Language matters and one little phrase was an insight into my attitude towards Wednesday’s workout.
Wednesday was a challenging workout for me. Of the five elements across two parts, I liked two. There were rope climbs (yay!), deadlifts (hmmm), farmer’s carries ( 😦 ), wall balls (…) and running (yay!). I had looked at the workout in advance and played a number of mind games to delay and maybe even skip the session. I missed the 9:30am session and so ended up at the midday class. It was warm. I was hungry.
The first part of the workout was rope climbs, deadlifts and carries. I love rope climbs, but don’t love the other two. I find them really tough. They are things I have neglected and they expose weaknesses I haven’t chosen to address. As the workout progressed, the deads and carries both impacted my ability to climb the ropes quickly and efficiently. My attitude steadily went downhill. I rested longer, I broke the deadlifts up more, my internal AND external commentary was negative.
If I had taken the time in the morning to set myself up for a better session – become aware of my attitude, eaten a little more, made the 9:30 session – I would have been in a position to attack the workout better. I hadn’t. And by the time I got to part two, I was over it.
The workout:
200m run, 40 wall balls, 200m run, 40 wall balls, 200m run
Time Cap: 8 mintues.
And then it happened. The coach said ‘ok guys, goal is 7 minutes’ and I responded with:
Ugh, I can’t
Kempen, after feeling defeated by 12.5kg farmer’s carries.
Immediately, I felt intense guilt.
How DISAPPOINTING. Who IS this ‘I can’t‘ person? Where had this come from?
The truth was it had been brewing since the night before, when I saw high(ish) volume wall balls and farmer’s carries. It had been compounded by putting off training, not eating properly and, most importantly, by my negative internal commentary that I did not address or re-direct.
I finished the workout in 7:08. I have no doubt that a better approach and mindset would have seen me achieve the goal that the coach had set for me. One less set on the wall balls, a little faster across all the runs, less transition time. Any one of these things would have seen me sub-7mins, but the insidious “I can’t” at the start made it immediately out of reach.
So – lessons for next time:
- Plan which session you want to train in and stick to it. Had I committed to 9:30 there would have been less time to let negativity grow.
- Identify the challenging movements. Plan to execute mindfully and sustainably. In the future, I need to think more about my loading on challenging movements and breaking up reps so I can validate some success rather than feeling buried.
- Try to keep thought patterns in the actionable and positive. Instead of “I can’t”, what would have been more helpful would be thinking about my pacing and how I wanted to break up the wall balls to give me the best chance of success.
Training is a privilege. The pain cave is a choice.
Happy training 🙂
breathekeepmoving.com 