Mental Toughness
Replies
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proper pre workout meal, quick digesting carbs and fat for intra workout (that dont upset your stomach), a good playlist, proper pacing.
Pace is pretty damn important. I like to have some in the tank so I can burn out near the finish. I finish with a sprint, not a grueling walk. Im a strong advocate of eating during long endurance events.
My experience: Cycling centuries... I dont do endurance lifting.0 -
Take pride in going into the pain cave .... Not everyone willingly embraces the idea of suffering to better oneself, but you do.
And that makes you mentally tougher than those who don't.
For me, as a cyclist, particularly when facing hills, I take comfort in the fact that 1) the road can't go up forever, and 2) there's always a fun decent after the climb.0 -
First, make sure in your WOD's that your first focus is on your form. Don't let your form slide in order to "push harder", go heavier, or go faster. The extra numbers on the board aren't worth an injury from letting form slip.
In my (mini, only 10 minute sessions for AMRAP) WODs, my mantra is "I can do ANYTHING for ten minutes." (Thank you, Jillian Michaels, for that stupid phrase I can't get out of my head from WAY BACK when I did her little videos.) I haven't worked out to the point where I puke except for when I gave myself heat exhaustion. Puking isn't a good thing. I don't like doing it. You can push yourself without getting to THAT point.0 -
Run Smolov Squat routine.0
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Run Smolov Squat routine.
lol that'll do it0 -
Run Smolov Squat routine.
20 rep squats might be more approachable for someone wanting to develop mental toughness.
You do have a good idea though, after years of not lifting heavy (have been doing more running, which doesn't work well for me in combination with squatting) I have been in the doldrums, squat-wise. I should do smolov again. Now where did I put that spreadsheet...? 0 -
Take pride in going into the pain cave .... Not everyone willingly embraces the idea of suffering to better oneself, but you do.
And that makes you mentally tougher than those who don't.
For me, as a cyclist, particularly when facing hills, I take comfort in the fact that 1) the road can't go up forever, and 2) there's always a fun decent after the climb.
I could tell you were a cyclist before I even read your entire post. LOL "Taking pride in the pain cave" reminds me of what my husband and I refer to going out on a group ride and demolishing everyone in the pack (in a friendly, competitive fashion, not like a couple of jerks, lol) We refer to our rides as 'suffer fests'. It's funny because cycling is the only sport in which I willingly embrace the suckage. I love going out there and crushing souls. Nothing is more empowering than being a chubby girl on a bike and just annihilating an entire team of like 70 people, the majority of which are ultra fit and have many more years on the bike than I do
OP, another tactic I use when NOT on the bike is something I call 'transfer of pain'. Say I'm in the gym on a treadmill. I loathe the treadmill. I have no idea why I feel the need to even get on one, given all the other choices. I think it's part of that 'embrace the suck' going on. If it sucks, it must be good for me, therefore, I do it even though I despise it. But what helps get me through it is rather than focusing on my own pain and my own workout, I focus on the thud thud thud of the guy next to me, going faster than me, for much longer than me. I think about what pain HE must be enduring, how bad it sucks for HIM, and before I know it, my time on the treadmill is up.
Works like a charm every time. LOL 0 -
Run Smolov Squat routine.
20 rep squats might be more approachable for someone wanting to develop mental toughness. You do have a good idea though, after years of not lifting heavy (have been doing more running, which doesn't work well for me in combination with squatting) I have been in the doldrums, squat-wise. I should do smolov again. Now where did I put that spreadsheet...?
I think either could technically lead to mental toughness increase, just a different type. Difficult to explain, but sets with 6's versus sets with 3's it's like summoning a different inner fire, haha. It really just boils down to a just do it and a don't quit mindset.0 -
*double post*0
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When I was growing up, my parents never let me quit anything. They pretty much let me do whatever extracurricular things I thought I wanted to do, but the deal was, I could not quit until it was finished, and if I didn't want to do it again the next year, then I didn't have to. What they always said to me was "Once you quit something, you become a quitter for life because it gets easier and easier to do."
And in my opinion, doing some lesser version of what you set out to do is the same thing as quitting, so not giving it your best effort? Don't even bother with it then. For instance, I write down my HIIT work on my whiteboard before each lifting session. That's a contract I make with myself. If I wrote that I'm going to do a 10-round front squat ladder, then short of injury or death, it's getting done. I'm not going to move the goalposts. Having said that, failure and quitting are different things. If you give it all you've got and you just can't do it, then you can still rest easy knowing you did everything you could.
My big strategy is compartmentalizing. I know I'm not going to quit, and I am almost certainly not going to die, so what I'm left with is a task that needs to be completed in steps. My training session is 3 sets of deadlifts, followed by 4 assistance lifts? Then I start with the first set of deadlifts. That's all I need to worry about. That one set. I give it all I have. When I'm done with that, I have another set of deadlifts, and that set is the only thing I focus on. And I just keep doing that until, eventually, the training session is complete, and I gave everything my best effort. I think that can be applied to every kind of task. Break it down. Focus on the steps that will get you to the goal.0 -
When I was growing up, my parents never let me quit anything. They pretty much let me do whatever extracurricular things I thought I wanted to do, but the deal was, I could not quit until it was finished, and if I didn't want to do it again the next year, then I didn't have to. What they always said to me was "Once you quit something, you become a quitter for life because it gets easier and easier to do."
And in my opinion, doing some lesser version of what you set out to do is the same thing as quitting, so not giving it your best effort? Don't even bother with it then. For instance, I write down my HIIT work on my whiteboard before each lifting session. That's a contract I make with myself. If I wrote that I'm going to do a 10-round front squat ladder, then short of injury or death, it's getting done. I'm not going to move the goalposts. Having said that, failure and quitting are different things. If you give it all you've got and you just can't do it, then you can still rest easy knowing you did everything you could.
My big strategy is compartmentalizing. I know I'm not going to quit, and I am almost certainly not going to die, so what I'm left with is a task that needs to be completed in steps. My training session is 3 sets of deadlifts, followed by 4 assistance lifts? Then I start with the first set of deadlifts. That's all I need to worry about. That one set. I give it all I have. When I'm done with that, I have another set of deadlifts, and that set is the only thing I focus on. And I just keep doing that until, eventually, the training session is complete, and I gave everything my best effort. I think that can be applied to every kind of task. Break it down. Focus on the steps that will get you to the goal.
I think this is good too. Focus on 1 rep at a time etc.0 -
My big strategy is compartmentalizing. I know I'm not going to quit, and I am almost certainly not going to die, so what I'm left with is a task that needs to be completed in steps.
I was going to say something very much like this.
I'm not going to push myself so hard out here on this court, or in this cave, that I drop dead. It will end, eventually. I left my living room to accomplish something, and I'm going to accomplish it before I go back. The end.0 -
My big strategy is compartmentalizing. I know I'm not going to quit, and I am almost certainly not going to die, so what I'm left with is a task that needs to be completed in steps. My training session is 3 sets of deadlifts, followed by 4 assistance lifts? Then I start with the first set of deadlifts. That's all I need to worry about. That one set. I give it all I have. When I'm done with that, I have another set of deadlifts, and that set is the only thing I focus on. And I just keep doing that until, eventually, the training session is complete, and I gave everything my best effort. I think that can be applied to every kind of task. Break it down. Focus on the steps that will get you to the goal.
yup.And in my opinion, doing some lesser version of what you set out to do is the same thing as quitting, so not giving it your best effort? Don't even bother with it then. For instance, I write down my HIIT work on my whiteboard before each lifting session. That's a contract I make with myself. If I wrote that I'm going to do a 10-round front squat ladder, then short of injury or death, it's getting done. I'm not going to move the goalposts. Having said that, failure and quitting are different things. If you give it all you've got and you just can't do it, then you can still rest easy knowing you did everything you could.
and this.
If I wrote it down (this is why writing it down is so important) than barring physical issues/and major time constraint issues... then it get's done.
If it's in the book. We do the thing.
I also had someone ask me one time- "why do you go ham every time you come here"
I honestly don't' understand this question- but I none the less give an answer
"why would you bother showing up if you knew you were only going to half *kitten* it"
this usually explains things well enough. LOL0 -
Thanks for the responses so far. So far my issue is not pushing through the workout, but doing it at closer to my maximum potential for effort. I feel my times could be better but something (discomfort) is holding me back from going hard. I like your ideas; keep them coming!
I hear what you are saying-you'd be surprised at what you can accomplish with just a little more push from within:
Sometimes our WOD's finish with a x00 meter run....on the way in I can hear our coach telling me to sprint the rest of the way in. At first I thought, no way-I don't have anymore to give. The next time that happened, I paced myself a little better and did a full sprint to finish. Knowing I didn't slow down at the very end triggered something inside-now a lot of my WOD's end with a push. The voice inside saying "you can do it!" needs to be louder than the voice trying to say you can't.
When we're doing high reps or when I'm feeling exhausted (12 minute EMOM of burpees) I count forward halfway, and the rest is counted backwards....It's a mental thing....so instead of 21, 22, 23,......it's more like 6 more left, 5 more left.....it's silly, but it's worked for me.
I'm in a race against myself and I'll be damned if I'm going to lose :bigsmile:
You got this!0 -
The short answer, for me, it to simply learn to accept and play through discomfort. Like muscles, mental toughness generally grows over time. Each day you push farther than you thought you could increases your toughness.
The biggest element, above all, is to simply refuse to quit. Sometimes, I find it helps to verbalize it. I will literally tell myself, out loud, things like "don't quit", "keep moving", or "get UP and GO"- the same things my instructors would yell while I was going through military training.
There are some other techniques I tend to use, too. For one, when I go running, I prefer to completely avoid the standard high-school style running track because it's easy to decide you're done, stop, and you're practically already at your start point. I prefer to do out-and-back trails so that, even if I stop early, I've still got to cover that same distance to get back to my car. It makes it easier to say "gee... I've already covered 3/4 of a mile, and I'll still have to cover another 3/4-mile distance to get back, so I might as well go the last 1/4 mile all the way out to the 1-mile marker." Even if you want to quit, there's still a bit of a workout left to go and distance to cover before you can really stop.
One caveat, though: You need to be careful and learn to tell the difference between discomfort that comes from pushing yourself further and harder and pain that comes from doing damage to your body.0 -
This story always gets me a little more motivated to lift heavy objects. Hope its okay to post a link:
http://doyouevenlift.tumblr.com/post/31050932469/craigs-story0 -
Bump, will read later for reference.0
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I would also add, positive thinking and self confidence. The building of self confidence is a mental practice. Listen to what you are telling yourself...if you're telling yourself that you'll never be able to do x, y, or z, it is likely that you won't. If what you are hearing yourself say to yourself is negative, you need to correct that. Basically, fake it until you make it.
Getting into and through the suck really helps build that self confidence, it shows that you're ultimately a wrecking machine which even internal challenges can't stop. So it becomes this positive feedback loop. As you fight through it more you become more confident and eventually it becomes a "normal" aspect of your training and competition.
Definitely fake it til you make it. Good career advice too.0 -
stop sucking.
work harder.
This is what I believe.
Just got to pony up and perform. No one's going to do it for you.
Well, where i am at is that I don't suck. If I sucked, I pretty much wouldn't care if I got better. I would find something I didn't suck at. In fact, I am showing promise. But, I know I can go along and be "good" to infinity or I can find a way to get better to take it to elite. I truly believe that there are techniques that we can use in almost any discipline to help us wit the mental part of the challenge. I do yoga a lot. I work with a hole customers a lot. I have learned in both of those situations that there are specific strategies I can use to change up the challenges in my mind and make them workable. So, I appreciate those who have given specific strategies.
I have never quit a CrossFit WOD. I have completed them all. I even competed them all on my own if I didn't finish in the kill clock time. But, I feel like I can push harder and get faster and that's where I really need to "EMBRACE THE SUCK!"
I like the idea of "embracing the suck" though and the "fake it til you make it." True in most settings, athletic or not.0 -
The short answer, for me, it to simply learn to accept and play through discomfort. Like muscles, mental toughness generally grows over time. Each day you push farther than you thought you could increases your toughness.
The biggest element, above all, is to simply refuse to quit. Sometimes, I find it helps to verbalize it. I will literally tell myself, out loud, things like "don't quit", "keep moving", or "get UP and GO"- the same things my instructors would yell while I was going through military training.
There are some other techniques I tend to use, too. For one, when I go running, I prefer to completely avoid the standard high-school style running track because it's easy to decide you're done, stop, and you're practically already at your start point. I prefer to do out-and-back trails so that, even if I stop early, I've still got to cover that same distance to get back to my car. It makes it easier to say "gee... I've already covered 3/4 of a mile, and I'll still have to cover another 3/4-mile distance to get back, so I might as well go the last 1/4 mile all the way out to the 1-mile marker." Even if you want to quit, there's still a bit of a workout left to go and distance to cover before you can really stop.
One caveat, though: You need to be careful and learn to tell the difference between discomfort that comes from pushing yourself further and harder and pain that comes from doing damage to your body.
Good post. Thanks so much!0
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