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0:58 DS Asks, When someone says “functional fitness”, we hear that a lot in the military, in law enforcement, around defensive-minded circles… what is your definition? VF says;

“As a coach, I look at the term functional fitness and I’m not fond of that term in the first place. There was this [one] world where we had; people who worked out in the general public, and then we had sports specific athletes. And we got this idea that we should train the average individual for the sport of life. Then you don’t know what to call it, because do you call this person an athlete (well of course that’s what CrossFit does – everyone’s an “athlete” now), But then do you call life a sport? That doesn’t really apply. You can’t say sport-specific, you have to say functional… But in reality, [it’s]:

…Anything you do that has a goal, that has an application and real movement and real tasks that you’ll do, in the course of your daily life, or your work, or your sport has a functional purpose to it. Fitness that should have the goal of increasing your capabilities within the likely demands of whatever job, sport, or tasks you’re going to face.”

3:15 DS Asks, So if we’re looking at self-defense; your average armed citizen who may have to fight, who wants to live longer, wants to get healthy, wants to be able to fight with a handgun, [or] unarmed to defend themselves, the ones they love – the SWOT officer out there, the military guy…What should they [all] be focusing on when it comes to fitness? VR responds,

“To start that out, I’ll point out a common trap or pitfall that most people fall into; They get pocketed into one specific single stimulus and adaptation loop Anything that we train, we are going to introduce a stimulus, to the physiologically demanding tasks -The stimulus is going to promote adaptation in the body to make you stronger, faster…for certain movements. These are all adaptations to training. We [tend to] get stuck on doing one or two things.

Ex: “I shoot a lot and I do jujitsu”

But you’re missing strength, speed, and agility, endurance training, etc. So, there are all these other adaptations that you’ll need in a fight that you’re not addressing in your training program.”

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