Functional Strength Training: The Military Way to Strength and Fitness

Have you ever seen someone just after they got out of a military boot camp? I mean really SEEN them, as in a before and after comparison. The effects are stunning. A highly trained recent graduate of boot camp has a ripped, well defined, muscular and most of all VERY STRONG physique. It is easy to understand why so many trainers have set up “boot camp style” trainings all across the country. Folks flock to these early morning intense session in hopes of shedding pounds, building muscle, and totally transforming their physique. These boot camps, in mimicking their military counterparts, focus their workouts around the concept of training known as functional strength training.

So, what is functional strength training anyways? Functional Strength Training is “The development of physical strength that most closely mimics what might be needed in real world situations.” Pretty simple, why work on building strength or developing muscles you may never really need in the real world. Let’s take the bench press, for instance. Try to imagine a scenario where you would be laying directly on your back, and the only way to survive would be to push an extremely heavy weight straight over your head. Whenever I ask this question to a group of fitness buffs, I usually get someone who shouts out “What if a car fell on you?” Well, in the real world, I am not usually in a scenario where a car could fall on my, and if in fact I was laying on my back and I car DID fall on me, well, no amount of bench pressing would turn that into a happy scenario.

There ARE many real world scenarios where functional strength training could play a part in your safety or survival. What if, in order to save yourself, you had to scale a high wall? Maybe someone was chasing you, or you had to get on the other side to rescue someone, how would you get over the wall? No matter how pretty your pec muscles were, no amount of pressing will get you through this one. Nope, this is all pulling my friend. This type of scenario is one of the reasons that the military put such an emphasis to perform pull-ups. The ability to pull your own weight is an extremely useful and tactical skill and forms the foundation of a solid functional strength training regimen.

Another heavily focused fundamental of this type of training is core strengthening. Remember that scenario with the bench press? Well, if you DID have a large weight on your chest that you need to get off, you would save yourself, not by pressing straight up, but my twisting your torso (using your core muscles) and pushing with your legs to throw the weight to the side. The press does come into play, but it is the functional movement of your whole body that gives you true strength and ability in these types of real world scenarios. Other types of exercises include the squat, dead lift, lunges, and push ups among others.

Functional strength training can help you get through your everyday activities more easily. They can also better prepare you for life threatening situations that could befall any of us at any time. They can also give you a slim, ripped, muscular physique. So what are you waiting for? Do some research on functional strength training, put together a workout, and transform your body for the better today.