Structural v's Functional Training

The training ideas discussed here have been proven successful by numerous athletes. The key is understanding that true physiologic adaptation takes time.

Structural Training

This refers to training aimed at changing the fundamental makeup of your body. Increasing the number of mitochondria you have in your muscle cells, the complexity of your capillaries, and the density of your supportive ligaments.

The increased capillary density allows more blood to deliver more oxygen and increased mitochondria density means you can utilize more oxygen to produce energy. All this translates into more endurance and speed.

These changes take months to years to occur. The potential for improvement is immense. However to affect structural change requires consistent training over a long period of time.

There are no shortcuts here, you just need to do the right work and be patient...

Functional Training

This is the type of training everyone loves... it is meant to get the most out of the structure you currently have. The limitations of this type of training are obvious. You can only make your structure perform to a certain level, before you must change your structure in order to see further improvement.

Doing too much of this type of training will lead to early burn out and you will get slower. The reason for this is that high intensity work creates high levels of lactate in your system. The result is a high acid state in your working muscle cells. Maintaining this acidosis for too long over a period of time will actually damage the mitochondria that you worked so long to build up.

Functional training added to your program at the right time and amounts will see you get the most out of your long term structural development.

The test helps show where your structural limitations are, by identifying what process your body uses to produce the desired energy for cycling and running.

When you train BELOW your LBP you will be targeting your structural developing of your oxygen dependent energy system (aerobic zone). Above LBP will focus energy on improving functional changes.