Reprinted from Perform Better - The Magazine
Volume 1 #1
April 2006

I am often confused when I encounter opponents of functional training. The concept of functional training seems so common sense and intuitive to me that I used to struggle to find what could be objectionable to others. It was not until I read Charles Staley's description of functional training in his new book that I realized why so many people seem so "anti" functional training. Staley describes functional training in his new book Muscle Logic as "exercises performed on various devices -such as exercise balls, foam rollers, and "wobble boards"- that are designed to create a more challenging environment for the purpose of involving more of the smaller and more deeply located stabilizer muscles." Staley goes on to state that "functional training advocates purport that greater stabilizer involvement is the key to enhanced performance and overall training results". As the author of Functional Training for Sports (Human Kinetics,2003), I can see that I obviously failed in my first attempt to describe functional training because an intelligent and well-read man like Charles Staley, himself a widely published author, does not appear understand the basic concept of functional training as I see it.

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