Functional Sports Training

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Functional Sports Training

Anyone heard of Herschel Walker? If not, he won the Heisman trophy and played in the NFL for 11 years, and was a 2x Pro-Bowl selection (amongst many other things). He trained functionally for his body, meaning he did mostly body-weight exercise.

His workout consisted of push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, squats, lunges, crunches and sprinting. That's it. And by 'that's it', he would only do around 2,000 push-ups, 3,000 crunches, 1,500 pull-ups.....!!! There was a competition in the NFL while he played to figure out who was in the best shape. They had a whole workout planned for some of the most in-shape athletes in the NFL, utilizing lots of machines to see who was in the best shape. Can you guess who won? Herschel Walker. He trained functionally, and saw incredible results.

What this means for you and whatever sport you play is that you need to train functionally, and I know I have spoken of this elsewhere. Train your body to be the strongest it can be for your body. Who cares how much you can bench press? It would be much more functional if you could do 2,000 push-ups, and oh my goodness would you be strong! Utilize movements that are specific for your sport, and then when/if you train in a gym, make sure you are doing lots of hard exericses with your body weight, staying away from most machines. You will be better at your specific sport and stronger than ever.

   

Comments

1/2/2009 10:07:12 AM
David at Animal-Kingdom-Workouts.com said:

You guys are practically reading my mind with this post. Couldn't agree more.




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