I still remember the burn. The sting of posing oil in my eyes, the dehydration that made my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, and the final call to center stage under those blinding lights. For a better part of a decade, that became my church. The health club changed into my sanctuary, and the iron turned into my god.
I was a bodybuilder—a good one.
I spent my 20s chasing the pump. I could tell you the macronutrient profile of a grain of rice. I knew how to make a muscle striated and complete, a way to manage water intake to acquire that “dry” look, and a way to push through the ache of drop sets until my muscle mass screamed for mercy. I lived by the creed: “No pain, no advantage.”
Then, I grew to become 40. And I found out I may want to now not deliver my own groceries without throwing my back out.
That became the instant I stopped schooling for the replicate and started schooling for life. That was the moment I switched from bodybuilding to functional fitness. After 25 years in this industry—10 as a competitor and 15 as a coach—I am here to tell you that the heaviest weight you will ever have to lift is yourself off the floor when you are 80. And if you aren’t training for that, you are missing the point.
The Bodybuilding Trap: Aesthetics Over Ability
Let me be clear: I no longer hate bodybuilding. It taught me the field, consistency, and the first-rate anatomy of the human frame. I learned the way to isolate a latissimus dorsi, the way to make a bicep peak, and the way to sculpt a quad sweep.
But bodybuilding, by means of its very definition, is a set form. It is an aesthetic game. The aim is to make the body appear a certain way under precise lighting. To gain this, we train in a very specific way:
Isolation: We use machines that stabilize our bodies so we can force a single muscle to do the work.
The “Pump”: We chase blood flow into the muscle to make it look full and vascular.
Limited Planes of Motion: We flow forward and again (like a bicep curl) or up and down (like a leg press). We rarely twist, rotate, or circulate laterally.
And right here is the grimy secret they don’t inform you of in the quilt of the fitness magazines: that kind of schooling creates “fragile power.” You are probably capable of leg pressing 800 kilos on a system that supports your lower back and publications your direction, but ask that same character to carry a 50-pound suitcase up 3 flights of stairs, and they may pull a hamstring.
I recognize that I became that man or woman. At my top, I may want to bench press 350 kilos. But I couldn’t touch my feet. My shoulders were so internally turned around from years of chest-dominant training that I gave the look of a gorilla. I changed into sturdy within the health club and vulnerable within the globe.
The Wake-Up Call: Real Life Doesn’t Happen on a Bench
My epiphany came on a Saturday afternoon. I turned into supporting my sister in moving a heavy wardrobe down a narrow staircase. The wardrobe became awkward; the angles were bizarre, and I needed to stabilize it whilst strolling backward, turning, and decreasing it at the same time. The subsequent morning, I couldn’t get out of bed.
My lower back was in absolute spasm. My hips felt locked. My shoulders ached.
I went to a physical therapist who, after poking and prodding me, asked a question that stopped me cold: “You’re an instructor, proper? So why are you so accurate at lifting weights, however, so terrible at moving your own body?”
He defined that I had advanced “muscular imbalances.” My chest was overdeveloped and tight, pulling my shoulders forward. My quads have been massive; however, my glutes have been lazy and didn’t work. My back erectors have been sturdy, but my deep center stabilizers—the muscle tissues that genuinely defend your back—have been susceptible.
I appeared sturdy. But I wasn’t capable.
That was the beginning of my deep dive into practical health. I started out studying human movement, no longer just muscle anatomy. I learned about Fascia, the connective tissue that wraps around the whole thing. I determined that the frame doesn’t flow in isolation; it moves in chains.
What is Functional Fitness? (Training the Movement, Not the Muscle)
So, what does “useful health” definitely mean? In the 15 years since I made the switch, I even have an easy definition for my clients: Functional health is training your frame to handle real-life situations effectively and without damage.
If bodybuilding asks, “How does this muscle appear?” purposeful fitness asks, “How does this movement make sense?” and “Can I do it effectively?”
It focuses on compound, multi-planar actions that mimic the obligations we do each day. We educate on movement styles, no longer personal muscle tissues:
Squat: Getting in and out of a chair, picking up a child.
Hinge: Picking up a laundry basket, tying your shoes.
Push: Opening a heavy door, pushing a grocery cart.
Pull: Starting a lawnmower, pulling open a heavy drawer.
Lunge/Carry: Walking, jogging, carrying groceries.
Rotate: Looking over your shoulder even while riding, swinging a golf membership, or gambling with youngsters.
When you train these styles with the right form, you aren’t just building muscle; you are constructing competence. You are teaching your apprehensive device how to coordinate your limbs. You are strengthening your joints via their full variety of motion.
The “Old Me” vs. “New Me” Workout
Let me give you a practical example of how my training has changed. Let’s look at a “Shoulder Day” then vs. now.
Old Me (Bodybuilding Shoulder Day):
Machine Shoulder Press
Dumbbell Lateral Raises (leaning on a bench for support)
Front Barbell Raises
Reverse Pec-Deck Flyes
Shrugs with dumbbells
Result: Big, round shoulders. But terrible mobility. Any movement that required me to lift my arms overhead while twisting (like reaching for a seatbelt) felt unstable.
New Me (Functional Shoulder Day):
Standing Single-Arm Overhead Press: No back support. My center has to hold me upright. I’m using a kettlebell, which has a shifted center of gravity, forcing my stabilizers to work.
Turkish Get-Ups: This is a full-body motion in which I pass from lying on the ground to standing up at the same time, while conserving a weight overhead. It trains shoulder stability, core strength, and hip mobility simultaneously. It is the ultimate “getting off the floor” drill.
Bottom-Up Carries: Holding a kettlebell upside down (by the horn) and walking. The instability forces every small muscle in my shoulder cuff to fire constantly.
Band Pull-Aparts: To open up my chest and fix the internal rotation caused by years of pressing.
Result: I don’t have the “cannonball” delts I used to. But I can reach, lift, carry, and play without pain. My shoulders are healthy.
The Core: Six-Pack vs. Armor
This is a topic I am particularly passionate about. Bodybuilding chases the “six-pack.” It’s about low body fat and doing crunches to make the rectus abdominis pop.
Functional fitness builds the “core” as a unit. In functional terms, your core is not just your abs. It’s your entire torso—including the deep transverse abdominis, the obliques, the pelvic floor, the diaphragm, and the muscles of the lower back.
Its job is not to flex your spine (like a crunch). Its job is to resist movement. It’s a stabilization mechanism. It’s the armor that protects your spine under load.
I switched from doing hundreds of crunches to doing:
Planks and Side Planks
Pallof Presses (resisting rotation)
Dead Bugs (training core stability while moving limbs)
Farmer’s Carries (core must brace to keep you upright)
The result? My waistline is thicker than it was when I was a bodybuilder because I have actual muscle density there, not just skin stretched over organs. But my back pain? Gone. Completely.
The Aging Athlete: Why You Need to Switch
Here is the hard truth I share with every man over 35 who walks into my gym: Father Time is undefeated. But you can negotiate a truce.
When we are young, our bodies are incredibly forgiving. We can abuse them with poor form, isolation machines, and ego lifting. At 25, you can bounce back from a deadlift with a rounded back. At 45, that same mistake is a blown disc and six months of recovery.
As we age, we lose three critical things if we don’t train them: mobility, stability, and balance.
Bodybuilding often ignores all three. You are locked into a machine. You don’t need balance. You don’t need mobility because the machine dictates the range of motion.
Functional fitness prioritizes them.
Mobility: Can I get into a deep squat and stay there? (This is crucial for bathroom independence as we age.
Stability: Can I stand on one leg to put on my pants without holding the wall?
Balance: If I trip on a curb, can my neuromuscular system react fast enough to catch me?
I see it in my clients all the time. The 60-year-old who started functional training five years ago can out-squat, out-lift, and out-move the 30-year-old who only does bench press and bicep curls.
How to Make the Switch: A Coach’s Guide
If my story resonates with you, and you are equipped to stop training for the beach and begin schooling for lifestyle, here is my 4-step guide based on 15 years of coaching transitions.
1. Put the Machines Down.
Spend a month using the most effective unfastened weights (dumbbells, kettlebells, and barbells) and your body weight. Machines dictate the path. Free weights force you to stabilize. You will feel clumsy at first. Good. That means your stabilizers are waking up.
2. Get on the Floor.
Can you get down to the ground and stand up again without the use of your arms? That is a purposeful test. Start working towards it. Do Turkish get-ups. Do rolling patterns. If you cannot manipulate your frame on the floor, you can’t manage it standing up.
3. Walk with Weight.
Incorporate loaded carries into your ordinary routine. Grab a heavy dumbbell in one hand and walk for 30 seconds. Switch hands. Then try it with two (suitcase carry). This builds grip strength (correlated with longevity), core stability, and work capacity.
4. Forget the Mirror.
This is the hardest part. When you do a functional movement, you often can’t see the muscle working. You have to feel it. Stop worrying about whether your lats look wide and start worrying about whether your shoulder joint feels stable.
The Measure of Success
Last week, I helped another friend move. This time, it became a big, awkward sectional couch. We had to tilt it, carry it, stroll it through slender doors, and navigate a complicated set of steps.
Afterward, we sat on the porch, consuming water. I felt my body. My back was a little tired, but it wasn’t screaming. My shoulders felt used, but not abused. My hips felt loose.
My friend looked at me and said, “Man, you’re strong. You lifted that whole end by yourself.”
I smiled. In my bodybuilding days, I would have measured that by the weight on the bar. But that day, the weight was a sofa. The reward was being able to enjoy the rest of my day without pain.
That is the metric. Not the way you look in a posing trunk, but the way you sense on your personal pores and skin. Not the size of your bicep, however, but the exceptionality of your life. I switched from bodybuilding to practical health so I could live my life, no longer just pose in it.
I hope you won’t forget to do the same.
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