Functional Fitness mimics motor recruitment patterns that are found in everyday activities. Saying that, compound or multi-joint movements are functional, for instance, squatting is standing from a seated position and deadlifting is picking any object off the ground. They are both functional movements. Natural movement typically involves the movement of multiple joints for everyday activity. All the functional movements are mechanically sound and therefore safe, and they are the movements that elicit a high neuroendocrine response.
“The CrossFit concept can be viewed as ‘functional atomism’, in that we strive to reduce human performance to a limited number of movements that are simple, irreducible, indivisible functions. Teaching an athlete to run, jump, throw, punch, squat, lunge, push, pull, and climb powerfully, with mechanical efficiency and soundness, across a broad range of time-intensity protocols with rapid recovery establishes a foundation that will give unprecedented advantage in learning new sports, mastering existent skills, and surviving unforeseeable challenges.”
-Coach Glassman

Examples of Functional Exercise
Biking, running, swimming, and rowing are an endless variety of drills. The clean and jerk, snatch, squat, deadlift, push press, bench press, and power clean. Jumping, medicine ball throws and catches, pull-ups, dips, push-ups, handstands, presses to handstand, cartwheels, muscle-ups, sit-ups, and holds. We make regular use of bikes, the street/ roads, rowing and ergometers, Olympic weight sets, rings, parallel bars, free exercise mat, horizontal bar, plyometrics boxes, medicine balls, and jump rope.
We have replaced the lateral raise with push presses, the curl with pull-ups, and the leg extension with squats. For every long-distance effort, our athletes will do five or six at short distance. Now, if you ask me, why big movements like deadlift, clean, squat, and press? Because these movements are functional and compound (multi joints) which elicit a profound neuroendocrine response. That is, they alter you hormonally and neurologically which is essential for athletic development. Whereas, curls, lateral raises, leg extensions, leg curls, flyes, and other bodybuilding movements have no place in a serious strength and conditioning program primarily because they have a blunted neuroendocrine response.

BENEFITS
“Our emphasis on skill development is integral to our charter of optimizing work capacity”, says Coach Glassman.
Our needs differ by degree not kind with respect to Olympic athlete. Increased power, speed, strength, cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, flexibility, stamina, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy are each important to the world’s best athletes and to our grandparents. One is looking for functional dominance, the other for functional competence. Competence and dominance manifest through identical physiological mechanisms.
People who are functionally active:
improve their muscular and cardio-respiratory fitness;
improve their bone density and functional health;
have lower rates of coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, cancer (including colon and breast cancer), and
mental health;
have a lower risk of falling and of hip or vertebral fractures;
and are more likely to maintain their weight.
The CrossFit stimulus—which is constantly varied, high-intensity functional movement coupled with meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar—can give you a pass on chronic disease and Non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
Increasing work capacity, increasing your fitness—is how to avoid chronic disease.

DAY 1

FRAN: 21 – 15 – 9
Complete the workout by doing 21 thrusters (front-squat 43kg, then drive it overhead), then 21 pull-ups (get your chin over a bar from a hang anyhow). Then go back to thrusters for 15 repetitions followed by 15 pull-ups. Finally, perform 9 repetitions of each, stop the clock and we get a total time for the effort. Fran is a “task priority” workout because the task is set and the time varies. The workout is most often scored by the time required to complete the prescribed rounds. The two elements themselves are designed to be moderate to high-intensity and work-rest interval management is critical. These elements are made intense by pace, load, reps or some combination. Ideally, the first round is hard but possible, whereas, the second and subsequent rounds will require pacing, rest, and breaking the task up into manageable efforts.

DAY 2
1. STRENGTH OF THE DAY:
Every 4 minutes complete: a set of Back Squat and planks.
BACK SQUAT
Set 1: 10 reps @ 60% of 1 Rep. Max
Set 2: 10 reps @70 % of 1 RM
Set 3: 8 reps @75% of 1 RM
Set 4: 6 reps @80% of 1 RM
Set 5: 4 reps @85% of 1 RM

3 WAY PLANK:
4 sets * 30 sec/ side (Total = 90 sec)

2. WORKOUT OF THE DAY:
AMRAP (As many Rounds/Reps as possible): 10 mins

11 TOES TO BAR (T2B)

12 CALORIES BIKE FOR MEN / 10 CALORIES FOR WOMEN

13 BURPEES
These workouts are “time priority” because the athlete is kept moving for a specified time and the goal is to complete as many cycles as possible.

DAY 3
Day 3 is a “task priority” because the task is set and the time varies.
For time: 4 rounds

500 M ROW FOR MEN/ 400 M FOR WOMEN

20 PUSH UPS

20 BOX JUMP (24 INCH FOR MEN/ 20 INCH FOR WOMEN

20 DB SNATCH (20 KG FOR MEN/ 12.5 KG FOR WOMEN))

ADVICE
Workout 5-6 times a week. Not more than 1 hour a day. Most of us have priorities in life like work, spending time with the family, social life etc. besides just working out.
Start your weightlifting career with the deadlift, bench, clean, squat, and jerk then introduce the
“Clean and jerk” and snatch. Powerlifting is the sport of three lifts: the bench press, squat, and deadlift. Powerlifting is a superb start to a lifting program followed later by the more dynamic clean and the jerk and finally the “clean & jerk” and the “snatch.”
Increase your 200m, 400m, 800m and 1 mile time consecutively.
Eat real food, not too much and do functional movements in high intensity.
Stay Happy, Humble and Hungry.

Each of the three distinct days has a distinct character. Typically, our most effective workouts, like art, are remarkable in composition, symmetry, balance, theme, and character. There is no routine and none of the workouts are repeated twice. I believe that meaningful statements about safety, efficacy, and efficiency, the three most important and interdependent facets to evaluate any fitness program, can be supported only by measurable, observable and repeatable data.

ATHLETE AND CONTRIBUTED BY: SHIRISH RAJBHANDARI | PHOTOS: GAURAV XHOMPATE SUNUWAR | LOCATION: GYMKHANA MUAY THAI