One of the common arguments made against the use of traditional strength training exercises, such as the bench press, is its lack of transferability to athletic situations. It is thought by these strength coaches that sports which involve in pushing actions from an upright position, such as shot put and wrestling will have little strength transfer to their given sport, also known as poor functional strength development. One noted fitness expert has a cartoon picture on the cover of one of his books depicting an athlete performing a bench press with a massive load but the next picture below shows him unable to perform a single-arm standing cable press with minimal load. The point is clear: pressing while lying on you back has little transfer to real life standing pressing movements – or functional strength.
It makes sense in theory, but I remain unconvinced. If this idea of functional strength vs. traditional strength were true then why do we see such a strong reliance on traditional strength training exercises amongst the world champions involved in these sports? For example, a colleague of mine has observed a champion Russian wrestler bench pressing 245kg for 8 reps with a 2 second pause on the chest and an American shot put champion incline pressing with a 3 inch thick bar 340kg for 3 reps. Both these sports require pressing unilaterally or bilaterally in an upright position and both athletes have incredible ability to press while lying on their back. There is obviously a great deal of transference of traditional strength development to functional sports performance.
An interesting study recently published reveals why: bench press maximum was compared to one or two arm cable pressing from a standing position. The average weight lifted for the bench press was 95% of body weight. The average weight lifted for the 2-arm cable press was 41% of body weight. And the average weight lifted for the 1-arm cable press was 33% of body weight. So pressing from a standing position spreads the muscle activation away from the prime movers towards the stabilizing muscles. The ability to generate force from a standing position decreases by over 60% and the abdominals and the ability to maintain balance while standing becomes the limiting factor. Obviously, the single arm and double arm cable press is an inadequate exercise to develop pushing muscle strength or power.
So based on the above, we can conclude that the prime movers should be trained using traditional strength and power methods in the gym and the training of the sport itself transfers the strength of the prime movers. This makes me very skeptical of the term ‘functional strength’ and the use of exercises that are promoted as 'functional'.
Tony,
Avalon, Sydney
