Functional Performance Lab

Despite our natural tendency to be drawn towards simple solutions that require the least amount of technical understanding to perform, our biology requires a more global approach to thrive and see results across the entire fitness spectrum.

In 1905, Dr. Philip Hoffman published a study comparing the feet of people who had never worn shoes (from indigenous populations) with the feet of individuals who had worn them since childhood.

He found that modern shoes deform and weaken our feet.

The second photo is of a newborn's feet, clearly more similar to the feet above.

As general recommendations, try to spend as much time as possible barefoot and wear minimalist shoes.

DO YOU EXPERIENCE PAIN WHILE SITTING DOWN?

If you experience pains when sitting down then you have a bigger problem to worry about than how you sit.

If your movement is dysfunctional, changing the way you sit, the chair you sit in, or the height of your desk is not going to solve the problem in the long run as you will keep dragging your dysfunctional positioning into the way you sit.

You need to get to the root causes of your pains by addressing your body as an integrated system. When your muscles learn to work together efficiently, it will be able to handle periods of sitting with ease.

We need to move better in order to sit better, there is no way around this.

Flexibility occurs as a byproduct of moving well. Stop tackling the symptoms and address the cause instead

It's way too common for people to narrow in on 1 isolated aspect of fitness without looking at the bigger picture and the overall implications an exercise will bring on the body.

Surely doing back squats will make you stronger and doing more back squats and this may preserve your ego in the short run.

However, people rarely consider the unintended consequences that come along when you place a barbell right on top of your spine and crush your vertebras down against gravity.

SERIOUSLY, why would you want to do that to your precious spine?

Apart from setting yourself up for chronic back pain and a bulged disk, when the overall movement of the spine is impareid due to vertebraes being compressed against each other, other parts of the body are going to have to make up for those limitations, leading to full body compensatory patterns.

The common story people have is that they get away with it in their 20s and even 30s, start regretting it when they hit their 30s and 40s, they live in pain every single day, feel old and slowly have to start giving up on their favourite activities.

The question you need to ask yourself is it necessary to destroy your body in order to see an isolated gain in strength? We certainly don't believe so

Stop looking for quick fixes and learn to get to the source of the issue.

Our biology is not adapted to live in an environment of so much comfort and abundance. It requires challenges to grow.

A concept called hormesis explains how we get a healthy adaptive response when exposed to a stressor that could be dangerous or deadly at a higher level.

In short bursts, these stressors knock you out of comfortable homeostasis and activate a variety of cellular mechanisms that promote stress resilience, improve immune system, produce new mitochondria and repair cellular damage (via processes like autophagy).

Overall these stressors energize us and make us more resilient to handle the demands of the current environment.

What is Functional Training?

The term “functional Training” has been growing in popularity, however what exactly it constitutes is highly misunderstood.

At FPL, we see functional training as the following: Training that enhances the primary movement functions of a specific organism.

Different organisms have primary movement patterns. Dogs run on 4 legs, Kangaroos hop on 2 legs, birds fly. What are the primary movement functions for human beings?

Well, as anthropology findings suggest, Standing on 2 legs, walking, running and throwing are the driving functions behind our evolutionary adaptations.

Are there other functions that we're supposed to be able to do? Of course there are: we need to be able to bend down, hinge, squat, push, pull, etc, but standing, walking, running and throwing are clearly what define us and what our bodies are built around.

Functional training for human beings must therefore enhance these 4 functions.

Here is where most people get it wrong. Check out and you will see how any exercise that looks good on camera is considered “functional”. However, if the exercise is not based on our 4 primary functions, can it really be considered functional?

As soon as you stray from your primary movement patterns, you see a decline in health and function. If you feel muscular stiffness or joint pain after you train, you are probably ignoring this principle.

In June 2020, Michael came to us chronic glute and hamstring pain. 16 months later not only is he pain free but has just completed Capetown Marathon in the best time in 5 years!

Testimonial from Michael as follows: 👇👇👇

I met Javier and FPL after experiencing hip, glute and hamstring pain for some 18 months. I had done the rounds of physio, bio, chiro, podiatrists, acupuncture, dry needling etc etc. I usually experienced short term relief but running or driving quickly set me back. I also did traditional strength training two or three times a week.

The Functional Patterns approach which looks at the body as a whole and prioritises gait was very different to anything I had experienced. Learning how years of sitting at a desk had affected my upper body which in turn limited my stride was fascinating.

After about two months of working with Javier I noticed that my discomfort levels on long drives had reduced and that running was easier. This improvement has continued and I now run pain free and at better paces.

In addition to being nice people Javier and team are knowledgeable, dedicated, focussed and precise. I look forward to running even better times in future - not to mention an all round happier and more mobile body.






























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𝕋𝕒𝕘 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕠𝕟𝕖 𝕨𝕙𝕠 𝕟𝕖𝕖𝕕𝕤 𝕥𝕠 𝕤𝕖𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 👇👇👇






























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Sitting with a rounded lower back can have profound effects on men’s and women’s sexual function because this posture shortens and tightens the pelvic floor muscles, which are our primary sexual muscles

When the pelvic floor muscles are tight and weak, they cannot exert their power and strength, and the end result can be weak or nonexistent or***ms, less sexual arousal, less stamina, or weak ejaculations.

𝕀𝕤 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕡𝕠𝕤𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕒𝕗𝕗𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕝𝕚𝕓𝕚𝕕𝕠?















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