Functional Training is a Waste of Everybody's Time 

I'm not an expert but after analysing this video and all the contents , I cannot say anything because as I said in the beginning I'm not an expert . Thanks !

Don't bash functional training. When I walk into the gym and I see bosu ball squatters, I know the squat rack is free.

Goku trained with a heavy suit and he beat Freezer pretty easily.

I’m watching this thinking, “man it must suck for those people behind the white board. They can’t see anything”. It’s a mirror....

Define functional training before you start arguing about it. The people who say they are for it and the people who say they are against it are rarely talking about the same thing.

Took me 5 minutes to realize that it is a mirror behind him.

I pretty much worshipped Mark and these guys for a long time... I still respect their content, but things changed when I became a firefighter and thought my strength training would be enough. I challenge any SSLP graduate to throw on gear, pack up and walk up a few flights of stairs with 50 feet of hose. You'll realize why "functional training" actually is REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT.

Don't bash functional training. Watching guys do lunges on a bosu ball with a 5 kg kettlebell in one hand and 10 kg kettlebel in the other is great entertainment for passing time during rest between sets.

“How do you pick up girls?” You squat bench and you deadlift.

I don't know. That shake weight is certainly a most highly effective functional training method.

I did P90X3 and other functional training for almost a year. I practiced speed, I practiced power, I practiced agility, I practiced balance. I gained about 10lbs and stalled out on literally everything after 6 months. I went through starting strength linear progression and then transitioned to the 4-day split. I increased my squat and deadlift by over 200lbs, bench by over 100lbs, press by 80lbs (hard time with press form). Speed came automatically, balance was better than ever, power increased on it's own, and agility came for free. During the 6 months of P90X3, I could have finished an Novice LP. Functional training wasted my time.

You need a combination of training. I learned that in wrestling and MMA. Having functional workouts allow us to build mobility and strength without putting on heavy mass. Doing strict weight lifting allows us to build explosive power. Doing both helps us become better athletes.

Nothing beats curls while doing weighted Kegels, standing on a Bosu ball. Should be the newest CrossFit Games event.

You can say functional training is not as effective as.. But you can't correctly say functional training doesn't make you stronger. Your quads don't know if you're standing on a balance board they just react to the force and effort applied to them

"Strength is not specific to movement pattern." Ehhh, it kind of is. That's why you list three exercises instead of one. Your bench won't help your squat, will it? Different movement, different muscles. Otherwise we could all just do one exercise and become strong all over. That's how it would work if strength were not specific to a movement pattern. "Endurance is not specific to movement pattern, although it is more specific than strength is." Contradiction. If the correlation is zero, then it's zero. Also, if there is no specificity, then something even twice as specific will still have no specificity, because zero multiplied is still zero. Furthermore, it's wrong on the very face of it. If we held a triathlon and didn't tell anybody until the start that we switched out the bicycle portion for wheelchairs, it would shake things up wouldn't it? But not if endurance weren't specific to movement pattern (except it is though). Find some twiggy marathon runner addict and ask her to hold out a weight at arm's length, she won't do it longer than some couch potato who's trained at just that for a month. Cheap speaking trick, throw out hyperbole at the beginning to make people think you've got something new and then proceed with standard material. That's after you use some needlessly technical nomenclature to make yourself sound scientific and then dumb it down more than necessary. "Now physiologic adaptation is not specific to a movement pattern, is it?" [pretends to wait for an answer to his rhetorical question] "'Strong' is not specific to a movement pattern." [Pretends to look disappointed with his audience's miniscule vocabulary, establishing dominance, lol]

It looks to me like the movement pattern and skill developed here is fork to mouth.

If your training is helping you achieve your training goal, your training is functional.

Elite basketball players use sometimes heavier basketball for dribbling (a.k.a skills). It's not really black and white. Pull-ups are also a skill, you need to learn to control your scapulas and also do strength training but also control the body a.k.a functional training to be able to pull CLEAN. You can also attain this strength very well by deadlifting thus still need to do Pull-ups for the proper movement patterns to develop. Body awareness is also something that comes from functional training. I have seen it myself and with my clients that they tend to move better at their specific movement patterns (sports) when introducing functional training in their training regimen. It's all about the understanding of human physiology, movement and control in an environment. This is called athleticism and the more developed athleticism in various ways, the better control and connection in Any movement pattern whatsoever. My take after 20 years of playing, training and coaching. Anyways, some good points on this video still. :)

Training needs to be sports specific. Being a power lifter won't turn you into a gymnast or a UFC fighter. However the carry over effects of combining various activities can make a huge difference.

Rip looks like the kind of guy who would walk into my clinic looking jacked, but having a BP of 170/95 on 3 medications.

Functional training, cardio, strength training whatever it is that you love to do just do it!!

This is a story told in 9 minutes that could have taken 2 minutes.

if your theory is correct then the strongest man in the world should also be the fastest man in the world, also able to jump the furthest and also able to throw a ball the furthest... but there isn't because each champion in there chosen sport has functional strength that correlates with the sport, this video was so dumb

If a man with a big fat stomach say this, I have to believe him.

Was going to say that bodyweight exercises are good for learning how to move the body powerfully, or that hauling a heavy load upstairs is a good exercise/training for firefighters. The examples Rip chose were a bit cherry-picked. Still, I would like to see a study on guys who throw a 5% heavier ball for a month and see if they throw harder or have thicker tendons/ligaments.

I think he needs to clarify what he considers functional training. I consider kettlebells, weighted lunges, tire flips, and the like to be functional training. He seems to be referring to things like pitching with a heavier ball or swinging a heavy bat as a way to get better at those skills. I think he is probably right to say those exercises don't have the intended effect. I see functional training as full-body work, not practicing skills for a sport. I think everybody would agree the exercises I listed are not a waste of time.

This video is a waste of time. Define functional. Define functional training.

Pushing is a movement pattern, so is pulling, so is deadlifting, so is squatting. They are all movement patterns. Learning the movement pattern can help you with strength substantially since you know how properly recruit the muscles for that particular movement pattern.

8:30 This man starts snoring while he's talking

I usually like Rip, but that first statement just seems wrong. Of course adaptation is movement-specific. You get better at deadlifts by practicing deadlifts. You get better at atlas stone carries by carrying atlas stones. Your muscles may not know the difference from a load applied by X or Y, but your ability to actually execute the movement (what I would call "strength") is absolutely dependent on the movement and how much training you have. Of course, most "functional" stuff is nonsense. But if you want to get better at X, you should practice X.

We talkin’ about PRACTICE.

What a load of bs. Training can be specific to the sport. Also functional training can have carryover to similar skills. Furthermore, strength training is not just bench press, squat and deadlift. Who would have a better carryover to climbing, a powerlifter or a calisthenics athlete? - According to him it would sound as if the powerlifter.

Strong actually IS very specific to a movement pattern... A strong squatter isnt always a strong bencher.. A strong deadlifter isnt always a strong squatter.. A strong RFESS'er isnt always a strong squatter.. A strong Pendlay Rower isnt always strong at pullups.. And then theres the argument of Gymnastic strength, Strongman strength, Olympic weightlifting strength. In baseball, unilateral strength work would probably be more appropriate. Now I agree, "functional training" has gotten out of hand, and I'm a firm believe in starting strength for beginners. However, it is possible to make strength training for a sport as specific as possible, and the "Squat, Bench, Deadlift" isn't always the most appropriate.

Everybody thinks the exercise routines they do are the greatest and most productive...and everybody on youtube wants to be a fitness guru...

I think he’s right. I wasted time doing “golf specific” training and saw very little improvement in my swing or overall swing speed. I started doing regular strength training and saw massive improvement in my swing speed. My disagreement with him is his calling sports specific training “functional”. It is not functional. Functional training is vertical pushes and pulls, horizontal pushes and rows, squats, and hinge movement patterns, which is basically the same as OH presses, Bench, squat, and DLs he’s talking about. I do this with calisthenics but you can obviously do barbell training as well and make great gains.

This guy preaches like he just smashed his shins doing box jumps

Hey Rip, bottom 3% of youtube commentors checking in. If what you're saying about functional training being a waste of time is true, then how come my squat went up 10 lbs from 165 lbs to 175 lbs, after squatting on a bosu ball with a kettlebell for 2 months?

But Rip, what about bricklayer strength!?!?

Says the guy who looks like he’s dying from inflammation (Not saying he’s not strong) But physiological adaptation exists outside of his strength training modality, it’s not like people weren’t fit before we invented exercise science hey? Like could gym bros parkour? Or like comp swim? There are many forms of physiological adaptation

This video made me want to do a heavy one rep max deadlift, then eat pizza and ice cream then go to sleep for 12 hours. Have a big breakfast then go back to sleep

its hard to believe what he says looking 6 months pregnant.

What if your sport requires agility, balance, coordination, endurance, stamina, flexibility, speed, or accuracy? 🤔

The real question is, are we using the wrong definition for functional training? Should the definition be, Functional training is the combination of strength, conditioning, and activity specificity in a planned deliberate manner.

Training doesn't help with physical work anyway. Most people that work physically are lean and powerful at the same time. The gym going strong men wouldn't do too well out in the field planting trees or working in construction where you need a lot of stamina and just enough strength.

Whatever...just because someone sounds authoritative and proved something in the past doesn't automatically mean they are correct. If you took to equal men and trained them in boxing and one guy did powerlifting and the other guy chopped trees I guarantee the one who chopped trees would wax the floor with the one who did powerlifting for exercise because the chopping of trees was more FUNCTIONAL to the sport then powerlifting.

I respect Mark, but kind of wish he had gone a little bit more in detail towards the end of his explanation. I used to train at a regular gym, typical bodybuilding program stuff. My numbers were decent in my opinion... 335 back squat, 225 bench press, 365 deadlift... I left that style of training because I wanted to do more so I started crossfit. Thankfully from my prior training I already had a good idea of proper body mechanics and what it meant to lift properly. When I was consistent in crossfit I got leaner, to the point where people could noticeably tell that i was smaller, but yet I got stronger. At my peak my back squat was 405, bench press 265, deadlift 455. And plus I had more endurance. So I wouldn't say functional training is totally worthless ,granted there are some pretty dumb stuff I see on the internet ( weird movements, bad form ect.) But I think with good coaching and proper mechanics, functional training can do a lot of good.

Functional training works! I'm sick and tired of people pontificating what is training when they themselves are out of shape. Sorry I could not help but notice....

I’m a fan of calisthenics and strength training. It’s very easy to get big while doing calisthenics you just need to be varying what you’re doing. Lots of variations of push-ups and pull-ups

If there wasnt a caption on this video, i would have thought this was a military seminar

“Functional Patterns“ triggered

Comments here are completely missing the point of the video - this video clip is obviously aimed at strength guys - people who only want to increase their squat, deadlift, Press etc.... I'm sure the presenter would agree functional training may have a place for people with certain goals. For example, my goals are to improve strength, improve balance/proprioception, and work all the stabilizer muscles to be as prepared as possible for any random physical challenge and avoid injury. I don't care how much or little i can bench press. I want to be better at riding singletrack on bikes and motorcycles. I want to be able to save my own life If i'm hanging on the edge of a cliff. Doing these things is the best training, but thats unrealistic of course, so the second best way I can think of to train for those goals is with Functional training or crossfit .

this is what is wrong with sport today, people like this guy who looks like the worst example of an athlete physically, who is still stuck in the mindset of knowledge we had back in the 90's/80's

Literally the very first thing he said was wrong. Strength is absolutely specific.

Of course his statement about functional training is polarizing. Such a definitive statement about most anything will cause people with experience and/or knowledge about that thing to “choose sides.” This is why I think it’s always best to compare my definition of what I’m discussing to the person’s, or group’s, definition of the thing. That way I’m sure we’re talking about the same thing before I “choose a side” and present my reasons for choosing that side. What he’s labeling as “functional training” may very well be a waist of time in the context of his system. I’ve always felt that most exercise and training activities have a place in a performance program or fitness regimen. It’s just about answering the questions, “why are you doing it” and “when are you doing it,” and knowing that you don’t have to include things in a program just because they exist. New research findings are always causing fitness and performance professionals to reevaluate some of what we think we know. Categorizing things makes it easier to decide whether to implement them or omit them. I keep every “tool” I come across. May never use it, but I know where it goes in the tool chest.

Just because you can't see structural changes with your naked eye, it doesnt that there were no structural changes... at a cellular level.

Asking as a genuine question: Isn't strength being specific to a movement pattern the basis for greasing the groove?

Yeah, at 60+ I'm all for functional training. Can I walk, can I walk up the stairs, can I open a bottle. All these things aren't a problem at 64, at 74 they might be. My solution -swimming and strength training once a week. At 60+ it takes me that long to recover.Ha!

Yes, if you want to be great at something specific then by all means practice THAT. BUT for people who just want to live generally healthy lives and win at old age the functional fitness is perfect. Sir, your closed mind and bias are showing. People should do whatever the heck is going to get them off the couch and others should not judge them for it.

Functional training can be adjusted to the sport that you are dealing with .

Squating is functional, Deadlifts are functional, PullUps are functional, also Bench Press or Leg Press are functional as Scott Curls are functional. There is nothing that is not functional. Crossfit, Weightlifting, Strength.... Every Motion is functional

I agree that SOME of the functional training you see if a little excessive, but to act like you know more than professional athletes and trainers? For athletes, the purpose of training is NOT to increase strength, it is to increase PERFORMANCE, which includes increasing strength, flexibility, agility, minimizing injury, etc. Again, I agree that some of the functional stuff may be overkill, but there is a reason that the vast majority of D1 and professional teams incorporate large amounts functional training in addition to traditional barbell movements. Mark Rippetoe's definition of strength may be how much you can bench, deadlift, etc, but Lebron James is not tested by those metrics. He's tested by how well he can dunk, defend, etc. and MAINTAIN those abilities through a game and season without injury.

As a senior exercise and sports science major his example of functional training (weighted baseball) does the term poor justice. Functional training encompasses the training of muscles responsible for the movement desired. For example the squat is classified as athletically functonal. Athletically lower body power generation is essentially for sprinting, football tackles exploding off the line and the list could go on. Plyometrics and different drills such as the SEMO are functional training and EXTREMELY important for athletic performance. These take advantage of strength, power, skill, agility, speed, and balance. They don't need to mimic the exact movement required is my point. Hints weighted implements are not a defining factor of function training. Just a clickbait title.

1. Functional training is not balancing on a bosu ball while barbell squatting. That's a fad on social media, not functional training. 2. Functional training involves getting stronger in daily life activities like lifting heavy boxes, or holding loads over your head. Squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, kettlebells, etc all help with that. Plus mobility work, speed, agility, etc. 3. Training the body in ways that mimics real life situations IS practicing and IS training. IMHO. 4. I get that Rippetoe is a legend in his respective subfield, and he's full of good and useful knowledge within his specific expertise... but sorry, I don't have any desire to look or move like him at that age. His body was certainly not as mobile or as functional as I hope to be. Not even close. Learn from those who have achieved your personal goals. If you want to be great at lifting, this is the guy to listen to. If you want to have a functional body into old age, there are far better people to have as a mentor.

Crossfit is Functional Fitness not Functional Training. The concept right or wrong is not to be specific on any one thing. Therefore it's not professing that it's getting you the Strongest, Fastest, or most Endurance. It's simply saying that you'll be able to perform daily life task like walking up and down stairs, carrying groceries, sitting down, standing up, etc... The perversion of the "Crossfit Games" athletes is the very high end of the fitness bell curve that RIP talks about being in all top level athletes which is "UNHEALTHY".

Functional training is training in multiple fields, this is very good for general fitness and allows you to do alot of things very well. You also get the advantage of it being great for long term health. Specific training is only good for that specific thing, you want to be really good at one thing then fine. Note that even in this you will train multiple parts of the body but not to the same level and would possibly leave areas out completely. My personal opinion is most people should go for functional training and not specific training, as most people don't need to do one thing very well and would benefit from a more well rounded training. I.e people who can lift a heavyweight for 10 seconds but can't run to the shop down the road and struggle to carry it back.

I love this! Lifting improved everything in my life and made me better at any sport I competed in.

The guys I heard promoting functional strength the most ended up with potentially career ending injuries. That made me skeptical of following in their footsteps.

The practical reality is that At some point there are diminishing returns on pure strength if not met with endurance and intensity components added

Functional training is important in rehabilitation, where ones muscles aren't strong enough to support much weight. So, it's definitely not a waste of everybody's time.

He is just clueless about what functional training is. Functional training is what works best for reaching a specific goal. It could be doing squats, deadlifts and bench press.

I'm sure Rippetoe knows exactly how to get people big and strong, but the more you listen to him talk about other things, the more you think he should just stay in his lane. And I normally hate when people say that.

He's wrong regarding strength and specific adaptions for the sport, Is plenty of exercises what build strength for your particular sport which then are transformable

I'm a certified personal trainer and during my years of training clients, I can assure you that the only reason why so many PTs offered "functional training" was coz it looked cool but achieved nothing. I was the only PT that insisted on isolation heavy training to help people build muscle and burn fat. My selection of exercises were "boring" but it worked.

Mark thesis here seems to be two-fold: 1. General strength training will make your sport-specific movements (as long as their mechanics are practiced enough) as strong as they could be. 2. Practice of the actual sport motions, like the action of throwing a baseball, is enough to make these motions as strong as they can be for an otherwise strong person. I feel that the example of baseball Mark tends to use in these arguments is not that helpful, because moving as quickly as possible through a range of motion is a little different than training a motion that faces heavy resistance in the sport. Let's say my sport is arm curling various household objects, to keep it simple. If thesis 1 were true, it would seem I could do the strength program and just practice the motion of curls. Then I would go out on competition day and one-hand-curl a microwave. However, in Mark's book (and in my experience with the program), we learn that incrementally increasing the weight on a specific motion makes it stronger. Therefore, it would be logical, in this case, to train curls with a barbell or dumbbell, incrementally increasing the weight, rather than just doing squats, DL, chins, etc. While the motion might be slightly different with the specific object I might end up doing, it's better since it's hard to incrementally increase microwave weight, for example. If thesis 2 were true, we could just practice the motion of curling, without heavy resistance (while strength training) and then do that motion as strong as possible in competition. We know that's not going to happen. To give a more concrete example, my sport is grappling. Let's say I'm trying to develop a stronger snapdown (where you grab a guy by the shoulders or on top of the neck in a wrestling stance and basically try to make them faceplant). I could (and should) grab a partner and do 100 snapdowns a day. That would certainly make my snapdown technically better. It would also make it stronger. But would it make it as strong as possible? I'm not incrementally increasing the resistance (unless I happen to have enough information somehow to be able to sort my training partners by back strength). And we know from SS that incrementally increasing the weight on the movement is the best way to get the muscles involved in that movement stronger. I'm also unlikely to find partners that want to be snapped down repeatedly every day if that's not the thing we're drilling that day - time in the gym is limited and most people just want to go out and grapple. Plus, partners are not available outside the grappling gym and I want to make that motion stronger. So, what's the downside if I take a cable machine, line it up to get the right angle and snap those cables down to the ground for sets of 5? True, it's not exactly the same motion. And true, I would get generally stronger if I used that time for squats or chins. But if I spend a few months and double the weight I can pull down, you're telling me when I line up against a guy and yank him down, he's not going to feel the difference? I have trouble believing that.

Martial artists for 5 years then switched to the ridiculousness that is "bodybuilding" for 10 years. I was so much LESS functional than when I was a martial artist. Say what you want, but our bodies were NOT designed to work in singular plains with singular movements. They were designed to work as a whole unit. I've taken his approach and I've taken the functional approach. With functional training I'm injured FAR less and can last LOTS longer, but I'm sure I'm wrong some how.

But you also have to get stronger in the position and techniques the body has to do to get stronger at that specific skill in the sport. You can get stronger through strength training and practice skill for the sport but let’s say your sport requires an unusually movement pattern that has weight to be lifted you’ll need to practice with that weight or do a similar move that can not only strengthen your core but strengthen the core in that unusual position. You also have to realize training functional can actually be training to prevents injury which is something that is completely under looked. You train your body to deal with the tough falls of the sport like track and you trip but you not only worked on the correct movement to fall to prevent injury but you also improved your reflexes

This guy doesn't look like he's done much functional movement

"Physiological adaptation is not specific to a movement pattern". Doesn't this statement fly in the face of the training principle, specificity? A rel.strong bench press does not carry over to a rel.strong squat. By squatting, you develop specific adaptations to improve your ability to squat, otherwise wouldn't all lift's performances fluctuate identically regardless of the training stress? So you program cable fly, snatch and behind the neck push presses for several weeks but your performance on say the squat or deadlift doesn't improve. You're strong at x, then if another movement (y) is appreciable different to x then your relative strength of y is far below what it could be if you had trained y. Thoughts?

When a physical fitness expert tells me how to get in shape but his waist size is larger than his chest size......just sayin'

"strength is not specific" I forgot about the time when my bench press raised my row

Does a single person on Earth want to look like this ‘expert’ ?

Strength is functional, always.

Functional training is training the muscles in/for movements that are useful in daily life or for improvement in other sports. Strengthtraining With or without functional aspect both makes us stronger, but functional is useful, whereas "non-functional" is less useful. For example : could be the case that a huge bodybuilder with big latissimus dorsi and big biceps brachii can't perform a single pull-up... because he never trained this so the muscles are not prepared for this compound movement where they have to work together. (Maybe a bad example) This has little to do with bosu balls etc...those are just for unilateral core-training during training other muscles.

Some functional trainer is ridiculously unnecessary like getting newbies to squat on bosu balls when their only goal is look better. But some functional stuff Is actually useful. It completely depends on the person's goals

I wonder if the Engineers from Prometheus waste their time with functional training.

Barbell Strength Training is the greatest thing the universe has created

He gets most of this right, except he is not quite right as to what neuromuscular skill is. Every movement the body performs has a skill component, it is not limited to "sports." Running a marathon involves skill just as much as "baseball" does, as the stride in running is a neuromuscular activity. Part of practicing running is to improve *skill* in performing a running stride, as the repetition of the same neuromuscular activity increases the efficiency of subsequent executions of the movement. This is why it is just as important to practice running under the *same* conditions that it would be executed (just as he describes for throwing a pitch or swinging a bat). Being effective as a runner requires improvement of *general fitness* as well as efficiency in the *specific skill* of the running stride to be used. It is also important to note this is true of activities that can be used for sport purposes as well as general fitness purposes. A proper strength training program (for the purposes of improving general fitness) might include the Squat, Deadlift, and/or Bench Press movements, which are the movements used in the sport of Powerlifting. Performance of these movements for strength training or Powerlifting practice will have a skill component, and specific repetition of the movements will improve neuromuscular efficiency in the specific mode they are performed (there are some significant implications to this as pertains to proper design and execution of a strength training program). However, the way those movements should be performed for *strength training* is *very different* from how they should be performed for the sport of Powerlifting.

I don t even work out. I work as a commercial carpenter, basically I do cardio mixed with heavy lifting 5 days a week 8 hours a day.....and I do jiu-jitsu, 3 times a week. Pretty strong for my weight (190) frame 6'2...I don't know if I can bench press as much as my gym friends, but I know I am stronger than them. %100

This channel has so much good info

Jesus, a guy with a serious gut issue talking to me about fitness.

This is a valid argument for competitive athletes. But the vast majority of us are not that. For many who work 9-5 and have general fitness goals, I believe kettlebell/club programming mixed with some movement training and calisthenics is a better choice than the big three powerlifts. Most importantly, it's safer (if you know what you're doing), but it also mimics a variety of dynamic movement patterns from a variety of sports and unpredictable situations of daily life. Maybe one week I play soccer, two weeks later I play basketball and go for a hike. Maybe I don't do anything involving sports skill for the next six weeks. With a more functional approach to training, I'm more-or-less ready for any of it, despite being middle aged. At 45 with two blown out discs, I'm not gonna load up a ton of weight on a squat rack, or center my training on progressively overloading deadlifts. But I will do goblet squats, swings, cleans, and getups til the cows come home

He stated that strength training produces structural changes to the body. I assume his belly is one example of it.

True. Shadow boxing with weights is a waste of time.

Well, I'm at a loss. I always find it hard to believe a trainer with a big belly. It's just like trust a dentist with rotten teeth.

This is about scientific basic training principles not about his diet or if followers of overrated fitness styles gets offended. Sorry.

A 6ft 2in 235lb solid Highway Patrolman & a 5ft 3in 125lb cartel member fight and scrap on the side of a grassy hill. Within the combative situation, The little drug dealer breaks, bites, and uses foul tactics to get to the patrolman's gun. The highway patrolman was gassed from the get-go of the altercation because he was sore from squatting yesterday and his adrenal glands blew because his caffeine tolerance had maxed out. Happens all of the time. The hy-po hit the gym and weights instead of hitting the mats

Just but looking at this guy I’m not convinced. 🤣

When I started reading on fitness online, Rip was introduced as some kind of an oracle. But I don't want to take functional training advice from a fat guy with chronic back pain. Even at his age - I don't think that's a good excuse.

He has a good program, and should stick to promoting that. I guess bashing other fitness styles helps impress the type of people who see him as the be all, end all of fitness. He reminds me of John Jaquish who promotes bands, and bashes everything else. Some people can't see the good thing they have, and leave it at that. They have to be more to stay relevant.

If it is not fun, one won't exercise as a lifestyle: healthy. I am a big fan of SS book. I learned big lifts from the SS book. Also, I am a big fan of Functional Training. I just bought a book: "Functional Training" by Adam Sinicki. I lift weights and perform different functional exercises, kickboxing cardio, etc. *** Strength ONLY: big, strong, yet (big bellies with unhealthy fat), if one'd like to look as Strong Men. Don't get me wrong. Strong Men are highly respectable!