Is functional training more effective than the gym at building fitness?

The best way to get better at something through training is by using the ‘SAID’ principle: specific adaptation of imposed demands. Put simply, if we want to get better at picking up heavy things, we go to the gym and lift progressively heavier things. If we want to run further, we gradually up the mileages. If we want to get better at moving our own bodies effectively and efficiently, we need to engage in functional training.

Functional training can add so much value to our daily lives whether we are body builders, ultra runners or anything in between. Calisthenics is a staple of this type of training, using body weight exercises and our own mass as an opposing force to get better at moving our bodies. There are exercises and progressions that can be done to train for any goal like rehabilitating an injury (or becoming more resistant to them), muscular endurance in the legs for distance running, building muscle strength or rounding out our fitness as a whole.

Indoor rock climbing can be a fantastic way to include some functional fitness training into our lives. Climbing uses every muscle in our body, from using the whole back and biceps to pull ourselves into and up an overhanging steep wall, to squatting our whole weight off one foot up technical vertical walls. As climbing is full body, you don’t have to come up with a long list of fancy exercises; you just need to climb.

The biggest benefit of the sport is that it doesn’t feel like functional training; climbing is just fun. It can be challenging, mentally stimulating and sociable; and provide an excellent, complementary form of training for runners who want to get stronger, protect themselves from injury, or just to ‘mix up’ their regime to keep mentally fresh.

Whilst I’m a huge advocate of running outside, I’d argue the gym environment does have a place when looking at developing your running fitness, building strength and keeping you