Walk into any commercial gym and you’ll still see rows of treadmills and ellipticals filled with people who’ve been doing the same 45-minute session for years. They’re consistent. They’re showing up. And many of them are frustrated that the results they expected haven’t arrived. Meanwhile, a growing body of research — and a massive global trend in functional fitness — is pointing to a different approach.
Functional fitness training ranked in the ACSM’s top 10 fitness trends for 2026, up from number 12 the year before. Traditional cardio machines, by contrast, are seeing a steady decline in usage as more people discover that compound, multiplanar movement delivers a more comprehensive return on your training time. So what’s the real difference, and which approach is right for you? Let’s break it down.
What Is Traditional Cardio, and What Does It Actually Do?
Traditional cardio refers to steady-state aerobic exercise performed on machines like treadmills, ellipticals, stationary bikes, and stair climbers. You maintain a relatively consistent effort level for an extended period — think 30 to 60 minutes at moderate intensity — and the primary training effect is improved cardiovascular endurance.
This type of training absolutely has value. It’s accessible to people of all fitness levels, it supports heart health, and it burns calories. There’s a reason it dominated gym floors for decades. But it also has well-documented limitations: it primarily trains one movement plane, it doesn’t build meaningful strength, and the caloric burn drops significantly once your body adapts to the stimulus. If you’ve hit a plateau doing the same cardio routine, your body has simply become efficient at it.
What Is Functional Fitness Training?
Functional fitness training focuses on compound movements that train your body to handle real-world physical demands. Squats, lunges, carries, pushes, pulls, hinge patterns — these are movements your body was designed to perform, and training them builds strength, power, mobility, balance, and cardiovascular capacity simultaneously.
At Function Health Club, functional fitness has been our cornerstone for almost 15 years. It’s not a trend for us — it’s the foundation of how we think about training. Our coaches in Vancouver and Port Coquitlam design every session around movements that make you a more capable, more resilient human being, whether you’re chasing a HYROX finish line or just want to keep up with your kids without getting wrecked.
The ACSM defines functional fitness training as programming that includes strength, power, mobility, and endurance movements designed to improve physical performance in real-world activities. Crucially, it emphasizes multiplanar movement — meaning your body learns to move and stabilize in multiple directions, not just forward and backward on a machine.
The Key Differences: How They Stack Up
Cardiovascular Fitness
Both approaches improve cardiovascular health, but functional fitness does it more efficiently. High-intensity functional training elevates your heart rate through work density rather than sustained duration. A well-programmed functional session will push your cardiovascular system just as hard as a cardio machine session — while also building strength and mobility simultaneously. You get two or three training stimuli for the price of one hour in the gym.
Muscle Building and Metabolic Rate
This is where functional training pulls well ahead. Strength-based functional movements build lean muscle tissue, which raises your resting metabolic rate. More muscle means your body burns more calories at rest, not just during the workout. Traditional steady-state cardio does not build muscle to any significant degree, and in cases of very high volume, it can even work against muscle retention.
For anyone whose goal includes body composition change — losing fat and building definition — functional strength training is far more effective than cardio alone. The research on this point is increasingly clear.
Bone Density and Joint Health
Resistance-based functional training stimulates bone density in ways that cardio machines simply cannot match. This matters enormously as we age. Osteoporosis and decreased bone density are serious health concerns, and weight-bearing functional movements are one of the most effective non-pharmaceutical interventions available. If you’re over 35, this alone is a compelling reason to shift your training emphasis.
Movement Quality and Injury Prevention
Traditional cardio machines keep you in a fixed movement pattern, which means you’re not training the stability and coordination your body needs for life outside the gym. Functional training teaches your body to move well under load — to maintain posture, stabilize joints, and transfer force efficiently. Over time, this dramatically reduces injury risk both in sport and in everyday activities.
Does Cardio Have Any Place in a Functional Training Program?
Yes — and our coaches would never tell you to abandon cardiovascular training entirely. A strong aerobic base supports recovery between sets, improves your capacity to sustain intensity through a functional training session, and has significant long-term health benefits. The key is how you do it.
Rather than spending an hour on a treadmill at the same pace, integrate your cardio intelligently. Short rowing intervals between strength sets. A ski erg warm-up before a lifting session. A tempo run after a lower body workout. This approach builds aerobic capacity in context — which is exactly what you need for HYROX, for sport, and for general fitness.
If you genuinely enjoy running or cycling, keep doing it. Just make sure your overall program includes functional strength training as its foundation, not as an afterthought.
Who Should Make the Switch to Functional Fitness?
The honest answer is: almost everyone. But especially:
- People who’ve been doing the same cardio routine for months or years with diminishing results
- Anyone over 35 who wants to maintain muscle mass, bone density, and mobility as they age
- Athletes training for HYROX, obstacle races, or any sport that demands strength and endurance together
- People who feel bored or unmotivated by traditional gym routines and want something that challenges them in a community setting
- Anyone who wants to be strong, capable, and athletic in real life — not just on a machine
Functional fitness is also highly scalable. At our gym in Vancouver and Port Coquitlam, we work with members from their first Foundations class all the way through to competitive HYROX athletes. The movements are the same — the load, pace, and complexity are adjusted to meet you where you are.
How to Get Started with Functional Fitness in the Lower Mainland
If you’ve spent most of your gym time on cardio machines and want to make the shift, the worst thing you can do is walk into a group class unprepared and try to keep up. The best thing you can do is start with a Foundations session — a one-on-one or small group introduction to the movements, principles, and pacing that underpin functional training.
At Function Health Club, Foundations is exactly that: a structured onboarding that teaches you the core movements safely and confidently before you hit the gym floor with a group. It removes the intimidation factor completely and sets you up to get real results from day one.
Once you’re through Foundations, our functional fitness classes run throughout the week at both our downtown Vancouver location on Beatty Street and our Port Coquitlam location on Seaborne Avenue. The coaches are there to push you, coach your movement, and keep you progressing — not just to count your reps.
The shift from traditional cardio to functional training is one of the most impactful changes you can make to your fitness. More strength, better movement, faster results, and a lot more fun. Ready to find out what you’re capable of? Come try a class or book a Foundations session with us at Function Health Club.
