RANT - Conventional and or Science Based vs Unconventional and or Fringe/Functional Fitness

This was written mostly out of frustration at the unnecessary divide between conventional or science based and unconventional or fringe fitness circles. Most of that frustration is my own fault for spending so much time in the comment section or just on social media in general, but I feel this needs to be said even if it never gets read because the conflict between this or that group of “purists” mostly serves to generate likes and follows on social media within the respective echo chamber and confuse anyone looking for a genuine answer. vs Conventional vs Functional Fitness

Many of my sources exercises and routines are based on a bunch of “fringe” and “unconventional” fitness systems as well as more “tested” systems. The words in quotes are how people in the fitness industry would judge the exercises. In reality, I’ve tested all of them on my own body as well as in classes and with personal training clients. As did everyone that I’ve learned from, though maybe not with “rigorous scientific studies”, though a scientific study is just a well documented anecdote and science is almost always behind the progress (and the textbooks even further behind than that). Everything was “unconventional” at one point. The guy who discovered fire was a real revolutionary. Now you can buy a bic lighter and have fire in your pocket for less than a dollar (maybe more now, it’s tough to keep up with inflation).

The same could be said of all of the exercise systems now considered conventional. For most of the 20th century, athletes didn’t and were even told to avoid weightlifting. This included not on olympic lifting but also bodybuilding style training. Then some time during 60s and 70s the USSR discovered the value of weight training for other athletes. This is now what many strength and conditioning coaches and trainers consider “conventional”. It worked. And because the Soviets had totalitarian control over their athletes a lot was learned about how to manage the athlete, including the point of diminishing return. This is where I feel many lose sight of the goal. There is a point in training the power and olympic lifts where to get better at the sport of lifting, compromises must be made that manifest themselves in life. I can speak to powerlifting from personal experience. The stiffness required in the spine and other joints to lift heavy weight is counterproductive to the mobility that most would want in everyday life. The Soviets figured these points of diminishing returns out for a variety of lifts and their applications. What nobody has done is determine where that point is for the average person who isn’t training for competition and doesn’t have their whole life dedicated to training and recovering.

Beyond this much of the “science” done today is commonly only useful in a very narrow way. Many studies are done on untrained college kids looking to make $20. This is not representative of the typical population. They often don’t have a history of back pain, or many other things that separate college kids from the majority of the population (like a job where they are standing or sitting all day, or a commute, or kids, or… you get the point). This means they are likely more resilient that older adults, and by virtue of being untrained they will respond well to just about any stimulus. This leads to very conflicting “science” regarding things like “how much weight you should lift” “how often” “go to failure or not” “which exercise to choose”. This is because just about any kind of training will get results for a 20 something person with no experience.

In addition to this population problem with science there is a problem with the length of studies. To be fair this is because “science” is very expensive, but the problem is still there. Many studies are done for about 6 weeks. This leads to a similar problem as above. Lots of programs will work for 6 weeks but what happens after 7 weeks, or 6 months, or a few decades? A good example of this is many studies that show how great interval training is. Lots of benefits are seen in VO2 max and other measurable outcomes. But again they are often short term studies. What the Soviets found with interval training (which has been around since the 70s-80s but it just wasn’t published (science is always well behind the true innovation)) is that 6 weeks is about the limit of how much glycolytic training should be IN A YEAR. So after about 6 weeks (depending on the resiliency of the individual) the accumulated damages starts to change the positive results to negative as you move well past the point of diminishing returns. This is what doesn’t show up in the studies. I heard about a similar study in older adults that were asked to do max effort leg press. They saw great results in muscle mass and bone density. Which is wonderful. But again it isn’t sustainable. Science is very rarely concerned with sustainable. It is most often mostly concerned with securing funding for next year, and proving the bias of the researchers. This is true outside of exercise. It is common in nutrition, and I was almost a part of it in the evaluation of combustable fuel sources from a “climate change” “carbon emission” perspective (side story: as a Engineering lab project I worked on an EPA funded Life Cycle Analysis comparing algae derived “biofuel” to petroleum diesel, within a semester we showed that the biofuel produced more net CO2 than the petroleum due to the amount of processing required to make diesel from algae, yet we were asked to “revisit” our findings the next semester, which I declined and was transferred to another project).

When considering the SAID principle (Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demand) it also makes sense to me to at least incorporate “unconventional" methods such as GOATA, RMT, and CCT in to the majority of my training because they seem like the best way to train the expression of strength and positions that we often see in athletics which makes these certain exercises seem more “functional” than others. In my mind this is because the expression of strength relies on not just the strength of individual muscles (which could be maybe most effectively trained in a Nautilus Gym according the methods of Arthur Jones which is the epitome of isolation training at the other end of the spectrum from functional training) but also on the coordination of those muscles. Some (such as Arthur Jones) would argue that coordination is best build in your sport specific practice but there is a growing number of high level trainers and coaches (Paul Chek, Cal Dietz, Chris Korefist, Mike Boyle, and many others) who are instead are choosing to use more “functional” exercises. I admit that I may be ignorant but this approach makes more sense to me intellectually and personal as since I’ve been training this way I only feel better and stronger the deeper I get in to it. (And there’s likely a reason why the Nautilus equipment of Arthur Jones’ day is nearly impossible to find while “functional training” only continues to grow, and I doubt it’s because tens of thousands if not millions of trainers coaches and athletes are too stupid to realize they’re being lied to. These are people who are likely in tune enough with their body to feel what works and what doesn’t. Even many NFL and other pro athletes have claimed they found gym time with the “traditional” power and olympic lifts was robbing them of their athleticism).

Another point to consider along this line, is that an athlete who trains in the gym with get a plethora of other high intensity inputs via their sport specific training and actual competition. Some of that will balance out, and fill the gaps in their strength training. For example a football player may deadlift to get faster and stronger, but they will also play football so they will be using their body in a variety of other positions that will help keep their joints healthy and avoid overuse injuries. The average person will not be doing the same so a variety of “functional” hip hinge variations would be more sustainable for them.

I’m not saying don’t lift heavy. You should. But heavy is relative. And sustainability should be the priority. The program that makes a young athlete faster within a summer training camp isn’t the same one that will make going for a hike with your kids easier. There may be overlap between the two and there’s lots to learn from both recent science and the deep knowledge from trial and error and experience that the Soviets  and other strength coaches and teams  (such as Westside Barbell, and Cal Dietz) developed (much of which “science” is just now proving, 30-50 years later). But the human library of knowledge of is constantly increasing (admittedly not always for the better) and the idea that there are no new ideas that are worth pursuing seems ridiculous to me. Again, initially it was unconventional for a non-strength-sport-athlete to lift weights. Then they started but the information they had on lifting came from olympic and power lifters, so those were the lifts they did. Then bodybuilding took off so that style of lifting got incorporated in to the repertoire.

Again I’m not saying olympic lifting or powerlifting or bodybuilding is bad. I like all of them. I’m making a case that they may not be the best for everybody and that what is now called “unconventional” by outsiders and “functional” fitness by others should have a place at the table and the best approach is probably a blend of all of them. This is where I feel Landmine University deserves to be singled out as an “unconventional” use of the barbell to align with more “functional” training perspectives.

I can go on but I’ll leave it with this: most people who develop large followings in this industry have found something valuable and are seeking to share it. It can be tough to sift the wheat from the chaff so many decide to burn the whole crop (or throw the baby out with the bathwater) because that’s easier than discerning what they can learn from people who challenge the “conventional” advice. GOATA and Movement Maintenance and the other advice I share (at best, by the Grace of God) are mostly “wheat” (if not all). What I’ve tried to do, at a minimum, is sift out the chaff so others can benefit from the “fringe” and incorporate it in to the “conventional”.