A Perspective on Functional Training & Specificity.

THE TERM "FUNCTIONAL training" has inundated much of the literature on strength and fitness in recent years. We refer to the books, articles, and videos ranging from resistive sprint training (towing parachutes, weighted sleds, stretch cords, etc.) to the balancing apparatus and drills, medicine-ball exercises, the myriad hopping, skipping, bounding, and jumping routines, and numerous other procedures.

The staunch advocates of FT believe that since such activities are either sport, task, biomechanically, or neuromuscularly specific to the divergent athletic movements, they should become a mandatory part of the training regimen for a given sport.

Let us take a close look at FT and the scientific validity of the claims made for it.

What Goes Around

Anyone with knowledge of the past will realize that many of these so-called FT exercises are nothing more than recycled activities from the "movement education" curriculum of the late '60s and early '70s.

Various dance-type movements, balancing techniques, and "calisthenics" were in vogue at the time and their residues are quite evident in the current FT trend.

If you coached at the time, you will recollect the many "mini-gym" isokinetic devices and "exer-genie" products used for "specific training" and resistive running practices.

Medicine balls, which were once used extensively in high school P.E. classes, have made a roaring comeback. Weighted vests, balance boards, stretch cords, and most of the activities married to this paraphernalia may appear current to young coaches, but they actually are old hat. We used a lot of these things in our training simply because they provided variety and difficulty.

Did they actually produce strength and power? Sure--as long as they incorporated progression and overload.

Did they enhance the conditioning process? Absolutely--assuming all of the other constituents of cardiorespiratory fitness were in place.

Did they ensure sport-specificity and/or task specificity? Possibly--if, in fact, what we were doing was specific.

It is in the area of specificity that we find some advocates of FT dancing on a slippery slope. Allow us to explain.

Specificity Revisited

Without question, specificity has become the most misused term in the training literature. We've addressed this topic before, as has Dan Riley in his "Power Line."

Unfortunately, there are individuals and organizations who erroneously preach that many strength-training and FT activities are specific to athletic skill.

It can be misleading. Two tasks may appear to have specific basic features in common, but actually use completely different neuromuscular pathways of the central nervous system.

The fact that an individual is skilled in one activity does not mean he can carry the skill over to another activity (Schmidt 1991).

To be specific, the athlete must use exactness, not similarity, as his guideline in the use of limb-positioning equipment, auditory and visual cues, environmental conditions, ever-changing feedback, etc.

In short, the practice situation must mirror the actual game or match (Sage, 1984).

Specificity can be put into the proper perspective by understanding that the more complex the skill, the greater becomes the importance of exactness in practicing it.

This is the cornerstone of the teaching progression in any skill--the transference of information into a stored form of memory in the central nervous system.

This process is known as the encoding principle of specificity. It means that a functional training activity cannot be considered specific to a skill unless it is identical to it. The motor-learning literature tells us that it is fruitless to overload the central nervous system with useless information and expect an appropriate response.

If skill specificity is your goal, you must provide a perfect image for the memory bank in your central nervous system. The perfect image is needed to produce flawless execution.

The litmus test for specificity goes as follows: If Activity A is totally specific to Activity B, then Activity B is totally specific to Activity A. For example, if you believe that throwing the javelin is specific to pitching a baseball, you would also have to believe that pitching a baseball is specific to throwing a javelin.

Functional training can provide variety, enhance metabolic conditioning, improve strength/power, etc. The stronger, well-conditioned body will be able to perform with greater power and efficiency in a given skill.

The process calls for a sound exercise regimen based upon the particular skills embodied by the sport. At Michigan State, we examine the movement patterns we want to teach, design drills that will reproduce movements as closely as possible, then have the athlete perform the drills at full speed in an interval fashion.

That is the way to master the desired skills correctly and efficiently

Recommendations

Recommendations for a scientifically sound and safe physical and cognitive training plan:

Strengthen all of the major muscle complexes with the exercises designed for the activity using a full range of motion, basic safety procedures, and the correct overload principle.

Develop a sound cardiorespiratory regimen with emphasis on the appropriate energy systems. (Check my article on interval training in the December 1999 issue.)

Design your agility and other training drills so that they match the movements of your sport and/or position as much as possible.

Above all, practice, practice and continue to practice whatever you want your athlete to achieve.

REFERENCES

* R. Magill: Motor Learning Concepts and Applications (fourth edition). Wm.C. Brown, Madison, WI, 1993

* G.H. Sage: Motor Learning and Control A Neuropsychological Approach. Wm.C. Brown, Madison, WI, 1984

* R. A. Schmidt: Motor Learning Performance: From Principles to Practice. Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL, 1991.

* D. J. Rose: A Multilevel Approach to the Study of Motor Control and Learning. Allyn & Bacon, Needham Heights, MA, 1997