During training I find myself explaining why we don’t, for example, use a Smith machine (a rack which guides the barbell along a fixed groove in which it is suspended on cables; the Smith machine offers the benefit of making it impossible to fall with the barbell outside of the protected path, and a simple quarter twist of the bar engages the locks and arrests the bar within the path.)

The back and forth goes like this:

Kirez: The path of the bar is unnatural, which means it is anatomically either less powerful, or injurious. And none of the stabilizing muscles are engaged.

The trainee has heard this before and is prepared…

Trainee: But there are machines that can train your stomach, you can still train those muscles.

Kirez: This point is far too easy to underestimate; if we say, “It takes the stabilizing muscles out of the lift,” that’s too simple. What it’s taking out is the learning of agility and coordination, which is a whole body learning process. Without whole body neuromotor coordination, you are not developing any ability that can be applied in real life. If you had to choose between muscle mass and skill or agility, you’d be a fool to choose muscle mass.

I elaborated on the classic themes of functionality versus, for instance, bodybuilding’s isolation of muscles…

But in my experience of the world, a good essay is far more powerful than a trainer’s speech, so here’s an articulate elaboration of the motor learning aspect of functional training by Kelley Starret. An excerpt:

A great deal of the success of Crossfit is predicated upon the unique motor learning that it forces the athlete to perform. We consistently see skyrocketing athleticism occur in our athletes not only because they are stronger and more fit, but because of the constant movement/motor learning that they undergo. One of the central tenets of fitness in a 100 words or less is, “learn to play new sports”. For nearly all of us without an olympic lifting, gymnastics background, Crossfit ends up feeling like a new sport.

Within the framework of a typical crossfit WOD, there is some interesting motor development facilitation built in. For example, having to change exercises often within a workout forces the athlete to develop and redevelop complex motor solutions in less than ideal conditions and often. A workout like nasty girls is much more difficult from a motor learning perspective than a workout like angie where all of the movement is blocked into repetitive chunks. It is much more difficult to perform a few reps of one movement and then switch to another movement than it is to complete many reps of a single exercise.

The research on blocked practice versus random practice (switching often) is that the athlete will make more errors up front with the random practice but will undergo deeper motor learning that will reflect in better performance at a later task.

Read more at CrossFit San Francisco.

All occupational athletes, especially, should know this lesson; this is probably why CrossFit is especially popular among firefighters, law enforcement and military.

Train as you will fight should be writ large and integrated fundamentally through all that you do.