. Why is that the title of the video?

As a senior exercise and sports science major his example of functional training (weighted baseball) does the term poor justice. Functional training encompasses the training of muscles responsible for the movement desired. For example the squat is classified as athletically functonal. Athletically lower body power generation is essentially for sprinting, football tackles exploding off the line and the list could go on. Plyometrics and different drills such as the SEMO are functional training and EXTREMELY important for athletic performance. These take advantage of strength, power, skill, agility, speed, and balance. They don't need to mimic the exact movement required is my point. Hints weighted implements are not a defining factor of function training. Just a clickbait title.

This channel has so much good info

Wouldn’t it kind of depend on how you define “functional training”? I realize the whole thing has gotten kind of silly but if a certain type of training doesn’t improve your ability to function at the desired task, then it’s not very “functional” is it?

He's wrong regarding strength and specific adaptions for the sport, Is plenty of exercises what build strength for your particular sport which then are transformable

Of course his statement about functional training is polarizing. Such a definitive statement about most anything will cause people with experience and/or knowledge about that thing to “choose sides.” This is why I think it’s always best to compare my definition of what I’m discussing to the person’s, or group’s, definition of the thing. That way I’m sure we’re talking about the same thing before I “choose a side” and present my reasons for choosing that side. What he’s labeling as “functional training” may very well be a waist of time in the context of his system. I’ve always felt that most exercise and training activities have a place in a performance program or fitness regimen. It’s just about answering the questions, “why are you doing it” and “when are you doing it,” and knowing that you don’t have to include things in a program just because they exist. New research findings are always causing fitness and performance professionals to reevaluate some of what we think we know. Categorizing things makes it easier to decide whether to implement them or omit them. I keep every “tool” I come across. May never use it, but I know where it goes in the tool chest.

its hard to believe what he says looking 6 months pregnant.

I think he’s right. I wasted time doing “golf specific” training and saw very little improvement in my swing or overall swing speed. I started doing regular strength training and saw massive improvement in my swing speed. My disagreement with him is his calling sports specific training “functional”. It is not functional. Functional training is vertical pushes and pulls, horizontal pushes and rows, squats, and hinge movement patterns, which is basically the same as OH presses, Bench, squat, and DLs he’s talking about. I do this with calisthenics but you can obviously do barbell training as well and make great gains.

Functional training can be adjusted to the sport that you are dealing with .

Damn I love these!!!!

"Physiological adaptation is not specific to a movement pattern". Doesn't this statement fly in the face of the training principle, specificity? A rel.strong bench press does not carry over to a rel.strong squat. By squatting, you develop specific adaptations to improve your ability to squat, otherwise wouldn't all lift's performances fluctuate identically regardless of the training stress? So you program cable fly, snatch and behind the neck push presses for several weeks but your performance on say the squat or deadlift doesn't improve. You're strong at x, then if another movement (y) is appreciable different to x then your relative strength of y is far below what it could be if you had trained y. Thoughts?

Aside from a waste of time, what is functional training? Is it not for recovery and maintenance, honestly want to know...

Says the guy who looks like he’s dying from inflammation (Not saying he’s not strong) But physiological adaptation exists outside of his strength training modality, it’s not like people weren’t fit before we invented exercise science hey? Like could gym bros parkour? Or like comp swim? There are many forms of physiological adaptation

Jesus, a guy with a serious gut issue talking to me about fitness.

What about rotational Kettlebell swings for golfers? You can’t build rotational strength by doing bench and squat all day...

Maybe I misunderstood but I'm of the mind that strength is specific, and skill definitely accumulates faster than strength, especially in the untrained.

What I'm curious about in regards to this topic, is how he would feel about basic calisthenics circuit, high reps, and daily. There seems to be something to high rep calisthenics, in a circuit, daily. This is like a meat and potatoes, old school version of functional training that actually works. Ive always wanted to have a old school basic barbell strength training program and a old school basic high rep calisthenics program at the same time.

Just but looking at this guy I’m not convinced. 🤣

6:46 That beard scratch sound got me all tingly

Putting it the other way around, how much harder will you really throw that ball by putting 40 kilos more on your bench? Not sure thats gonna be a lot..

Training doesn't help with physical work anyway. Most people that work physically are lean and powerful at the same time. The gym going strong men wouldn't do too well out in the field planting trees or working in construction where you need a lot of stamina and just enough strength.

Well, I'm at a loss. I always find it hard to believe a trainer with a big belly. It's just like trust a dentist with rotten teeth.

Functional training is training in multiple fields, this is very good for general fitness and allows you to do alot of things very well. You also get the advantage of it being great for long term health. Specific training is only good for that specific thing, you want to be really good at one thing then fine. Note that even in this you will train multiple parts of the body but not to the same level and would possibly leave areas out completely. My personal opinion is most people should go for functional training and not specific training, as most people don't need to do one thing very well and would benefit from a more well rounded training. I.e people who can lift a heavyweight for 10 seconds but can't run to the shop down the road and struggle to carry it back.

If your stomach ain't flat, Im here, but I really ain't listening.

I'll take head to this , I've been doing a lot of functional training since, I guess maybe I should rethink this, what he's saying kinda makes sense.

Clear and to the point! I need to become a starting strength coach 🙏

What a load of bs. Training can be specific to the sport. Also functional training can have carryover to similar skills. Furthermore, strength training is not just bench press, squat and deadlift. Who would have a better carryover to climbing, a powerlifter or a calisthenics athlete? - According to him it would sound as if the powerlifter.

I like hes voice.Its so ...relaxing.. Mr.thank you for everthing.Greatings from Serbia

The guys I heard promoting functional strength the most ended up with potentially career ending injuries. That made me skeptical of following in their footsteps.