THIS is my sport!

Today at the GLOBO I saw a new friend of mine - Todd is his name. He's been trying CrossFit main site WOD's for a few days now and loving it. And he's killing it! He is super fit and in no time will look like a perfect CF specimen, I am sure. At any rate, in addition to the WODs he's been actively perusing the main site for materials, demos, etc. He mentioned to me today that he saw somewhere on the site where it said something to the effect (paraphrasing here) that people use CrossFit to train for "their" sports (e.g., MMA, football, baseball, hockey, volleyball, gymnastics, etc). He says to me, "THIS, CrossFit is my sport; I want THIS to be my sport!" Fucking awesome! I knew he and I would get along. 

This got me thinking about the "sport of fitness". That's what Coach Glassman refers to CrossFit as, the sport of fitness. I totally agree with this contention. Each WOD is a personal journey, sometimes in pleasure, often in pain, and in competition with yourself (either your last time for that WOD or just kicking ass at the current WOD). It's a sport and sometimes you've only got one participating athlete. For Today's WOD (3 rounds of 275# deadlifts, 10 reps + 50 double unders) I could've used a little help from my friend(s). I was killing it, but slipping on some of the double unders reps, which got m frustrated and made me make more mistakes. I needed a teammate, a virtual slap in the ass to say, come on SP, you can do it! No rest for the wicked, dude! KILL IT!

THIS is my sport! I will continue to kill it, as best I can, until I no longer can participate, I will work hard. My benefits are not trophy, medal, money, but personal gratification at surpassing a previously unknown ability and fitness. What more could you ask for from a program in fitness: Fun, personal satisfaction that transcends the gym, and fitness? I love my sport!

A sense of community at the GLOBO...?

Today I experience something new, strange, and yet wonderful at the same time at my local GLOBO Gym. A sense of community. Now, this was not your typical meathead community where we exchanged weightgainer recipes and flexes of our biceps in the mirror. Rather this was a community that I felt was CrossFit like. Well it happens that it was... Let me explain. I've been doing CrossFit at my local GLOBO now for a a few months, 9 or so, I'd say. People know it because I'm not shy about letting them know, or letting them know that "No, I am not done with that pull-up bar just because I go running across the gym to the squat rack to do some thrusters (ah, Fran!). Many people are, well for lack of a better word, frightened by what I do: handstands, and the push-ups! My goodness... what are you crazy, I would hear. But today was different. A few days ago, I mentioned in another post on intensity, that a fella asked me about my workout. He actually asked if I was training for an Ironman Competition and I disabused him about that and informed him about CrossFit and their website. So today I walk into the gym and I see him in the basketball court trying to do a HSPU. He comes over to me and says he's been perusing (my words) the main page and is trying to WOD. It included HSPUs and he could not do it. He was discouraged and ready to quit. I stopped my warm-up and I told him NO! This stuff is infinitely scalable so let's see what you can do. Turns out he can do a modified HSPU with his legs on a bench or box. So he did them. His pull-ups are weak, and his kip is ugly, but we worked that a little too. I of course was not trying to "train" him, proper. I'd been reprimanded for doing that with my wife just a few days earlier - d baggerston trainer told me I could not even train my old lady - I mean WTF!? Right? But after I warmed (him and I) up, we ran through the wod together. It was great fun. He was a little nervous, but held his own and he had no choice because I was cheering him on, loudly mind you, and I was not going to let him give up! Turns out that was contagious because near my max, he started cheering me on "Come on you got this!" Others were taking notice and the one trainer, we'll just refer to him as Douche Baggerston, was not happy. I could tell. Odd looks from him weren't what I noticed, but it was the onlooking from his clients, veering attention away from him and onto us that I did notice. I kind of wanted to tick my tongue out at him, and would have if it hadn't already been hanging out panting. The workout was great, he loved it and wants to do more together or on his own! I am stoked! I feel like I made a difference. 

It gets better. As I am walking out I see the spinning instructor - bad ass older lady that has more endurance capacity then a fucking camel! Well she's been doing CF at a BOX a few towns over and knows that I do it at the GLOBO. So she starts talking to me. I leaned through her that another gym had actually closed down because the trainers had defected to a CF model. So this GLOBO does not like CF. I can only assume that it is a huge slap in the face to think that 1) they spent all this money on all this shitty equipment that sucks (read my post about machines) and 2) that this new model-free system produces results. That is, they'd rather see their clients use the machines, get personal training from their trainers (which apparently is where the $ are) and not get any fitter, but yet still take their money, membership fees. Fucking unconscionable! They are selling a bogus product, a fraudulent claim. And people are fucking paying for it! I am ashamed for them, but that is their business. In fact, I reckon they make more money off people who join (e.g., new years resolution-ers) and never show up. At any rate, as disgustingly dishonest and fucked up as that is, the smalle community of 3-4 that I've started to get to know have been wonderful. They've even expressed interest in training with me outside the GLOBO, under my supervision, at my garage (i dont have any equipment yet) or at a park. This is freaking crazy - by being honest, hard-working, and having a shred of integrity about what I do, plus revealing my secret (CF main site) these people want me to train them! I love this stuff and had left the gym with a fantastic feeling about what I am doing and how CF has changed my life. 

Cheers, to more community everywhere....

... more to come on this over the weekend....

Intensity evokes remarks

OK, so I've written about these two ideas before: the need for intensity and compliments, or remarks. Yesterday it happened again. I really brought it to the house for my WOD: Murph - run 1 mile, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats, then run 1 mile, again! Poor time of 54:57 because I attacked it all wrong, but now know for next time how to do it.

At any rate, I was rolling in my workout, wrapping up the brutal second 1 mile run, sweating, breathing, working! Afterward, I cooled down and did some NF and isolation stretching to make sure I was able to walk to my classes. While I was stretching a guy at the gym who I've come to befriend simply by seeing him on a daily basis, approached me and asked, "Can I ask you a question?" I immediately got a little defensive and thought great another person is going to ask me why I don't do the typical weights routine, etc blah blah ... But no, this fella asks me, "Are you training for an Ironman or strongman competition?" Holy cow, I was flabbergasted to say the least and highly appreciative. Not because I care to do an Ironman or Stronman Comp, but rather because this guy was giving me a really nice compliment. Really made my day.

 

Gave me something to think (& write) about as well. This guy obviously saw me working, hard, noticed the intensity I brought yesterday, everyday to the gym. Any of us can go into the gym/fitness center and walk around and see a lot of people just standing around. I've always sort of been puzzled by this, you come here to workout, right, so why just stand around. OR why talk on your damned cell phone. The whole idea that you should be able to talk while working out (with exception of a few conditions, like cardiac or pregnancy) seems ridiculous. If you can talk while you are working out, then it's my wholehearted conviction that you are not really working out. Rather you are just moving it: that is, going through the motions. Now there are times when talking is capable, in between 1RM's, etc, but for the most part the gym should be a place where you push yourself. Spend one hour at high intensity work capacity instead of talking on the phone for 33% of the time you are there, looking at girls asses for another 20%, talking to your "workout" buddy, etc. I mean come on. They don't call it working out for nothing. You are supposed to be working. Else they might call socializing out, cell phone talking out, douching out! Just sayin'

Another thing I've noticed is that intensity, my intensity is what I've noticed, either worries people or upsets them. People are often put off by my rather frantic fast paced walking between stations, sometimes running between stations, or constant monitoring of my stopwatch. Sometimes they approach me and try to talk to me, and I get the distinct feeling that some of them are trying to bring my heart rate down. They do that strange long pause between words and phrases and talk about nothing of real importance at the time. I must seem like a rude dick (like I normally do) when I look down at my watch and say, "excuse me" as I walk past to my next station, start a new set, etc. I am not trying to be rude, rather I feel they are being rude by interrupting my work.

At any rate, this post is not about what I don't like about when people talk to me during a workout, it's about the nice and courteous folks that do talk to me, but have the where with all to know to wait until the end of my workout, to talk me up during my stretching and cool down. To notice that I am using a stop watch and that interruption will probably mess up whatever I am doing. It's quite a nice compliment to know, or observe, or be told, that someone has noticed that you are doing these things. It suggests to me that the intensity that you bring to the gym is observable, socially observable to those that have social skills. It certainly makes people feel uncomfortable because it's not what they are used too. They've never worked out, with or without, a trainer, and been told to watch their time. Rather, often they are coached into a rest period between sets. Rest between sets has it's place, but not everyday. Bring the intensity, or as so eloquently put by one of my favorite raps songs: BRING THE PAIN. It doesn't last that long. So thanks to those people who notice my intensity. It really surpasses just about any compliment, verbal compliment, that I could ever receive. It demonstrates to me that you value intensity. People who value intensity in fitness are probably the same people that value intensity in other walks of life: their occupation, their love life, their family life, their hobbies, etc. I can respect a person like that. I like a person like that!

I think this is interesting: I wonder if people who bring the intensity to the gym/fitness center, also bring the intensity to other domains of life. In my experience this is the case. With people I know, this is the case, I wonder what others' thoughts are.

Really? I can't train my wife?!

What a joke! I was in the gym the other day, the gym I pay for a membership for my wife and I, helping my wife workout. I hesitate to use the word "train" at all, because really she just needs a little motivation (13 weeks prego will do require that) and some ideas about new workouts and exercises. So I was running her through a workout, at this stage a warm-up - some Samson stretches, jumping jacks, squat thrusts, etc. The workout was not even that strange - sumo deadlift high-pulls, push-ups, and lunges. 20 minute AMRAP. However, one of the trainers says to me quite pointedly, quite intentionally, obviously with meaning, "are you working out too, Steve?" I said, "No. I am just showing Austen a new workout." He says, "be careful, they don't allow independent trainers doing work in here." Ok, if it were a warning, then I totally appreciate it, and actually at the time, I was very thankful and just threw in a few sets of push-ups and burpees here and there to make it look like I was working out too, not just training her. But, damn. This really got me thinking and a little ticked off as the thought percolated. I am like, really dude, it's my wife. She's not paying me, she's not a "client" - WTF!?

I am now not sure if the fella was trying to help me or be a tool bag. 

Turns out, that for the past month or two this guy's good pal, also a trainer at this gym, was trying to get my wife to pay for some training in Kettlebell workouts. Well, a few problems with this. 1) why would she pay someone else to show her how to swing a kettlebell when I can do it for free? 2) Why would she pay to have someone show her how to use a kettlebell when the gym does not even make the kettlebells available. No, they are locked away in the secret personal trainer room where the average member cannot access that equipment. And finally, 3) why would she pay for training from a man who is obviously out of shape. The dude is fat. Fine, he can throw around a kettlebell, but what about looking the part?

I tend to think about shopping for personal training, not that I shop for that, like shopping for anything else. If a horse farmer started telling you all about "horse power" would you buy an engine from him? Would you buy health food products from this guy (LOL) or Kirsty Alley? Would you buy a cat from a puppy mill? Would you buy a fancy rat from a pet store that specialized in reptile sales? No! Hell NO! So why in the world do some trainers think that clients will sign up to pay (a lot) of money for personal training with an individual that looks ostensibly out of shape, or at the very least in worse shape then the people they are trying to gain as clients. How do these folks sleep at night? I've written about this before here. But thought I'd update it a little here, because of this past incident. Now the guy who "warned me" and I am greatful, because I'd hate to have lost my gym membership or something, is fit as a fiddle. Ripped, strong, muscular, etc. But he is one of 2, maybe 3 trainers that are in what I would refer to as "good shape". The other 3-4 are, well, turds. And as far as I can tell they aren't even gold plated! LOL. 

So, this got me thinking a bit. What's the strategy here? There must be some marketing scheme behind all this "mess" right? I think there is. Let me expound my hypothesis and see what you think. 

If I am a gym, and I want to get business from the largest possible most disbursed clientele around in order to rake in the $$ then I need to cater to people who are "serious" about working out and those that are what I've heard referred to as "fair weather worker outers" or "resolution lifters". I'll start by describing the first type of individual: The serious worker outer. These individuals have been dedicated to fitness for a while now. They are already generally fit, some very fit. They come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors: from marathoner to body builder to ex-collegiate athlete to the mom/dad who is just trying to keep up with his kids. They most likely do not need personal training. They've gotten this far on some good coaching, reading magazines like Men's Health, by watching and talking to others in the gym, or by simply having a "knack" for understanding their own kinesthetic sense of awareness and how musculature and exercise work. These are what we might call "naturals", right?   The second type of gym goer is not that fit. They might have joined, bought a membership as a new years resolution claiming, "This is going to be the year I knock off these 20 pesky pounds!" They might be the person who, one day looks in the mirror and then looks down at her plane tickets to Cancun and thinks, what am I going to look like in that bikini? They join for a completely different, acute (or short-lived) reason. They may not even appear to be in bad shape, although many do in my opinion. 

Knowing this, I think that the gyms target their clients with personal training - because to be honest that's where the real money is. Personal training is like the drinks at a restaurant and the membership fees are simply the meal. In case you did not know, most places make the majority of their profits off of drink orders and meals are designed to make people thirsty so that they can make more money off of drink orders. Cool, well sort of.  SO the membership just gets them in the door. Then they are approached, targeted, I would say by PT. It does not take Einstein to see where my thinking is here: if someone comes in and is reasonably fit, then approaching them with a fatty PT is stupid, moronic. This is what happened to my wife. My wife can back squat her body weight, bench press 3/4 - 2/3 her body weight, clean and jerk, snatch, and she can max overhead squat over 100 lbs. Oh and did I mention she's 13 weeks prego? Wrong approach strategy here. Rather folks who are already fit are generally approached (and I must admit that there is probably a reasonable rate of error based on some sort of signal detection theory, think loose clothing, prego belly, etc) by one of the two really fit trainers. One just looks like a great athlete and the other is a competitive body builder. "Yeah they look good, many people would want to 'look' like that!" Hell yeah! On the other hand, there are those folks - the resolutioners or fair weather fitters - that need attention too. Approaching them with someone who is obviously a real athlete could be very intimidating, right. That kind of mental discrepancy wreaks havoc with our minds. Let me give you an example where it often pops in and we loathe it. The car dealership. You walk in wanting to buy an updated model of your, say Toyota Corolla. The salesperson is not happy with that because the commission is low on that car. So they try to sell you the Sequoia or the Land Cruiser. Yeah, mucho dinero there. Your Bullshit detector goes bonkers and you head for another dealership. 

It's a clever little scheme (and I mean scheme in it's proper definitional sense, not the Dr. Evil sense) to target the ends of the fitness spectrum. An additional added benefit of this strategy by gyms is that those individuals in the middle 68% of the distribution will usually fall in one of three categories (in my experience and humble opinion): 1) they will be happy with where they are and their $25 / month gym membership and not care to do any personal training; 2) be impressed by the ever present fit personal trainer and desire to look like or be as strong as them which results in them seeking training by someone better than them; and 3) be intimidated by the super fit trainers and default to the turd trainer with the idea that once they get a little fitter then they will feel more comfortable training with the fit trainer. Ingenious, not ever sure it's been planned, scheme, IMHO. 

At the end of the day, I feel really honoured that my wife would even want me to train her - not sure what end of the spectrum I fall in from the above discussion, but I do feel like I've become fitter and am pleased she trusts me and respects me to train her. And the fact that the folks at the gym think it's bogus for me to do so, is well just upsetting. Sorry, turd, she'd rather train with her old (and by old I mean aged) man then you....

Paleo Pasta Dinner

OK, Paleo - that is NO PROCESSED CARBS - Pasta dinner, how's that possible? I know, I know, I didn't think it was possible either or at the very least possible, but would taste like shit. It didn't, Austen, my food guinea pig, confirmed it!

So here's how you do it, easy peezy! Go buy a Spaghetti Squash. It's like a butternut squash, but more yellow. Then split it with a knife, that's the hardest part of this recipe. Seriously. De-seed it. Place face down in a slightly greased or sprayed baking sheet. Bake in a 375 preheated oven for about 30 minutes. Then take it out and allow it to cool, because you need to pick it up and it'll be pretty hot. I did not wait, because I was hungry. I just used a few paper towels to attenuate the heat. OK, so now take a fork and run it along the inside of the squash, it will peel away and look a lot like spaghetti (see image). OK, so now you could pour your favorite sauce over it. You could lather it in butter and salt, or garlic. I made a homemade sauce by sauteing bacon, onion, and garlic. Then I mixed in two chopped tomatoes and some chopped basil. I seasoned it all with a tiny bit of salt, dried red pepper flakes, fresh ground back pepper... I also added about a 1/2 cup of pine nuts.  I put that over the top of the squash like I would put sauce on Spaghetti. I served it with a side of oven baked asparagus. Yummy!

Paleo Ice Cream, No Seriously

Paleo Ice Cream recipe

No seriously, this is not ice cream, because it's completely free of dairy. Nonetheless, if you are on Paleo and have not had "real" ice cream in a while this should satisfy you.

And it's so damn easy to make.


I use a Magic Bullet blender and do this:

1/2 frozen banana
some ice (amount depends on how think you like it, milkshake-ish should use less, ice cream-ish should use slightly more)
1/4-1/2 almond milk
I add a dash or two of cinnamon, because I like it, you could however add carob chips, fruit, raisins, etc

Blend thoroughly. Eat.
Enjoy!

Why machines are stupid, as if we did not already know!

The other day, about three days ago, I observed a trainer at Gold's Gym show someone how to use a leg machine, like a hacksquat machine or something. At any rate, it took the trainer a good 5 minutes to show him how to use the machine. Now, don't under estimate the power of 5 whole minutes. Try this: start a stop watch and read the title of this post, "Why machines are stupid, as if we did not already know!" until the 5 minutes are up. How many times did you say the title? A lot a bet. I hope that impresses upon you the length that 5 minutes actually is. OK, so when it comes to explaining a lift 5 minutes is a good amount of time to describe the essence of the lift. For example, the other day I was training someone and I was teaching her how to squat. It took well over 5 minutes because squatting is not easy, intuitive, and often executed wholly incorrectly.  While giving this explanation of "how to squat" I discussed foot placement, hip extension and flexion, full extension, hand position, lumbar curve, core stability, heels, heels, & more heels. But not once did I say "push that lever, or pull that dial". This is what got me the other day at Gold's. The trainer started off the session like he was selling a used sports car, discussing all of the intricate details of the machine. "Here, see, you have the pin, which goes inside the plates to vary how heavy the lift is. (he didn't use lift, that was my paraphrasing)". "And here is the platform that you stand on." "Now, this is very important", he says. "This lever right here can save your life!" Actually that's the statement that caught my attention. I was sort of eavesdropping prior to that, but that statement captured a full on head turn and gawk. You'd of thought that Vida Guerra had just strutted by me. So I am watching this trainer, and first of all I cannot get over the fact that this trainer does not at all look the part. He is sort of pear shaped, sure he had pretty big arms, but generally I would not have classified him as a "fit" man had I seen him walking through the Kroger. Trainer boy goes on to tell the client (poor sole) which lever to pull, what thing to push, etc, etc. The guy, obvously new to working out, obvious from his rotund physique, looked a little more then befuddled. Imagine holding an intense workout and all of a sudden having to fail and remember what switch to flick to save your life, legs, or  just yourself from sheer embarrassment? I would find that absolutely impossible. Or at the very least absolutely impossible while maintaining any sort of intensity during your lift. 

Let me see if I can relate this to a topic of interest for me. You guessed it CrossFit. Kilgore and his colleagues developed a model a while back called the Fish model (Issue 69 of the CrossFit Journal). It was essentially a means with which to plot progress in multi-mode training. The two essential curves for this discussion are the performance improvement and need for complexity of training. In Kilgore's model you can see that they are inversely related. That is as performance starts to asymptote, the need for complexity in training increases proportionally. This is to challenge the athlete ever more to be able to continue making gains in their performance. The Kilgore model is brilliant, however, it aims to describe changes across broad time and modal domain. Good thing, right. Hell yeah! But let's assume for a minute that we are also interested in plotting performance within a single slice in time; within a single workout, within a single lift. A slice of Kilgore's Fish! And let's also assume that we are interested in two facets that contribute to the complexity of training: physical and psychological. The psychological - and that includes the way that the brain controls motor unit execution (i.e. neurological) - factors of lifting, or any sport for that matter, should never be underestimated. In sports we often "quiet the mind" in order to perform optimally. In fact, one might argue that leaders in any sport are able to quell the distractions of the mind & brain in order to perform optimally under stressful, or psychologically challenging conditions. In the scientific psychological world this process if called attention, or more accurately divided attention. That is, it's your capacity for spreading your attentional attunement between 2 or more things that are going on. When we do this, when the environment forces us to focus on multiple things each of those individual processes loses something; they lose their capacity to perform at optimum levels. Think of it this way. A water tank can provide x pounds for square foot water pressure to a single hose. However, if we split that hose in to two, three, or four outlets, the water tank has to increase power in order to maintain the same pounds per square foot pressure delivered to each hose independently. Well the brain can't simply increase it's power output; there are limits on that because it's a biological organ. So when our brains are multiply tapped to do various things at once, each task tends to suffer decreases in performance. 

What's this got to do with sports and fitness. A whole heckuva lot! If you are thinking about what lever to pull, push, dial to spin, etc then you are not focusing on the lift mechanics itself. Or at the very least you are not thinking about those essential mechanics in a way that would optimize both your performance and safety. Eventually, after training and practice, the mechanics become second nature. This is a fairly simple process, but to really simplify the neuroscience it happens like this. When we need to actively think about something (e.g., how to place your feet for a squat, focus on lumbar curve, tight core, etc) you recruit an area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex; it's located right behind and above your forehead and eyes. There are regions of this area of the brain that are involved in myriad cool functions: self-awareness, social cognition, personality, and attention. So when we need to pay attention to something we call this part of the brain into action. If we are calling this part of the brain into action it means that energy is being drawn from other processes. Other brain areas. Through practice we can change this effect. Through practice what happens is your brain learns the movement, exercise, or whatever you are doing, at the level of the prefrontal cortex and then after you have started to master it you no longer have to pay attention to the mechanics, it becomes automatic. At that point it gets processed or executed via a subcortical system called the striatum. (Mind you, I am simplifying this greatly here). The striatum is intricately involved in Parkison's disease so hopefully you can see how it's related to motor function execution. Additionally, the striatum is a very efficient processor; because you no longer have to pay attention to the movement you don't need to utilize as much energy. Cool eh?  

OK, enough neuroscience right? Back to lifting. In the heat of a lift, psychological attention to the mechanics is going to draw from the automaticity of execution of the movement. This is what happens in beginners, like myself. I focus and practice on form so that it becomes automatic. Why? So that when I go to increase load, speed, power, that form comes through loud and clear helping me to achieve new personal records! (I can only hope). However, what happens when we increase loads, time, and power? Our form often goes to shit! The reason is partly do to the musculature mechanics being unsure about the execution and that is partly related to frontal cortex attention to the movement and the corresponding load, speed, or task. Coach Greg Glassman recently did a CrossFit Journal on a topic related to this called threshold training.   He explains that threshold training entails an athlete (or driver, or typer, etc) to do something intensely. They typically do poorly. But if forced to maintain that level of intensity and change one thing - performance, then they learn to effectively execute their task at the higher level of intensity. Then you up the intensity again, and repeat. This is how elite athleticism is built. Let me provide another personal example. The other day I was doing 3 rep max shoulder presses. The first three rounds were executed will sheer brilliance of technique (probably not, but bear with me). However, as the weight increased, what happened. In order to move the load my brain had to do more stuff. It was faced with a new challenge and had to rapidly adapt and try to overcome. When I hit the fail place my brain was at full attention: DO SOMETHING SO YOU DON'T DROP 155# ON YOUR HEAD MORON!!!!! Thank goodness my brain does this, right!? Thank goodness your brain does this! What happens when you hit the fail spot - energy is transferred (neurologically) from representing the efficient, efficacious, and proficient movements to energy dedicated to living. You drop the weight. In CrossFit and O -ifting the answer is an easy fix: Drop the weight and do it fast. 

When else do we lose our automaticity of movement execution. Under high intensity. When you are doing Fran, you are killing yourself. And as your METCON increases rapidly, again your brain's attentional systems turn to self-preservation attention mechanisms. You might drop the weight, bend over and catch your breath, meet pukie, or any various combination of outcomes that draw your attention from the task at hand: moving a weight from low to high, and pulling yourself up, as fast as you can without dying.

Back to why machines suck. How can you maintain focus on exercise mechanics and intensity when paying attention to what lever to pull, push or dial to turn? Especially when it means saving your life! It's nearly impossible. And this is why I think machines suck at creating fitness (& there are probably a plethora of other reasons as well). It is virtually impossible to transfer neurological processing from attentional systems to automaticity, which begets intensity, which produces results! One might argue that you could learn to be automatic on a machine - very easily learn what buttons to press, pull, or turn in a flash in order to save your life. But that's just not true. Through evolution our bodies have been designed to move large loads in ways very similar to O-lifting. These are gross body movements over long distances utilizing mutli-motor and joint units. The interaction of gross motor movements and fine motor movements, such as initiating a complex sequence of finger movements to turn your wrist are diametrically opposed, in my humble opinion. Try this. Send me an email, while trying to front squat. Diverted attention at the level of neurocognitive energy (because you'd be thinking about what to write me) and at the level of motor unit integration (you are not supposed to be worrying about utilizing fingers during a front squat except to the extent that they are used to keep the bar from rolling off you. What's interesting, is that fingers take up A LOT of brain space. They are essentially how we find out about the world. We pick stuff up, feel it, roll it around in our hands, etc. We don't experience the world through our quads, hips, glutes, at least not in the tactile sense. So when we activate fine motor units during otherwise large motor unit lifts, we actually draw a lot of neural energy to parts of the brain not involved in the lifting. We are detracting unconscious motor attention from the task at hand to something that is irrelevant. 

The take home message: distraction is part of any lifting, fitness, and sport program. We tend to call it training and practice. However, anything that enters this equation that is not directly related to the lift at hand would amount to an an drastic decrease in work capacity because of misdirected neural energy. 

This can be modeled mathematically, sort of (I'm not a mathematician!). If we input arbitrary values into the Power equation (F * D / T = P) and divide that by arbitrary units associated with practice, training, and other distractions we can get a modest estimate of the effects each of these have on optimizing work capacity. So let's assume for sake of argument and ease of calculation that each of these three - training, practice, and other distraction - can be placed on a range from 0-1. Where a score of 0.0 means that you no longer are impacted by that variable and a score of 1.0 means that it consumes a lot of your energy, if not all of it. So a score somewhere in between, say 0.5 training, would indicate that about half of your cognitive energy reserves still need to be dedicated to training (e.g., movement mechanics), and so forth. With this in mind we can generate a few plots to show the effects. So the  Power equation gets slightly modified to include an additive denominator term that accounts for training and practice (these two I vary simultaneously because I do feel that they are intricately and intimately linked and co-vary), other distractor (e.g., having to know what dials to press), and a constant of 1. 

Formula 1: 

Where in the numerator F = force, D = distance, T= time; and in the denominator Tr = training, P = practice, O = other distraction, and k is our constant. 

If we enter arbitrary numbers in to our equation we generate a plot of performance. Let's say our Power equation is 45*3/5 (remember these are arbitrary number for purposes of demonstration) then our maximum power output, or work capacity would be 27. (indicated by the purple circle below). However, if we add the variables of training, practice, distraction, and our constant we can generate a plot that looks like: 

 

Here, the purple dot at the top indicates our reference point for maximum work capacity. (27) The three lines represent varying different aspects of the model. The red line represents keeping the need for training (Tr) and practice (P) high (1.0) and systematically decreasing other distraction by 0.1 (going from 1, .9, .8, and so on). The blue line is similar, except in this instance we maintain O at a constant of 1 and systematically decrease Tr & P. You can see that this slightly, but only marginally increases work capacity in this model simulation. The green line represents keeping O at a low constant (here I used 0.1) and then decreasing Tr & P systematically and what you can see is that if other distractions are kept at a minimum then increases in work capacity would come as a consequence of decreasing the demands for cognitive resources/energy being directed toward attention to training and practice. That is, you are getting better!

Now, realistically, I think the detrimental effects of other distraction (O) are greater than that of either Training or Practice. So we can modify the model in several ways to account for this. I provide two examples below. In the model below what I show is the equation when doubling the effect of O and the corresponding plot: 

  

  

Here, it's important to note that by simply doubling the effect of O on work capacity you make it equal to the combined effects of training and practice. Below I show the simulated model/equation when we triple the power of O and the corresponding plot: 

  

  

Here, it's important to note that tripling the effect of O actually results in decreases of work performance above and beyond that associated with the effects of training and practice. 

Thus, I think that the other distractions associated with many machine workouts draw significantly from our ability to increase work capacity and inhibit our quest for health and fitness.  With this in mind an athlete should be prepared to be affected by training and practice, because that is part of the "game". The athlete has little control over this. However, the athlete has great control over the power of other distractions by choosing an effective and efficacious fitness program, and by purposefully and consciously decreasing extraneous distractions.

OK, just my 2¢. Any thoughts?