A mental perspective on the workouts of the 2012 CrossFit Games: SATURDAY!
Its time for the Games athletes to run, like they have never run before!
Inspired by Mohammad Ali this post will be about how to handle the pain – how to handle the suffering and how to go through hell – and to come back out on the other side as a stronger and more powerful athlete.
Saturdays workouts
300-yard Shuttle sprint for time:
Run to the 50-yard line and back
Run to the 100-yard line and back
Immediately after the sprint, athletes will reset together for the Rope-Sled Event.
Rope-Sled
Five rounds for time of:
20 foot Rope climb, 1 ascent
20 yard Sled drive
The athletes will drive the padded sled 100 yards in 20-yard increments.
This is going to be tuff. The pulse is going to be extremely high, and all there is to do is to keep on going no matter what your mind is telling you! Because the mind will tell you a lot of things, a lot of shitty thing – and especially in situations where your body is under severe pressure, your mind will go crazy. All athletes who press themselves to the limits know this reaction. Know that the mind is messing with you, when it hurts the most.
Dont let your mind trick you! It will try over and over again – tell you that it hurts, that it is not worth it, that you are not good enough, that you are behind, that the other athletes are way better than you – that you should QUIT!
Don’t listen.
You can’t control your thoughts - they will always be there. But what you can do, is to control how you react to them. How you answer them. You, and only you, know what kind of thoughts are bothering you under pressure – write them down. Prepare yourself for them to come.
Believe me, they will come!
Now, write down your answers – what are you going to tell yourself when these thoughts arrive – answer each one of them. Write your answers down. Memorize the most important ones – (and remember always to formulate them in a positive sentence, ex. I know I can do it, rather than, I won’t give up – give up is negative in that it reminds you that giving up is a possibility – giving up shouldn’t be a part of your vocabulary during a competition)
Now you are prepared for what to come – so prepared that you can start laughing at your negative thoughts – tell them to fuck off, you’re busy!
Next workout:
Clean Ladder
1-rep Clean every 30 seconds with progressively heavier barbells
Athletes will be ranked by the weight of their heaviest successful clean. Partial pounds will be awarded for each additional deadlift completed after they attempt and fail the clean.
The clean ladder is all about determination. Go in there and do what you know you can! – Visualize it before hand – the night before, in the morning and just before the workout – prepare you’re mind for what to come. Visualize your self from an internal and external point of view – see the arena, the spectators, the noises, the judges, everything – repeat repeat repeat.
No matter what happens:
Head up, stay strong. Fake a smile. Move on.
That was all from Mentalwod for now – to all the athletes, have fun – and go do what you do best – and to all other CrossFitters outthere, have fun also – and thank you for reading the blog – let me know if any of you experience or see anything extraordinaire during the Games, that makes you think of mental power, I would love to hear about it 
/Janne
