I first heard of functional training when a friend introduced me to Pavel Tsatsouline’s book “Simple and Sinister”. At the time I had been following Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength program, which is a program designed to get you strong relatively quickly. It does so by programming a small set of compound lifts (squat, bench, deadlift, shoulder press, row), starting at a light weight and adding weight to the bar every day that you lift until you can’t add anymore and maintain the required reps for a set (usually 5×5 or 3×5).

With Starting Strength I was able to get stronger than I had ever been pretty quickly. It’s designed to move you through heavier weights pretty fast and it works for that.

But I noticed something strange. In tandem with weight training I was also training jiu jitsu, and the heavier I trained with weights the less energy I had to give to jiu jitsu.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there is value to getting as strong as possible that crosses over to the mats, and there’s an argument to be made for “periodization” of training. Taking 3-6 months and going heavy in the weight room while going lighter in jiu jitsu (or any sport you’re participating in) can reap lasting benefits.

But I wanted to continue to progress in workouts while maintaining a solid jiu jitsu schedule.

So I started using kettlebells. At first I couldn’t see the benefit of kettlebells. The weight was so much lighter than what I was used to and I felt like I was just swinging weight around without much benefit.

But then I began learning the details that make kettlebells work so well.

With the kettlebell swing I learned to thrust the kettlebell up with my hips, brace at the top of the swing with my arms and lats, and then forcefully thrust the kettlebell down between my legs as if I were hiking a ball in football.

Doing high repetitions of movements like the kettlebell swing, goblet squats, pushups, pistol squats and some additional auxiliary exercises like curls and shoulder press with submaximal weights proved to be very beneficial for grappling.

Working out in this manner increased strength, though not in the same weight that lifting heavy weights in a traditional manner did.

What I noticed was that along with strength, I gained something even more important: muscular endurance. Doing high repetition exercises with kettelbells and bodyweight strengths connective tissue. It also helps stabilize joints. In addtion to muscular endurance, the kettlebell swing is particularly good at recruiting large groups of muscles in the core, legs and upper body, making it a great full body workout.

As I became better at working with kettlebells for my workout program, I really noticed a crossover to training jiu jitsu. I felt stronger on the mats than I ever did when I lifted heavy weights. This may be partially because it is difficult to recover from a heavy lifting session, so to add in a difficult sport like jiu jitsu in between heavy lifting sessions is very taxing, while doing kettlebell work instead makes it possible to also train hard on the mats and still progress in workouts off the mats.

With this in mind I started looking around online to see what other people’s experiences were with functional training. I was particularly interested in people who used non-traditional weights like kettlebells, sandbags, and bodyweight to get good results.

Online you can find many people who espouse the benefits of functional training: personal trainers who focus on kettlebell work, wrestling and MMA trainers who focus on circuit training to condition their fighters, but one trainer has really stood out for me lately and that is Richard Strom.

Richard is a beast of a man. He’s built differently than the majority of functional fitness gurus. He looks more like a powerlifter, but his workouts are all based on high-rep functional movements.

If you follow his Instagram or YouTube accounts you’ll quickly realize 2 things, 1: he’s a funny and charismatic guy, and 2: he likes to do a daily program that centers around 300 reps of various kettlebell, sandbag, mace and bodyweight training.

Working out in this fashion builds muscle and muscular endurance in spades, and the 300 reps of these exercises is what I am currently aspiring towards.

As with most online influencers, he sells training programs and workout equipment, which seems to currently mainly being sandbags in various weights.

His programs are similar (in a sense) to what a friend of mine has been training me with lately (though Richard’s workouts are WAY more intense, but hey, I’ll get there…)

For example here are 2 sample workouts that I do a few times a week:

Workout A:

Set a Tabata timer for 1 minute intervals.

Minute 1: 12 Kettlebell swings (52lb kettlebell) – rest for the remainder of the minute

Minute 2: 12 pushups – rest for the remainder of the minute

Do 10 rounds of the above.

Finish with some auxiliary workout. I chose to bicep curls and “Patrick Steps” to strengthen my knees.

Workout B:

Set a Tabata timer for 1 minute intervals.

Minute 1: 10 Goblet Squats (52lb kettlebell) – rest for the remainder of the minute

Minute 2: 10 Shoulder presses (25lb barbell in each hand) – rest for the remainder of the minute.

Do 10 rounds of the above

Finish with some auxiliary workout. For workout B I generally do some neck strengthening exercies and again “Patrick Steps” to further strengthen my knees.

A regular week for me might look like this (if all goes well schedule-wise):

Monday – 2 hours of jiu jitsu

Tuesday – 1 hour of jiu jitsu

Wednesday – Workout A

Thursday – 1.5 hours of jiu jitsu

Friday – rest/stretching walking

Saturday – Workout B

Sunday – rest/stretching/walking

On weeks that I can’t make it into jiu jitsu as often I’ll throw another workout in.

Though that is my current workout, my plan is to start to work in more of the routines that Richard offers in his programs.

Conclusion

Functional training has become very popular over the past few years. Many people are beginning to see the benefits of using submaximal weights, ballistic implements (like kettlebells) and working out across many different planes of movement. Working out in this fashion allows you to train a broad crossover of abilities, explosiveness, endurance and strength. Trainers like Richard Strom show us that to train in this way doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to give up hypertrophy, we can gain size, strength and performance if we train correctly.