Focal Behavior and Performance by Male U.S. Service Academy Cadets

Background. Erfle and Gelbaugh (2013) and Erfle (2014) examined a regular irregularity in physical activity performance histograms for curl-ups and push-ups from a sample of more than 9,000 middle-school students. These histograms showed periodic spikes at 5 and 10 unit intervals. They showed that students who used focal counting on one event were more likely to do so on another event, or on the same event at a later assessment. They also found that students who ended at these focal endings outperformed their non-focal peers on these fitness tests. They found that males were more likely to be focal than females.

Methods. This paper uses the methodology developed in Erfle and Gelbaugh (2013) to examine focal proclivity across three events for a sample of 522 Male U.S. Service Academy Cadets who did at least one pull-up, push-up, and sit-up. Due to mean performance characteristics of the cadets, counting by 2s is examined for pull ups and counting by 5s and 10s is examined for the other two events.

Results. Analysis suggests that cadets do not exhibit greater focal proclivity than their non-focal peers. Being focal on one event is not associated with being focal on another. Regression analysis of push-up performance shows that cadets who end in multiples of 5 are likely to do 3.0 more push-ups, p = .043 and cadets who end in multiples of 10 are likely to do 4.7 more push-ups, p = .012.

Conclusion. Focal counting appears to have positive benefits for push-up performances.