from Crossfit Kells:
“The human body is an incredible machine, but most people only get out of that machine what their mind allows them to”
– Rich Froning
Antha Gash is a beast.
The 30 year old Australian ultra-marathoner doesn’t just run ultra’s. She runs them back to back. In the desert. With 30lbs of gear on her back…
She once ran nonstop for three days, 14 hours and 28 minutes. Physically impossible, right?
Nope.
Not for Antha who, like many others in her sport, has unlocked physical capabilities that were previously unheard of by tapping into the best weapon available in sport: her mind.
During one of her races (a 250-miler through China’s Gobi Desert), she was coming off of a hot, injury-riddled 12 hour stretch of running. She was entering a critical stretch of the race, and had to keep pace with another runner. What was going through her mind?
“I try to focus my mind on the positive of completing the race,” she recalls. “When I’m in immense physical pain, I try to dull the pain as much as possible. Once the pain enters your head (as opposed to just your body), you start to legitimize ways of pulling out. I distract myself by thinking about why I’m doing it. My body and mind are stronger than I’d ever think”.
Antha is hardly the first one to figure this out.
Have you ever wondered what makes certain athletes great? Perhaps you’ve watched someone who is seemingly average, yet somehow wildly out-performs those who are more physically gifted (Larry-Jo Bird, anyone?). Or alternatively considered the physical freak, the athletic specimen that looks amazing on paper, but who just can’t get it done on the field or in competition.
Or how is it that two given athletes of almost identical physical ability can perform so differently in competition?
The answer is clear: what separates average from good, and good from great is an athlete’s mental game. Their capacity to step outside of their physical abilities, for better or worse, and perform based on their mental talents.
The sport of CrossFit is no different. Nobody is arguing the fact that it takes a certain physical competency to compete at the CrossFit games, at regionals or even within the walls of your local gym. Absolutely. But in all three of those venues, it is fascinating to see when an athlete’s mental approach to CrossFit takes them to a place that their physical capacities theoretically should not.
What we are saying here, beasts, is that your brain can be your best ally or your worst enemy when it comes to CrossFit, sport, or any other endeavor in which you choose to engage. Lucky for all of us, we have the capacity to train our minds to be an unbelievable asset.
Here are five things to get you going in the right direction:
1) Positivity
Greg Amundson is a CrossFit icon. Dubbed “The Original Firebreather”, Greg was one of the first athletes on the scene in the early days of CrossFit. His “engine” is the stuff of legend, as is his seemingly inhuman capacity for tolerating pain during workouts.
Amundson has made a name for himself not only for his physical accomplishments, but also his approach of deconstructing the mental side of sport and competition. He steadfastly believes that any success he has realized is a direct result of his mental game, which starts with being positive. He is an infectiously upbeat person and coach, a trait that he insists on passing along to his athletes.
One great example involves an athlete of Amundson’s who was about to compete in a long distance race. The athlete, trying to incorporate Amundson’s teachings, wrote the words “don’t” and “stop” on his left and right running shoes; a cue for him to, in fact, not stop during the race.
Amundson took issue with this, for the simple fact that those two words in and of themselves each had a negative connotation. “What about ‘keep’ and ‘going’ instead”, Amundson suggested, believing that on a sub-conscious level, those two words would have a much more positive effect on his athlete’s psyche than would the repetition of the negative words “don’t” and “stop”.
If you think a negative terms, you'll get negative results. Period. If you approach a workout with a negative mindset, you have already lost. Conceptually this sounds very simple, but in fact for some it can be incredibly difficult to execute. But if you resign yourself to remain in a positive state of mind, and approach a difficult workout with a positive mental framework, the result will without question be better than if you negatively approach the same work out.
So ask yourself…what frame of mind do you find yourself in when coming into the gym? What about right before a workout or in a competition? Is it net positive or negative?
It is all in how you frame your experiences. There is no losing when you show up at the gym. We are either winning, or we are learning. The only way to lose is to not show up.
“Nothing on earth can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”
– Thomas Jefferson
2) Visualization
Colonel George Hall was an American POW that spent more than seven years in a Vietnamese prison camp. To keep his sanity in the 7x7 prison cell that he occupied, he would play nine holes of golf…in his head.
“I’d play at least nine every day” he recalled. “I’d visualize a course that I had played and enjoyed.
I’d hit every shot (swinging a stick), then I’d walk around the room. For instance, I’d hit my driver then step off 240 yards or so around the room. I’d think about how long the hole was and decide what club the hit next. I not only walked from the tee to the green but from the green to the next tee.”
When the Colonel was finally welcomed back home as a hero after the war, he went to play a round of golf with his son. After not taking a real swing in 8 years and with a new set of clubs, his first tee shot was dead nuts. A perfect 240 yard shot with a nice little fade to match the dog-leg. He went on to finish a phenomenal round.
Colonel Hall’s example is a great one underscoring the power of visualization. In many ways our minds do not distinguish between an actual action and a visualized action. Accordingly, we can practice in our heads. Visualization itself takes practice, and the best practitioners of this skill take their time with it. They include the visualization of feelings, tastes, smells and other subtle details that convince the subconscious mind that the event is taking place.
In fact, visualization has been scientifically proven to lead to training adaptations that are similar to physical stress. In other words, repeatedly and effectively visualizing a perfect clean & jerk can be as impactful as performing the lift itself.
Do you visualize your lifts? Do you visualize your entire “Fran” workout rep-for-rep? Do you project a positive outcome on your performance.
3) A strong WHY
We've talked about this idea before in this blog. Why do you do what you do? Why do you show up?
What is your why? And it truly doesn't matter what it is, as long as it's powerful to you.
Maybe you want to be a role model for your kids.
Maybe you are training for the memory of a lost loved one.
Maybe you want to lose weight...want it as badly as you want to breathe.
Maybe you want to be the first one noticed walking into the bar on Cougar Night…
For our purposes here it truly does not matter. As long as it is legitimately, genuinely meaningful to you, your Why is an invaluable tool.
Take a look at the Kells “Why” blogpost here:
“You know that little voice in the back of your mind, telling you to stop? Well you can train that little voice. I taught mine to shut up.”
– Unknown
4) Self Talk
As we discussed, CrossFit athletes who understand the fact that optimism and a positive mental attitude have a tremendous impact on their results in the gym have a definitive edge over those who approach their craft with a negative mindset. A HUGE part of getting to that positivity involves self-talk.
What is your internal dialogue? How do you talk to yourself before, during and after a workout? Do you have a set of mantras that you use? Is the tone positive or negative?
Do you repeat positive words like “yes, go, got this, compete, drive, one more rep, one more step, power, gratitude, speed”?
Or is it “fuck, I can’t, this sucks, why am I doing this, what’s the point, I have to pee, this is hard”.
If you remember one thing, friends, remember this: the positive/negative tone of your mantras will make all the difference in your performance. If you establish and internalize positive mantras for before, during and after your workouts, you will be way, way, way ahead of the game.
5) Micro-goals
In CrossFit, many of our workouts are quick. Three, seven, nine minutes of hellfire, and then we’re done.
But who among us doesn’t love that 30, 35, 40 minute grinder?? When we’re staring at a marathon hero WOD, or even at a shorter metcon, it is so import to focus on immediacy. The “right here, right now, in this exact moment”. The next rep, or two, or five….NOT the mountain of movements and work that we’re staring at later on in the workout.
If you are on minute five of Murph and you are already thinking about how bad your second run will suck, you are in a terrible headspace.
What about your plan for the workout? And by “plan”, we are not talking about your planned reps (although having a rep strategy going into your workouts is highly valuable). Instead, what is your plan for when you start to feel exhaustion or fatigue? When the pain sets in? When you’re gasping for air and you have 30 more thrusters to go?
Anticipate this! Have a mental plan for when the pain comes. “OK, in round 2, shit will probably start to get a little hectic. I will be ready for this, and when it happens, I’m going to breathe, focus on my form, repeat my mantra, think about my Why, take one more rep, etc.”
Don’t underestimate the power of “one more rep”. Very often we have a pre-established limitation of the amount of work we can do. We sell ourselves during a workout on “I can do 5 more reps then I’ll have to put the bar/ball/kettle bell down”.
Get in the habit of staying with those reps for a longer period of time than you are telling yourself. While “one more rep” may not be possible with a heavier weight, more often than not it will apply to a situation where you actually can do more work but just rather take a break (wallballs, thrusters, KB swings, etc).
Next time you do wall balls, make yourself do 3-5 more reps past the time where you “think” you need to stop.
Having a planned approach to working though a struggle may sound simple, but it takes effort to get good at this. AND, it takes practice to apply it when you are under that stress, in the moment.
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” –Unknown
And finally….SMILE! Some of the best CrossFit athletes smile in the middle of the most grueling workouts. Not only does it help you stay positive, but it is physiologically good for you. Smiling releases happy chemicals (endorphins) from your brain, and has been shown to lower blood pressure.
The CrossFit journey that we have all chosen for ourselves is a dynamic, living, breathing thing. It should not surprise you to learn that what we are doing here is not just about getting physically fit, and that the dedication and discipline we find in the gym every day is highly correlated to success in the outside world.
-Mike
No comments:
Post a Comment