Hey great topic, guys. The hanging circumductions and HSPU’s are awesome. Can’t wait to try the wheelbarrow walks and Turkish get-up. I’m training for mixed martial arts, so I need a good mix of strength, power, endurance, etc. Lately, I’ve been doing 3 days/wk of weight training and 3 days/wk of technique work. I’d like to incorporate some more functional exercises in my workouts and was wondering how to incorporate them into my training. How many days/wk do you guys do these exercises? Do you use them as finishers or use them at the beginning while you’re fresh?
Most “functional strength” training will have little or no effect on muscle growth, since the training is purely concentric. Look at gymnasts – strong but emaciated by bb standards. You see the same thing with hard-labor construction workers, who have a pathetic 10-15 extra pounds of muscle on them compared to the average joe.
Cream - in response to your question of often to do functional work, the entire focus of my athletes entire training is always functional. Let me give you another example of simple work that some of my combative athletes use. With a heavy bag session, they prefer to work at lot of Chest and Back. To “warmup” I utilize a simple routine of rope skipping of 3 minute rounds with 1 minute “active” breaks. In rounds 1,2 & 3 we will perform 50 pushups between breaks, rounds 4,5 & 6 we will perform 10 towel chins, rounds 7,8 & 9, 30 cross-over pushups. A great 36 minute warmup. Post workout, I will utilize a pulling sled. Holding the straps in each hand, we perform continuous uppercuts over a time duration, starting at 5 minutes and building to 30. You won’t believe your biceps. Give it a try.
In faith,
Coach Davies
Cream-if I am replacing a barbell exercise with a sandbag exercise, I will do it fairly early in the routine.My favorite is overhead press/push press with a sandbag.These are brutal and I need all the strength I can get for these.Sandbag carries or lift and load drills with stones I will use as a finisher.
howabout, overhead squating and hay tossing
Coach Davies:
In your interview with Chris Shugart you mentioned side bent presses. I was wondering how to preform them and how to incorperate them in a training program. Possibly an article…hint hint. Also any advice for someone with a siatic problem. Did I spell it right? Long story short a few years ago I was doing stiff legged deadlifts (the wrong way) and bent down too far(the bar was not touching my legs). After feeling a really bad pain in my lower back I though oh that’s not good. Anyway sometimes I have no pain at all and other times it acts up(seemingly for no reason). This bothers me because squats and deadlifts can make my back hurt. I saw a chiropractor(also did ART) and noticed no improvement. Although my back wasn’t really hurting at that time. I went for other problems. However it’s hurting now. Ouch. Good thread FFB. 
Wow, thanks Coach Davies and Ballast for the replies. That “warm-up” sounds like a killer! I’ll give some of these exercises a try and see how it goes. Coach, do you have any books or videos available?
Coach Davies i am interested in hearing alot more of your exercises that you have your athletes perform, if it is not too much trouble !!
have any of you guys done pavels drop and give me 100 routine if so how did it go, i was also thinking that it would be an excellent way to build up chinup volume :) i with you nate i'm becoming a monkey with all these chins :)
happy training and productive workouts to yah
Great thread!! Try farmer’s walks w/a dumbell with a towel wrapped around it and pass it from hand to hand as you walk - this will absolutely torch your obliques. Ditto for one-armed deadlifts.
Mike the Libertarian - there is some eccentric loading to a lot of the methods discussed here and the reason Joe Construction isn’t that buff is because he most likely doesn’t eat for bufftitude and works excessive hours (i.e. overtrains)
nkeago - hate to hear about your injury. I think this in fact means you need to consider the strength of the stablizing muscles and range of motion even more. You can do your back a great favor by starting some wheelbarrow, sled/tire pulling, hurdles movements. And thanks for the article suggestion - your thoughts are appreciated. I answered the side press question in another forum. Let me know if you cant find it.
In faith,
Coach Davies
Right guys i’m just on my way outside to give the wheelbarrow thing a go so i’ll let you know how that goes in like a half hour or so!!
Coach Davies or anyone else if you can add anything of significance feel free to do so, infact just do it , lol !!
Coach, If I’m training only for functional strength, what nutrition program would you suggest? Jay
The wheelbarrow thing is a killer ! i love it i am now thinking of building up the time to say 15-20 mins and then increasing the weight further as i feel that it would be a great functional strength endurance builder and possibly a killer aerobic workout . Thanx for the idea on that one Coach Davies.
Thanks for the advice Davies.
Great post! Coach Davies, thank you for taking your time to answer all these questions! If you have the time I have a few more:
What nutrition program would you suggest if an athlete is seeking to improve functional strength?
What kind of lifts do you focus on for the combative athlete?
Many people criticize the overhead press because they claim it will destablize the shoulder, what are your thoughts?
Thanks, Tony
I compete in local power lifting contest, hold two state records, and play college football. I focus on strength, but I also want to look good for the ladies, so I also focus on mass and visual appeal. Hence my workout program I wrote about in an eelier response. Which involved switching from training for mass to strength every month.
Mike the lib. I agree with Jeff D. But, I would add the average joe isn’t some roid junkie trying to support virtual muscle.
Hi! I’ve been wanting to get some kegs that I could fill with variable amounts of water so that I can do some functional training with it. Does anybody know where I can get a keg that doesn’t have to be reverse-tapped to fill (maybe just a screw-in plug) ? Thanks
mike the lib. you make a somewhat good point however your substantiation is inadequate. Gymnasts, by joe american standards have really big arms. There is eccentrics in gymnastics (every time you lower yourself), so that isn’t the reason. The reason is weight. Gymnasts want high relative static and non-explosive strength. If they gain weight, relative strength goes down, therefore they don’t train for size, like BBers train for. The other reason their arms cap out on size, is from years of doing soley bodyweight exercises. Eventually their weight is no longer substantial enough to elicit much of a hypertrophic response. Refer to Zatsiorsky’s “The Science and Practice of Strength Training.”
Coach Davies, I would like to incorporate glute-ham raises. Are there any specific places where you recommend purchasing them? I’ve found GH benches ranging from $200 to $1300, so basically is there any difference or specific things I should look for?
Thanks,
Manu