One of the biggest problems we face today is the dependency created by Smartphones and social media. We have the need to constantly check for notifications and the feeling of not being able to be “bored” for more than 10 seconds without the fervent need to look at Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Tiktok or any other social network or entertainment source.

I think we all know that this is a problem in itself, which we already discussed in the article about dopamine, but now we have a study that directly analyzes how this affects our training performance.

Specifically, we are talking about this study, in which the participants, 16 trained adults, did 3 sets of squats to failure with 80% of their 15 rm before and after two interventions: one intervention was watching 30 minutes of a NASA documentary , and the other was to watch 30 minutes of social media.

The results show us that, after watching the 30 minutes of social networks and doing the squat series, the participants had a significant increase in the perception of fatigue, that is, they felt more tired compared to the same series done after watching the documentary. Additionally, after watching social media, they were able to do 15% fewer total repetitions compared to when they watched the documentary.

The authors' interpretation suggests that watching social networks is demanding for your brain, it produces mental fatigue. You are constantly bombarded with intense, short and successive stimuli that play with your dopamine and, in addition, you constantly feel FOMO (fear of missing out) and you do not want to miss the latest posts or interactions.

When you enter the social media game you are worried about who likes your posts, who watches your stories, who follows you or unfollows you, who sends you messages… and all of this affects in some way your mental health related to your status and your social reputation.

On the other hand, in a more fitness-related aspect, seeing supernatural physiques (pun intended) and people doing incredible things, having a good time and always being super handsome and attractive affects your self-perception and your mental state.

Your physique, your training and abilities, and ultimately your life in general, will seem worse compared to what you are constantly seeing on these social networks.

My advice is to not only try to reduce your use of these apps in general, but specifically during training not to use them at all. If you have to touch your phone, let it be only to use the stopwatch, to check your routine, to record the technique of an exercise or to write down your results.

If during your training you are looking at social networks and messages, you will not only lose performance and increase fatigue, as seen in the study, but you will enjoy the routine less, you will lengthen your rest times for no reason and you will be less focused on what you are doing. This directly affects the mind-muscle connection, from which a very interesting new study has recently come out, which we may comment on in future articles.

This idea of doing the routines without any distraction is where the 21-day Focus Challenge, which we are carrying out from Calisteniapp, came from, in which each day you have a quick routine of between 5 and 20 minutes that you must do with total concentration, since you will start the routine and you will no longer have to touch your phone until it finishes. If you want to sign up and try it, you just have to download Calisteniapp and enter the challenges section.

Remember that you can use my code YERAI at Prozis.com to get a 10% discount, gifts per order quantity and points that can be accumulated and redeemable for more gifts. I hope the article is very helpful to you, train hard and without distractions.