Why Have Machines Become So Popular?

A recent video surfaced discussing machines in the sport of fitness, noting that they are becoming over-programmed and that this is diluting the nature of CrossFit. In this post, we will examine this statement purely from a sport perspective, leaving the discussion of group workouts aside. We will explore why machines have become a staple in most competitive CrossFit programs and touch on why there was a heavy reliance on machines at the Games this year. However, one year of programming at the Games does not really mean anything when there is an overemphasis on one specific category of movements or movement in a sport that is constantly varied.

CrossFit has defined fitness as (power output = force × distance/time), which is a great metric for defining fitness. Unfortunately, it is really hard to measure both force and distance when a human being is performing a workout. You can get really close, though, by rearranging the equation to arrive at something like this: (time = force × distance/power output). Thus, we have an easier, measurable metric that we can use to gauge someone's fitness. This provides instant feedback without having to measure the messy variables of force, distance, and arrive at true power output. In turn, this turns CrossFit into a sport where you try to figure out how to achieve the fastest time inside a workout in order to beat either your own previous fitness level or that of others. By all means, this is a highly successful route for improving fitness,, but it opens the sport up  to a plethora of strategies towards accomplishing this goal of improving your time. 

So why did we go through all that just to chat about machines? If we have come to the conclusion that time is the ultimate goal in the sport and that we have to figure out the game to get the best time, this means practicing things in order to achieve the best results and implementing training protocols to help develop different aspects of a complex sport for those best times. So why have major training programs moved toward a heavy reliance on machines? Well, because it works for training athletes to get the best times.

Energy systems have long gone out the window as standalone aspects of fitness that we have to train, and sports science has started to help coaches understand that all energy systems are used at all times in the human body. An Olympic weightlifter with a good aerobic system recovers faster and can take a higher training load than one without. An aerobic athlete who has a higher power output and a better-equipped phosphate system can handle obstacles on a Spartan course better, and the list goes on. With that being said, if we aren’t specifically looking at energy system profiles to create better training methodologies specifically for the sport of CrossFit, we can build out an attribute profile needed for the sport that looks like this:

1. Power output

2. Power battery (aerobic power, intensity, endurance)

3. Volume tolerance

4. Aerobic system

   
   

You need to have a high power output in order to sprint and achieve top-end speed for the sport. You need to have the ability to sustain those power outputs, often called speed preservation in running. You need to have a high volume tolerance in four specific movement patterns—pressing, hinging, squatting, and bounding—and you need to have a well-developed aerobic system in order to support all of the above.

Machines specifically can be used to develop all of these independently of each other. But the point being made in the video was that machines don’t really transfer over to the sport. Unfortunately, in the sport, due to the prevalence of an aerobic system for healing purposes during high training volumes of intensity and sport-specific work, and the fact that machines are a part of the sport, there is a large amount of carryover to using machines for the sport when done correctly.

In a vacuum—only doing machines—yes, that will make you worse at the sport unless there is a large, decade-plus training body of only CrossFit and the athlete has missed out on developing their aerobic system. But due to most of the coaches at these bigger programming companies having over a decade of coaching under their belts, they have discovered that interspersing aerobic work with mixed high-intensity work checks the boxes on three of the attributes listed above: power battery, volume tolerance, and aerobic system. The easiest way to get worse at the sport is to live in a vacuum and only do either high-intensity work, or only aerobic work, or only fixate on one aspect of the sport. If you don’t do pull-ups, you aren’t going to be good at pull-ups. If you don’t do handstand push-ups (HSPUs), you aren’t going to be good at HSPUs. If you don’t do squat cleans mixed with burpees and lunging mixed with clean and LLRC, you won’t be good at the sport. It is the very reason that none of these programs and coaches that train higher level athletes don’t have their training exist in a vacuum of machine-only work, or CF workouts only. 

Further, as stated in the video, machines are excellent for putting sheer intensity into training. As coaches have found out, workouts break down when you aren’t able to handle the physiological substrates that exist at max heart rate (HR) and lactate threshold. Machines can help you train for this by driving intensity up and then performing mixed work at a high HR and high respiration rate, similar to what you would experience eight minutes deep into a 12-minute workout.

For example:

5 sets

Row 500m @ 2 seconds faster than 2k pace

Into

2-min AMRAP

15 wall balls

10 toes-to-bar

5 box jumps (BBJOs) 24/20”

Rest 3 min between sets

Usually, humans will fall into best practices for anything, and the reason competitive CrossFit training has fallen into relying heavily on machine work in their programs is because it works. Now, with all this being said, this doesn’t mean that you should rely heavily on machines year-round, and that you should apply periodization training principles. As you approach your competitive season, you should get more sport-specific and practice pure CrossFit more often. This might call for a larger variety of movements and less machine work in your program.

Now, one of the big points brought up in this video was the larger prevalence of machines at the Games this year. The analysis of it was very well done, stating that machines made up an average of 9% of movements until 2025, when machines made up 17% of all movements, and adding in the running bumped it up to 21%. This also included them being in half of all the events at the CrossFit Games. While at surface level it is easy to look at this and say, “Well, that is pretty biased” (and yes, it is), the CrossFit Games allow for this bias to leak into their programming—defined as “constantly varied…” and “The Unknown and Unknowable.” This is not the first time at the CF Games that there has been bias in the programming. This is the nature of the sport.

If we flip back to the 2020 CF Games—while a weird year, still a CF Games year—athletes performed 12 workouts, six of which included running. Not only that, but the amount of running was almost double the amount from previous years at the CF Games, which averaged around 3–5 total miles of running. Further, if we look at just cyclical implements during this year’s Games, eight of the 12 workouts had some form of cyclical machine in them. While it could be argued that some of this was balanced out with the programming of the workouts, it is very evident that in past years the Games have had programming biases to them—and specifically, programming biases that include a heavy reliance on machines. The fun thing about the Games, though, is that it changes year to year due to the constantly varied nature of the sport, and while there might be one specific bias one year, the next year it has the possibility to be something completely different.

So, don’t get upset about programming—we all chose to do this sport. There will be things that you are unhappy about and things that you will be happy about, but the best athletes in the world find a way to have no emotional or minimal emotional response to a workout and just go out there and do their job. Get better at the things that you suck at, and compete with intensity and purpose no matter what is called of you. You aren’t in control of the programming, but you are in control of your effort, execution, and focus.