Where does the fear come from? The easy answer would be YOU. You create your fear, as well as you create joy, anger, sadness, frustration, excitement and so on. It is with fear as it is with any other emotional state; it is created based on how you perceive a situation.

 So, why is the awareness of fear so important, when it comes to CrossFit, and being able to perform your best?

Fear is something most of us know of in many different disguises. The fear of doing a box jump, the fear of being the last one to finish, the fear of getting injured doing a max lift, the fear of looking stupid, the fear of being criticized …. and I could keep on going. We all have our fears based on how we perceive differemt kinds of situations.

To deal wth your fears, you have to get to know them first.

So, the reason why I’m bringing this up now, is actually because I had an experience this past week during the easter holidays, that took me back down memory lane. An experience that I would like to share with you. Its about fear!

READY?

I’ve spend part of the Easter snowboarding in France. One day when I was about to take a drag lift, I totally remembered one of my first snowboarding trips 10 years ago, when I was learning how to even control two feeds on a board, I was in the exact same situation. Standing in front of a drag lift at the end of a mountain, with no other ways to get up.

In the beginning I were with great hope, that I could do this.

First try, fail. One more time, no problem. Second try, fail. Up again, you can do it. Third try, fail. Keep going. Fourth try, fail. One more time, it will be all right. Fifth try, fail. Come on you can do it, how hard can it be… (ever tried to approach something, and it just didn’t work?) Sixth try, fail. Ouch, now it hurts. Seventh try, fail. ANGRY! Yelling, sworing (and then it happened, my patience ran up- sounds familiar??). Eights try, fail. So F**** embarrassing. Everyone is looking. Are they laughing? Im such a joke (external focus). Ninth try, fail. Yelling even higher. Tenth try, fail. Smash my board into the snow (now the bad behaviour dig in!! Ever tried that?). Eleventh try, fail. Sooooo pissed. Twelfth try, fail. CRYING now (time to loose control! Have that ever happened to you too?). Thirteenth try, fail. This is too much. Im so stupid. Why can’t I even do this, I suck at everything (irrational thoughts conquer. Hate when that happens, dont you?). Fourteenth try, fail. F** it. I give up. 

And so it went, that I climbed my first mountain in snowboard boots and a snowboard under my arm. It took me around 3 hours, a lot of sworing, tears and sweat. But most of all it was an experience that I will never forget, simply because of the fact that I totally lost control of myself based on my fear.

Yep, the fear won.

This time.

 So whats to learn?

When the fear gets to you:

• You are going to keep doing the same mistakes over and over again
• You wont be able to focus on the task in front of you
• You can’t refocus
• You use way too much energy (on the wrong things)
• Your muscles will fatigue quicker
• You wont be able to coordinate your movements as well
• Your behavior will not be beneficial for your performance

How to work on fighting the fear?

• Use refocus techniques, such as breathing control
• Focus on the concentration technique by using Q words
• Use visualize as a tool to get back into a happy state of mind
• Use selftalk as a tool to regain control of the situation, by making it positive and constructive

 So what happened this year, when I once again faced the challenge of a drag lift? 

I  fell off, once again. Only this time, I managed to refocus by using technical Q words, reminding me of my balance point, and where to put my foot, as well as positive self talk, such as – “the worst thing that can happen, is that I have to climb another mountain. Been there, done that. Thats not so bad. I will manage”.

I hope you have had a wonderful Easter, and remember that if you want to train your mental skills on a regular basis, you can join the Mentalwod Club, where I will guide you through a new theme every month.

/Janne

The post Your fear is your worst enemy! appeared first on Mentalwod | mentaltraining for CrossFitters.

Be inspired by Games athlete, Martin Møller from Butchers Lab – and his way of approaching this years Open! Read about his way through 13.2.

What is your strategy? (Physical as well as mental)

Pretty simple, be better than everyone else…

Physically – I always test out the WOD on Thursday, in order to gain a little experience towards Sunday, where I give it my final shot. Friday I lift a bit, do a short WOD or some cardio intervals and most often have couple of beers with Steeno. Saturday is my restitution day, maybe I do a little stretching, sauna or steam bath. Sunday I try to get a nap early afternoon if I can fit it in – which could for 13.2.

Mentally – I try to stay updated on the athletes I benchmark myself against upwards f.i. Richard Vanmeerbeek, Hannes Heinz, Patrick Barber…

How do you prepare for the workout?

I test different movement patterns. Am attentive to what areas of my body will be affected and give these extra focus in terms of restitution, stretching and foam rolling.
Every Thursday I share my first score in Butchers Lab’s OPEN forum, so the others have something to benchmark themselves up against. I fell it some what makes me earn some of the cheers and engagement that is shared on Sundays when the OPENs are butcherd at Butchers and makes the above quite stringent plan, tolerable to follow.

Besides that I strive always to be the best! The best in the extent that my capabilities allows me to be the best or best in the extent that I, based on f.i. the above mentioned, can beat them, as these are athletes I equate myself with.

After 13.2

What was your experience? How did your strategies hold up? What were the challenges?

I’ve ended up with a fairly satisfying result in a WOD which I thought was insanely boring… I knew I would be limited by my box jumps and I made the switch from step downs on Thursday to step ups on Sunday, with success +49 reps. That was positive.
I knew that I needed a minimum of 10+ rounds (got 316 reps) as top 50 would most diffinently be around 11+, which I assessed wouldn’t be possible for me. So I sat up an ambitious goal within what for me personally was reachable, based on the result/experience from Thursday.

My Challenge was to increase the paste without increasing my pulse significantly. My strength is anything above +20 minutes. So I stayed focused on leaving out my usual short counting routines and partitioning of the reps, in order to not have any other breaks than the ones that naturally occur in the transitioning from one exercise to another, as the volume was low enough to do all reps unbroken.

Thanks to Martin for sharing his insights!!

The post Martin Møller: “I strive always to be the best!” appeared first on Mentalwod | mentaltraining for CrossFitters.

13.2 is on. Here you get my view of how to approach the workout from a mental perspective.

So what you need to do is to narrow down your mind and just get to it. You can do this by …

1) Narrow down your mind by having  Q-words for all three skills that will keep you focused throughout the workout.

Examples:

• shoulder to overhead: push or one two or press
• deadlift: lift or chest or up
• boxjump: one two or jump or go

2) Narrow down your mind by focusing on one spot. Find a new spot for every transition. One spot for shoulder to overhead, one spot for deadlift and one spot for box jumps. Use the same spots in every round, that makes it easier for your mind to focus.

3) Narrow down your mind by visualizing the workout before you get to it, spend 10 minutes after warm-up and before workout. Even better visualize the day before as well.

4) Get to it – and keep the paze. Remember your personal mantra here! Have a mantra with you that will remind you to keep going, no matter how hard it feels or how much you want to stop – this mantra should keep you going, so make sure it is something that has some impact on you.

With a narrowed and focused mind – and a determination that will make you keep going, you are going to nail this workout!!

Wish you all the best!

/Janne

Remember you can also follow Mentalwod on twitter, where you can get daily mental kicks and insight knowledge.

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Have you ever used humor or a joke to get through a workout? To maintain focus? Emotional control? To get rid of negative thoughts?

This weekend I was shooting videos for the Mentalwod Club on self talk – and the impact this phenomenon has on our ability to maintain focus.

So I watched a young CrossFit athlete go through workout 13.1 as well as I interviewed him for his insight into how he deals with the aspects of self talk and focus, when he is under pressure.

First of all, what I saw and what I have seen earlier, is that this athlete, Christoffer, is amazing to keep calm and focused no matter how pressured he is. He stick to his plans, he remains calm, he uses his breathing and his pauses to get back on track, and he keeps on going. He is truly an inspiring athlete.

So what came out of this interview, was that Christoffer tells me about how he uses humor and jokes to actually get through workouts. He explains how it is important for him to be really light about whats going on, if everything gets to serious, he looses focus. It has to be fun, and he has to focus on other things than whats going on right there at that time.

So as an example, he explains, that if it is a very hard workout – such as the first workout of this years Open, 13.1, he has to have some images or jokes to draw from, when it starts to hurt. He explains how he had images from a really funny movie he had seen the night before, that he focused on during the workout. So every time it felt hard, or he felt pain during the workout, he shifts he’s focus to a scene from the movie, or something he and he’s friends had laughed about the night before.

Christoffer says, that every time he manages to focus on something completely different than the workout itself and what he doing, when it gets rough, he gets through the workouts much more easily. He recalls competition situations, where he didn’t manage to do this, and those are situations, were he did really bad, because of the fact that he lost he’s determination – by focusing too much on how hard it was, and how bad it felt, and all the technique behind and so on.

So what is really interesting here is that Christoffer gains focus by focusing on something else than what he is doing. This is the way he keeps his mind light and easy, and stays away from the challenges involved with pushing yourself out of the edge performing your fullest.

This is an interesting technique, and I would be thrilled to hear about others who do the same? Or have other interesting techniques?

Thanks to Christoffer for giving us the insight into what works for him!

Christoffer Korfitsen is from Siam CrossFit in Copenhagen

The post Can a joke be a technique? appeared first on Mentalwod | mentaltraining for CrossFitters.

The Open is on – are you ready?

Or maybe the right question is, how ready are you?

How do you prepare yourself for the workouts? For sure you have trained your body to be prepared for this point, but what about your mind, have you trained that as well?

To be able to go through a workout best way possible you need to prepare your brain for what to come. You do that by thinking the workout through. What is going to happen? How will you approach the different techniques and skills? What will happen if you fail something, what will you do? Or what if you loose your breath? Whats your strategy?

So basically this is about dealing with all aspects of every workout. Set strategies for every possible challenge – and here I dont mean, just think a little about it, no – I mean, THINK IT TROUGH. Every aspect! Write it down, and take the time to prepare yourself mentally, just as well as you warm up your body physically before starting the workout.

Never underestimate the benefits of writing things down – it is a way of cognitively off loading your brain! Always write your strategies down  - bring them with you, read it over and over again until it is so stuck, that even though you are under severe physical pressure during the workout, you will remember your strategies.

Go out there, and nail that first WOD of the Open and make that WOD a Mentalwod as well!

/Janne

The post Strategize your way out of workouts! appeared first on Mentalwod | mentaltraining for CrossFitters.

Do you also have an internal bully from time to time, who has to much control? If so, read more about how to control it here …

This is a short insight into a text from the Mentalwod Club – where we will work on learning to control your self-talk during the next month – if this is something for you, SIGN UP.

One of the simplest concepts of sport-psychology is developing positive self talk, but it is also one of the hardest sports psychology skills to master. Sports psychologists have long recognized the importance of positive self-talk in helping athletes achieve their potential. Everyone who wants to be able to perform their best faces adversity and obstacles to success.

Self-talk is the talking you do in your own head about yourself and the things that happen.  We all do it all the time, talk to our selves about whats going on around us, what people say, do, what we do – or think about what we do. This is your own “running commentary” on your life.

And this can really be annoying from times to times right? – When the same scene is played over and over again!

If you actually stop and listen to these messages, you may wonder how you accomplish anything at all. How many times in a given day do you find yourself mentally rehearsing the worst possible outcome, or telling yourself you can’t do something, or it’s too hard? If you are in the middle of a 5K run and someone darts past you, does that little voice in your head encourage you or shoot you down? Or in the middle of a workout, your legs hurts from the many squats or box jumps, are you telling yourself to stop or to keep going?

So just how can we reduce these negative messages? The goal is to replace the negative self talk with more positive messages.

A CrossFitter staring in front of the bar before a max deadlift, who tells himself, “I’m not going to make this lift,” will need to practice replacing that negative statement with a positive “I’m going to make this lift.” While this may not seem like it can work, over time and with repetition an athlete can develop a new habit of thinking positive statements and thoughts and expect a more positive outcome.

This is about the connection between the words and the belief -  that is the ultimate goal of this technique. Please remember; this takes time!

So: When exchanging negative self talk with positive self talk – make sure it is believable, concrete, and simple. 

Go do your Mentalwod,

Janne

The post Control you internal Bully! appeared first on Mentalwod | mentaltraining for CrossFitters.

So when we doubt our selves and what we are capable of,  during a workout, we basically tell our body that it can’t do it.

And what happens? It literally CAN’T do it.
Self doubt is common, and within all of us at some point. Some learn to deal with it in a way that it won’t get the overtake of any situations, as others never learn to handle it..

So how will self doubt interfere with your performance? Well, it says itself.
It will slow you down. Make you feel the pain and the fatigue even harder. It will make you want to puke, give up.

Worst case, if not learned to handle – the self doubt will make you give in!

When we give in, we never reach our full state of optimal performance. So for you to reach that optimal state, you got to learn to handle your doubts.

So what are they about? Those thoughts on doubt?
Is it about whether or not you are good enough? Whether or not you are strong enough, fast enough, tough enough? About expectations, your own or others? Whether or not you can live up to them? About the embarrassing part of not completing a workout? Not lifting heavy enough? Not rowing fast enough? Jumping high enough?

What is it about? What’s your doubts?
When you know exactly what you are doubting about yourself, you can ask yourself whether or not what you are doubting is true?

(in most cases, the doubt is irrational, and something we make ourself believe during pressure, but when asked in other context, we know that it is not true – that we are good enough – if this is the case, remind yourself – be RATIONAL!!)

But if it is true, if your doubts are based on reality, you need to ask your self who set the goals? Who set the criteria for success?

Yep. you’re right. YOU do.

Remember that, when the doubt is entering your mind. You control You!
You set the standards. The rules. The Criteria for success.

Set standards that are beneficial for you. That won’t make you doubt yourself. Set rules that will help you, make you believe that you are strong, fast and fit.

Strong, fast and fit ENOUGH.

That you are enough.

Have a great workout – make it a mentalwod!

/Janne

(Upcoming theme of the Mentalwod Club is self talk- so if you want to learn how to really deal with doubts, or any other thing you tell yourself during pressure, join the club. Read more here)

The post Are you enough? appeared first on Mentalwod | mentaltraining for CrossFitters.

We all have the excuser inside of us once in a while. The voice telling us:

‘that its okay to stop, if it hurts, you’ve had a tough day at work, just relax, no worries, its completely understandable that you are tired, take a break, you dont have to give it your best, not to day, today it is alright to just be here, you dont have to do anything that hurts, it fine, dont get your pulse up, not today, its been a long day, its raining outside, its dark, its totally normal to feel exhausted this time a year, take a break, not to day …’

Oh yes, I could keep on going. Do you recognize this dialogue? or maybe parts of it?

Well, I know that a lot of the people I work with deal with this type of inner dialogue once in a while. And this is what creates SELF DOUBT! Fight this!

So how do we put the excuser on hold here?

Any suggestions?

When you tell yourself what to do, this is what you will do. This is how it works! If you tell yourself ‘stop, if it hurts, you dont have to keep going’ – you will stop when it hurts. If you tell yourself ‘ I cant do this to day’, you CANT do this today.

You body will react to what you tell yourself. 

Make sure that what you tell yourself, is what you do!

‘I came here to day to workout, I will workout’

‘Im gonna keep going’

‘I will conquer this pain’

‘I am strong, I can do this’

See where Im going? Try it out – let me know how it goes!

/Janne

(The Mentalwod Club is dealing with emotional control this month – and how to reach your psychological momentum – read about the club HERE, maybe its also for you?)

The post Put the excuser on hold! appeared first on Mentalwod | mentaltraining for CrossFitters.

This is a story based on my experiences dealing with athletes, who’s little girl’s voice gets too much control.

Its competition day, and this woman has been training for this day for years. She is fit, strong and ready. Its finally pay off day for all the hours spend in the gym, all the rainy days where she fought her urge to stay home, but still went for a morning run, the early morning and late afternoon workouts, the soreness, the fatigue. She’s ready. Simply because of the fact that she has enjoyed every step of the way, every challenge, ever rainy day, every workout.

Its competition day. She starts the day like every other morning, same breakfast, same routines. The bags are packed, and she is ready to go. No worries, no nervousness, just joy and excitement.

At the venue, she meets up with her friends and co-CrossFitters, they set up a camp, and starts talking about the competition to come. Everything is good. People around her are happy. She is happy and exited.

Time to warm up. She goes through her warm-up routines, nothing new. A thought enters her head: “, Oh, so this is it, this is today, wow .. all these people, Oh I hope I have a good day”. Only reaction to the thought is a little race in heart beat.

She starts talking to the others in the warm up area, not spending more time focusing on the thought. 

As the time goes by during her warm up, she starts feeling more and more uncomfortable. She deals with it by talking even more to the people around her, not paying too much attention to the body’s reaction.

Now it is almost time. 10 minutes before showtime. Her body is warmed up, and she count the minutes for the whole thing to start. Suddenly she feels scared, scared in a way that she haven’t felt in a long time, not since she was a child. It feels weird, and she can’t really explain why.

She warms up some more, not paying attention to her feelings.

SHOW TIME. Its competition day.

She starts the workout, but her body feels weird. Its like its heavy, and slow. Her muscles won’t contract with the same speed as usually. “Wow. What is happening?”. It hurts. “why, it never hurts, I can usually do this, come on”. Tired and pain. “I can’t be tired, I just started, come on”. Way behind the others, can’t seem to control the technique “what is happening, oh, no this can’t be happening!!”. Get 3 no-reps, then one more, and one more. “This is so embarrassing, everyone is counting on me, Im counting on me”.

Panic. She feels like crying, want to give up. Fake an injury. Throw up. Everything to just get out of this mess. This was not the way it was supposed to be. She keeps moving. Slowly, until the time limit for the workout is reached.

This was competition day. She was prepared. Physically.

Mentally, she was still a little girl, scared to fall through, to fail.

And that was exactly what happened. She failed.

Dont ever underestimate your most powerful muscle, your brain. Train it. Train it hard.  

/Janne

Well, your emotional state prior AND during a competition or performance can have a huge impact on whether or not you are capable of performing your fullest. There are numerous studies on emotions and sport and how different emotional states can interfere with a performance. The most important factor discovered is the fact, that YOU the athlete, need to figure out what emotional state works the best for you

This months Mentalwod Club is focusing on how you get to know your optimal emotional state for a 100% performance, and then how to reach it. EVERY time. 

The post A story about the little scared girl in a very strong woman’s body … appeared first on Mentalwod | mentaltraining for CrossFitters.

Here’s a sum up on the last weeks cases on how to improve your awareness!

Awareness #1:

CrossFit athlete:
“During my work on becoming aware of my challenges, i discovered that before a workout /actually every workout)  I was making up excuses for myself, such as: it will be okay if I dont do all reps – or it all right if I can’t complete all rounds or I dont have to max out, I just take it easy ..

What did it do to my performance?
My energy level went down, I felt unexcited about the workout and my performances were never 100% …

What are you telling yourself before a workout?

 

Awareness #2

So here’s what I discovered was going on inside my head during the 90 minutes of hot yoga: 

damn, its hot i here, way tooo hot -
its too much, I cant keep on going like this, its usually never this hot
I cant breathe
its awful
it hurts
should I leave the room
can I leave the room?
why isn’t she explaining more
why isn’t she turning down the heat
this is not good
this is too much
I cant keep on going like this

I kept on going like this for a looooong time … around and around and around, and what did it cause?

I had to give up at times. I had to sit down.

Result of practicing awareness:
I had no idea that I had THAT many negative thoughts going on ..

Challenge:
To handle them in a way that wont interfere with my performance, being able to overcome the negativity by working on answering the thoughts in a way, were I maintain focus.

What are you telling yourself during a workout?

 

Awareness #3.

From a Mentalwod Club member:

“Today was the first day of utilizing the awareness worksheet and it was definitely an eye opener. It was amazing to actually write down the thoughts that have been going through my head and realize both how much my mind tries to wander and also how many negative thoughts go through my head. These thoughts ranged included “you might aggravate that old injury”, “this really hurts”, “this weight is too much for you” and “you don’t need to do this unbroken.” The last comment was while doing the 100 Burpee box jump workout, which I was able to do unbroken. However, that was due to this program and being cognizant of those thoughts. Previously, I would have thought “you got to 50 reps, you can take a rest” and done so. Instead I kept saying “you can do it, one more rep” and made it through. It was a really nice breakthrough”.

Next month’s theme of the Mentalwod Club will be on how to reach your psychological momentum:

Read more about the club HERE.

All the best,

Janne

The post Cases on Awareness appeared first on Mentalwod | mentaltraining for CrossFitters.