PERFORMANCE
and so a single-leg deadlift, where the person is standing flexing forward from the hip and extending the hip, and having to control the body in all three planes of motion, is more appropriate.” Another example of a functional
training approach would be training the core muscles versus isolating the
“squats, lunges,
rotational movements in a standing position are a big part of
functional training”
abdominals. Often when people want to strengthen their abdominal muscles, they do some sort of crunch exercise where they’re lying on the floor, lifting from a neutral to flexed position, thus training the abdominals to flex the trunk. In real life though, when we’re
moving or lifting, the abdominals function to control the body going into extension and then bringing it back to neutral (which is the opposite motion we’re training when we’re doing a sit up). When running our abdominals are fairly static, but they still need to be strong, so an exercise like the plank (where the muscles are in isometric contraction, that is, working but not
flexing or extending) would be the most functional approach for runners looking to improve these muscles. Full body movements such as
variations on squats, lunges, rotational movements, in a standing position, are also a big part of functional training, as Wilkes explains: “This way we’re recruiting the core muscles in an integrated way with the rest of the body so that the hips, knees and ankles, back and shoulders are all moving at once and the core is reacting to those movements and stabilising. In reality, no muscle is used in isolation in any task – it’s used in synergy with all the other muscles that are moving in the same pattern.
www.runningfreemag.co.uk n 19
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