Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 036: Functional Training or Cirque du Soleil?

Episode Date: March 2, 2015

Do you do barbell squats on a bosu ball? Do your workouts include exercises on wobble boards and squishy pads? If so, is there a benefit to including this type of "functional training" in your routine? Sal, Adam and Justin tackle functional training and reveal whether it will improve your results or if it is just a great way to prepare for a job with the circus.

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, hop, mind, hop with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Alright, welcome back to Mind Pump, the awesome fitness comedy show, brought to you by Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. And today a lucky listener is going to have me come to their house and cook them some pasta sauce. Because of... Fungulo.

I didn't know you spoke Italian. I just swear to you. That's a lot. That's fucking great. So let me tell you guys what I saw the other day online. It was a meme or as Adam calls them Mimi. Mimi! Hey guys, I saw this Mimi this morning.

He calls himself a fuck. Guys, it's so cute. Guys, did you guys see the Mimi I made? I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? No, no, it's a Mimi. I'm like, Mimi. You mean you made a Mimi? A mean, a mean.

It's spelled Mimi. Or I say it. Or a Mem. A Mem. So here's what I saw. So I'm a Mimi of a dude doing barbell squats. Not a big deal. but he was standing on a Fisial ball. Oh yeah. Oh, great idea. Makes a lot of sense. I thought maybe we talked a little bit about.

I thought we talked a little bit about functional training. Or core training, right? Functional. How people can get like even more stupid on a day. So this is this is such a good topic because okay, I have to say I'm partially guilty of some of this. You've done squats on a physiopathy? I have not gotten to that level. Please don't know that. I have not gotten to that level of ridiculousness. Okay. But I used to do a lot more training on the physiopathy than probably what I needed to do.

This was back when you were training for some days. And if I sold you thousands of dollars of personal training in the past, off of this, I'm sorry, and this is why, okay, here's the deal, and here was my pitch, okay? You're transverse abdominis, you're core muscles, okay, your core muscles are the most important muscles in your body besides your heart.

Obviously without your heart, you're dead, okay? But that being said, if it's the most important muscles in your body, then focusing on it while you train is becomes huge, in comparison to anything else. So if I'm going to do just a normal bench press, why would I just do a normal bench press when I could do a dumbbell press, office stability ball, I create more calories expenditure because my body's having to stabilize on this ability and balance and I'm incorporating 28 different muscles. Yes, so I used to do this. Adam Adam, I want to buy 20 sessions right now.

With that, with that, turn you into a fat firm. Let's just take that theory to the next level. Well, why don't you just do some fucking presses. Me and my friends are going to randomly punch you in the face and you don't realize what's going on. You know how many muscles you'll be using? Knowing if you're gonna eat you know what? I think there are any coin that muscle confusion. Muscle confusion. Yeah. I love that term. So that being said that I was at K. I think we both are all three of us know now that the science behind it is it supports the idea of us actually just doing some good old school deadlifts or squatting. You're going to get far more benefits, core stabilization wise than you will ever by standing on a

Bo Su ball. So, but I also believe that there is some there's places for it and there's there's things that are positive about that. So if you have somebody who has a really hard time engaging their core, putting them on a Bo Su ball, sitting, maybe doing curls or presses or something like that forces them into upright posture because in order to stabilize on the ball, they have to stand up, right? They have to erect their spine, contract their core muscles in order to hold themselves and stay with them. Yeah, what are they finding now? Wasn't there a study about standing on top of a bosew ball and what that does to your ankles.

Oh yeah, so your ankles are inverted now and now you're creating another deviation by what you're trying to fix or what you're trying to progress in your core. So yeah, no doubt, it's retarded. Well, here's what the rationale comes from. The rationale comes from the fact that if you're gonna sit on this unstable surface

or lay on this unstable surface, muscles have to activate to keep you balanced. Is this true? Yes. It is true. However, just activating muscles does not mean that they're going to work in a functional way in everyday life. I'll give you an example.

I could hook you up to an electronic stem machine. You know the ones that you go to the physical therapist and they put you on the little thing that pulses your muscles? Just put those all over your fucking body and now you're... It's a lot of stress. All kinds of muscle activation. Right, and what ends up happening is your muscles get really good at that one specific movement and your body is very specific with this adaptation. So if you get really strong on a physioball chest press, then you get really strong at a

physioball chest press. The carryover is actually less than if you did a heavy bench press. Mainly because the bench press, you're going to add a lot more weight and strength than you would on the physiological. Does that mean that there isn't a place for stuff, you know, the balance stuff? You know, yes, there's a place for it, but it's a small place. I don't think it should be the foundation or, you know, the base of your place. Let me ask you as this. So, and here's how I train myself now, because I do find there, there is a place for it. But if it's replacing something that is truly more functional, like a deadlift or an overall

squat or something like that, then I don't think there's a place for it. But if you can fit it into your program where maybe you do an exercise or workout that is an unstable environment, whether you're having to balance on what you're setting one unstable to stable or situation like that. Or that, yeah. I've done that before. Yeah, we're one exercise. So maybe you're doing a bench press and then you superset it and you go right over to like I'll do this on the foam roll.

I'll lay down on the foam roll and bring it in a narrow stance. So actually I'm on a roll and it's going to do my chest flies. So I'll do flies right after I do like a heavy bench or a heavy incline press, and then I'll do something like that. But it's normally one exercise at best that I'm incorporating into my research. What's funny is we saw the evolution of this

because we all started in the fitness industry before any of this shit. And then it came onto the scene and it was fucking everywhere. Every trainer was balancing on wobble boards and people were standing on one leg and they were doing physio ball, everything and they were bozo balls and you know squishy pads and all kinds of crazy stuff. And then everything turned into stand on the sun stable surface while you do curls or stand on the squishy pad while you do shoulder press. Right. It definitely exploded and people went crazy with it as far as

even trainers like training their clients. And I remember, I remember just seeing some really crazy stuff that other people would come in and start doing where I saw a guy actually balancing and doing a handstand on top of a dumbbell. And this isn't like up, up, down, upwards and downwards kind of like. So it's vertical.

It's on the belt. It's actually horizontal. So he's holding on to it so it could roll. Yeah. And he's doing a handstand on it. He's doing a handstand. That's impressive. That's great. I mean, that's very impressive. Do you take that back to your Cirque d'Acele? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And then I don't want to watch you watch you break your so I blame the first phase of nerdy trainers in the last decade or so decade and a half Why are you looking at me when you say nerdy because you're one of the nerdy ones? I'm blaming right now actually you wouldn't be so like this But it's a lot of these trainers that got in doctrine by when it first came up because like you said we were we were around before this before

Freakins the building balls there are bands and all all these great fitness tools that now are all over the place. So, and obviously people were in phenomenal shape before all this existed, so it's not like necessary to get there. But then when it came out, you know, all it takes is a few studies that prove the benefits of it that show this, just like I said, that was my pitch, right?

Let's, if you were to stand, okay, compare standing somebody and you're just straight bicep curling with the street bar And then you do that about do the exact same way everything exactly the same only now you're standing on one leg We could sit here and we could debate all day that I could tell you that you're burning more calories and more fat by standing on one leg Then you perhaps or perhaps not right because the force that you're using is lower. Yeah, yeah You know, I for people who are gonna argue because there's still people out there that debate this and say, no, the stability training's awesome, you know, standing on unstable surfaces is great.

Here's my evidence, okay. Let's just go back to the basics. Something that we know a lot about, barbells and dumbbells, right? We know a lot about barbells and dumbbells. If you had to pick, barbells are dumbbells. If you had, I'm not saying you should, but if you did, if you had to pick, barbells are dumbbells. If you had not, I'm not saying you should, but if you did, if you had to choose one or the other

just to build sheer strength and muscle, which one will build more muscle? Barbells or dumbbells? Dumbbells. Barbells. Barbells. Really, I was your... Yeah, tell me why you think barbells.

Well, what's your grip? What's your theory on this? Well, it's just a load. The load, and you know, and I think most people will agree, you were supposed to agree with me. No, I did. I was trying to, I was trying to figure out how you, how you put that together

because I would think if, so okay. So you're, because you're saying that you can load Mark because if you were to tell me, like, do dumbbell, if you do dumbbells, versus barbell dumbbells. If you did 300 pounds with a barbell deadlift and then you did 150 pound dumbbells in each hand deadlift. You can't tell me that the barbell is...

Barbell. Barbell will typically build more muscle. The mass builders are usually barbells, the barbell exercises, because you can load it up more. Who knows? I think that's part of it, but really we don't know what it is, but we do know that barbell exercises. If I give someone a barbell to bench, they're going to get stronger faster typically than dumbbells.

It could be the control factor. I think instability is important to a point, which is why machines are not as effective as free weights, but I think once you go past a certain point, you get diminishing returns. That's the point I'm trying to make. I get where you're going with it. And more stability wise, you don't really want to load a lot of weight in those types of situations, right? So that's, I think that's another point that like,

you know, you don't want to stress out, you don't want like, say it's the show, is you don't want to stress out the show, is by adding more load, whereas you could with a barbell, and where you evenly distribute the force. Right. So now you have to like, you know,

you have to compensate for that, you know, one versus the other, whereas both simultaneously, you're going to be able to, well, how about the argument though that I would say that I, I'm having to stabilize 150 pound dumbbells. And so the amount of stabilizer muscles and recruitment that I'm going to get to stabilize this dumbbell in comparison to the dumbbells. But you're still going to have to drop and wait. And that's the also. Okay. So I agree here. So I agree that if you're, if you're comparing just in general, but if you're, if you're comparing exactly the same weight, then I would, I would debate it the other way. I would, if you told me three

hundred pounds, very rarely, hundred pounds, very rarely can anybody do the same way. Yeah. Okay. So I agree there. So we can agree on that. But if you're in comparison though, I think, I mean, I definitely know, and I can speak from experience where, you know, when I switch over to my dumbbell chest press, and I start working a lot of dumbbell work, then I go back to my barbell, I see some really great.

Right, right. And that's of course the variation, you know, changing the exercise. I think it's like supplemental. Like, I mean, it's how I look at dumbbells and and well, even kettlebells for the most part too, because it's it loads differently. So you're, you're actually, well, you're trying to you're trying to basically compensate for the way that the forces are, well, it loads differently. It's lower on you. Yeah, the dumbbells behind your arm

or in front of your arm or in front. So the weight is away from you that levers longer. And the science is a little bit loose on that. I know they've done some studies on, like, say, for instance, one of them, I saw was for sandbags. And so sandbags, they were trying to make a case that whether or not it was more efficient to use a sandbag versus like dumbbells and doing like a basic sort of farmer walk with that.

And they were showing that basically because of the way that like the massive it had, basically, it was out wide enough to where not necessarily that you're having to compensate because of the weight shifted or anything, it was just that it was more mass and so it had more surface area. Your body actually, like your pecs and your arms actually had to contract more to help and contribute to that. With the sandbags or with the sandbags. It's just different surface area.

So you actually utilize different muscles in the left when you have different types of objects that you're moving. And so that's why it's important to, what was the conclusion of the article? Is it better or what this with the sandbags versus the dumbbells, which one is more effective or? Well, basically what they they mounted it to is that it was different. So you got a different stimulus.

Ultimately, that's what it breaks down to. I think like we're talking about with functional, quote unquote, functional training, is it's not that you should never do it, but the foundation, the core of your workout should be your basic, you know, barbell dumbbell lifts. And then you can supplement with all these different things and get great results.

But I think, especially in fitness, we have a real bad habit of a new technique coming out. And then it becomes like, the B-all and all, like, oh, fuck, wait, man. All I do is I use bands on the physical. I mean, I have not seen so much warrior ropes since... All the battle ropes. The battle ropes are like, they've been around forever

and then just because they've become trendy, and I don't know if it's like MMA. Yeah, it was MMA or whatever. Yeah, MMA is really involved with conditioning. So I think that's why they adopted that one. Yeah, and MMA is all about or you know competing in In wrestling. I mean, I was a grappler for a long time and you're looking at being able to output energy on a high energy for a certain period of time. So, three minutes. And for anybody who's ever wrestled, you know, if you've ever wrestled your friend or you've never did in high school or whatever, you know how exhausting that can be.

And so, the conditioning is very different than, say, even boxing or basketball football or just lifting weights, just to build muscle. You need to be able to train specifically for your particular sport. So, you know, so with functional training, I think if you add that to your routine, that's fine, but I think the foundation your routine should be the barbell demos. And that's the revolution I'm starting to see. I'm starting to see, we've talked about this. I'm starting to see more people deadlift and squat and clean.

And I think that's awesome. And you know what I'm seeing now? It's a great trend. I'm seeing more muscular people. Whereas before, there was a few muscular people, and then everybody else was just like, whatever. I'm seeing more like dudes and chicks working out that look pretty impressive,

because, and I watch them and they're hanging out at squat rack doing all kinds of, you know, those basic lifts. I love that trend. In the 15 years plus that I've been working out, I have never seen the utilization of squat racks like I have in the last three years. I have to wait for a squat rack.

I've never had to wait for a squat rack. The other day, dude, I was sitting, I was like, I can't believe I'm doing this right now. I can't believe I'm actually sitting in a waiting, I'm in the gym and I'm waiting to work out because I was like, I had this whole idea of what I wanted to do that it was surrounded out, squat and deadlift, somebody, Tim of all the days that wanted to do. It was surrounded on squats and deadlifts. I'm like, Tim, of all the days that I just,

and we got six squat racks at our gym. You know what, we're fucking that up right now by telling people, okay, this is what you do. Yeah, this is what you go to the gym. You should do the leg extensions, machines and stability balls all day long. Leg extensions and you feel the doggy kicks. Yeah, and that's popular right now.

That builds your glutes more than that of your squats. So I think it's important to point out too, that when popular right now. That builds your glutes more than that. More glutes spots by silky kicks. So I think it's important to point out too, that when we're talking about, we're cracking on functional training a bit, it's what gets labeled as functional training that I think we're cracking on more than functional training. Yeah, because what's real,

what is functional training? That's really exactly. Yeah, I believe in multi-planar lunges, I believe in doing things in different planes. That's functional to me. Doing things that with weights that is challenging for you in different types of planes because our body moves in all different types of planes. Well, I think the real definitive factor is that it amounts to you moving efficiently and

moving and being aware of your space in your body so that proprioception I want to be aware of my what a great word myself. Yeah, it's a great word because it it just helps to kind of define like Okay, now I'm more aware like I'm in control of my body I can I can be efficient in my movement patterns But you know, I want to apply strength by by adding these foundational lifts I mean the way I've always explained it to people when people have asked me as it said foundation up but I wanna apply strength by adding these foundational lifts. I mean, the way I've always explained it to people when people have asked me, as I said,

foundation up, excuse me, functional strength or functional conditioning means that all the gains that you see in the gym, all the improvements that you see in the gym, translate to everyday life. That's a very basic. If we do in here, makes what you do out there, whether you play sports or you're're just an elderly client of mine and you wanna be able to go up and down the stairs

without assistance, if what we do in the gym makes all those things better, you've become more functionally strong. And I'm gonna use another example with functional, with the word functional, flexibility. And I know we're gonna, I'm not gonna go too off topic here, but there's also something called functional flexibility.

So, we've heard about, we're all familiar with static stretching, that's stretching, we all didn't high school where you sat and you hold a stretch or whatever. Nothing will make you more functionally flexible than doing stretches under tension like you will in yoga. For example, yoga instructors, when they do, especially when they strengthen as well, they have very good functional flexibility,

the kind of flexibility that benefits you when you're out and about and doing things. And so again, functional means makes everyday life easier and better. That's pretty good. I would agree with that, but also I've been in my own sort of experimental, and I know like trends as far as the industry goes,

like have moved slightly away from the static stretching for a while and moved more towards dynamic stretches. Right. Be careful there. Yeah, well, oh, you know, I know where you're going with that and I'm 100% with you. Okay, guys like us with the carry decent amount of muscle who are tight as shit, the static stretching,

I believe, I'm not trying. Yeah, so anyway, that was just something I've noticed like personally in the industry and like, you know, thought I wanted to know kind of what your guys' opinion were on the industry and thought, I wanted to know what your guys' opinion were. I do static stretching before my workouts and because I'm very tight and I carry a decent amount of muscle and it helps me in my movements. Why don't we talk about that person?

There's three types of stretching. You have active, you have static, you have dynamic and all three of them have a place. An active stretch, you're typically only on a hold of stretch for about six to eight seconds. The whole idea of an active stretch, this is pretty much just to warm a muscle up or get blood pumping into the area that you're about to go work. So you're going to emulate like a movement you're going to do. Exactly, so I'll exercise. Exactly, if you're about to go utilize your quads and hammies,

you're just holding the stretch for a quick six to six to 10 seconds, like I said, and then moving throughout all the all the muscles that you're just trying to basically activate wake up, send some neurons over there, tell them, hey, let's get ready, we're about to work out. But did you call an active stretch? Then you have what's called static or corrective stretching, which is what Sal's talking about, which that's where you want to address specific areas that are in need. So let's say for example most people don't realize this but over like 65 or 70% I can't remember what the stat is when I read it last but of Americans have upper cross syndrome which is basically forward head and a contracted shoulder

girdle. So all that means is you have forward head your shoulders are rounded so if you can imagine what you're probably look like when you're sitting down at your computer or you're eating a bowl of oatmeal in the morning So what I look like right now right in front of this mic and it's just because we do everything in that plane We do everything in front of us we drive in front of us We brush our teeth in front of us we eat in front of everything we do in front of us So what that does it causes all these muscles in the front your anterior delto your pectoralis major everything is becoming tight And it's pulling the body in this rounded position

So this is where static or corrective stretching comes in and is extremely important. In order for somebody to actually get... I forgot self-mile factual release. That is another part of, you know, corrective. So that would fall under the static. Yeah, like foam rolling or foam rolling. Or even deep shooting. Which would fall under the same amount of time,

which I'll say in just a second with corrective. So with corrective, you need to be holding your corrective stretch for at least 15 to 30 seconds. You want a good long hole because you needed actually to release what Goldie tendon, right? Is what the Goldie tendon is? So you need to hold that. That would also fall in the category like just saying South Myo fascial release, which is also foam rolling.

So you're going to address these issues that are overactive, things that are super tight because you are in a position because of your posture or because like you might over train something a lot and that muscle is super, super tight in comparison to its antagonist. So I like to think of it as getting the muscle out of the way for an exercise. Like if my knees cave in because my calves are too tight, a nice static stretch, get them out of the way so I can do a proper squat. Exactly. So that's it. There is another place where you're going to use your correct strategies You want you know that that's also the trainer in you that would pick up on something like that too That's a little bit advanced for the average listener

But that's when you're taking that's when you're taking your training to the next level is when you're learning about your body Understanding what's in balance and because we all have it I don't give a shit who you are how old you are it and older we get, the worse it becomes if you don't address it. So learning what's tied on you, then learning how to corrective it and when to. And then you have your last one, which is dynamic flexibility or ballistic stretching, which this is where Justin has saying is becoming more and more popular. I'm not as big of a fan unless it's somebody who's a little more advanced just because it can be dangerous.

You're taking somebody through. Yeah, we can have a beginner do that. Yeah, the idea of dynamic flexibility or ballistic stretching is you're taking, basically it's an explosive stretch or you're taking the muscle through full range of motion and a dynamic movement. So it's a fast movement. Most of us remember doing this in like junior high school

or. Yeah, it's like, I mean, it hits circles. It looks a lot like a track exercise. So yeah, you're doing leg swings and you're like you're really high Yeah, you're running and you're picking your butt with your heels to get your quads right in the dynamics stretch I'm a deal. So these are all but it's not necessarily ballistic all the time But yeah, yeah, so these these type of these type of stretches is great to cool down They're great also to warm up for somebody who already is flexible or maybe that has already started to stretch

that out open up and get it going to warm yourself up. It's not a bad idea either, but once again, I wouldn't teach stretching like that to somebody unless they're pretty advanced. But you know, stretch with purpose, that's the main thing that you need to understand from this. If you're about to, this is the eye crack up when I see this.

If you're the guy who likes to stack three or four plates on the bench press and you like to stretch your chest for the three minutes in between so everyone can look at how much you're bench pressing and all you're doing is relaxing the muscle that you're about to go work out. That's about as silly as you possibly can get. So do not go and stretch for long periods of time in between your and long periods of time.

I mean 15, 30 plus seconds on a muscle that you're actually in the middle of working. You know, you want to hear what's crazy is I've been working out for a very, very long time. My warm-ups used to consist of a light set before my heavy set. I warm up now minimum of 20 to 30 minutes before my workouts, which in it consists of static stretches, a mile-fash release, and a little bit of dynamic. And I have to now, I've noticed I have to now. If I don't do it, I can't get into a deep squat with weight on me. You know, shit hurts and it's tight. And it's probably due to age and also probably due to stupid workouts, you know, as I was younger. Well, let's be honest, it's really

the age part of the factor is it's always been there. It's been an issue that one of us, and I can attest to this too, that you've needed to do a dress and work on it, and we've neglected it for so many years, for 10, 15 years, been training, and not addressing that. And now, at being in our 30s and approaching 40 years old, your body's saying, fuck you, you do need to dress this. Well, one thing. So at one point, everybody needs to, whether you're young and in your early 20s

and don't think you need to right now, oh, don't worry, if you continue lifting weights, you will. It'll let you know. You will. And I've got a couple of need to right now. Oh, don't worry. If you continue lifting weights, it'll let you know. You will. And I've got a couple of injuries to prove it. I had a big ego or bigger than, well, it's still big, but it was pretty big back then too.

Where I've hurt myself lifting too much weight and didn't warm up enough. So warm up is so crucial. I mean, here's the thing. It is attached to the ego. And I think a lot of it for men, especially, even when it comes to sports, a lot of, for men especially, like, even when it comes to sports, like a lot of coaches neglect it.

And I think that... Deer don't stretch. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Exactly. Deer don't stretch. This is a quote that, yeah, unfortunate. Your high school coach told you that. No, it was actually one of my college coaches.

Jesus. Oh, like God. The collegial level. Oh my God. That's how bad it was. It's good to know that we have an opportunity for jobs so if we ever run a business. Yeah.

It wasn't the things. But yeah, no, seriously though, get outside of your, get outside of your, I wanna impress everybody and make sure that everybody is cool with what I'm doing. Like do your warm up, do your flexibility. And for me personally, I do something that's gonna emulate what I'm gonna work out with. And take your time with loading the weight.

And as far as like, yeah, move yourself up at a gradual pace. Don't just jump up to like the weight that you want to max out for that day. I mean, I see that all the time and it's just ridiculous. Absolutely. And I think just to bring it back to the original subject about functional training, just like with warm up,

I think if you incorporate some of this stuff in a smart way with a plan, you're going to benefit. But I think we can safely say nothing is going to replace or should replace your traditional barbell dumbbell compound movements. Yeah, and a good easy red flag. If your trainer takes you over their corner with a boss who bought a stability ball and you spend the entire time doing those Well, look at the progression of what you know, it is that you're doing like if it's the progression is for you to stand on top of a boss or Stability ball that's your ultimate goal and to juggle and shit, you know, God bless you. Yeah, keep it going That's you that's your trajectory. That's that's what you're gonna up doing. Like do something that's, you know, the circus is hiring. Right.

Exactly. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. For more information about this show and to get valuable free resources from Sal Adam and Justin, visit us at www.mindpumpradio.com. Until next time, this is Mind Pump. Until next time, this is MindPump.