Functional Training

Resident MAXIM fitness guru ALEXA TOWERSEY explains how you don’t need to be a pussy to move with purpose…

- Alexa Towersey

What’s funny about the notion of “functional training” is that it’s become a paradox. Quite often the gurus that promote it don’t actually train in a way that translates to real world environments. Even if your whole paradigm of success is based on posture, you don’t need to stand on a Swiss ball and throw a medicine ball at a trampoline in order to improve it. It can be addressed at the most basic level by making sure you’re balanced between the front and back of your body. Functional training doesn’t have to mean the pussification of training; it can just mean the right exercise for the right person at the right time. So, given that the term “functional” has been hijacked, beat up and left for dead in a gutter, let’s replace it with the term purposeful. The following exercises will allow you to TRAIN WITH PURPOSE. They can make you bigger, stronger, fitter, faster and healthier. If you’re beat up from years of squats, deads and benches, they can help recalibrate your system and keep you progressing. They’ll also help you to function better in every aspect of your life — from the weights room to the board room to the bedroom — and that’s truly what functional training is supposed to be all about.

PURPOSEFUL MOVEMENT NUMBER

1: THE TRAP BAR DEADLIFT