I go this in a email as a response to a recent blog post i made. It is from a friend and client of mine Kat. She has been training her ass off for the last 6 months so i know she is a hard charger and gets the idea of hard work. I think she has some fantastic points and i wanted to share them with you.
i don’t think you have softened mentally. i think your focus has changed and you have developed a new set of mental skills. kind of the way that the development of strength and metcon compete with each other in the physical domain, the challenge of remaining calm and focused in the face of a potentially crushing situation (o-lifting) and pushing yourself past the pain (cf) compete with each other in the mental domain. they are two different sets of mental skills.most sports can be broken into one of two categories: skill or effort. performance in gymnastics is almost entirely reliant on skill. performance in running/powerlifting is mainly effort–who wants it more on a given day. a few sports blend the two–o-lifting, wrestling come to mind. cf is also a blend but once you have the stable of basic skills under your belt (of which o-lifting is probably the most complex), it is basically who can and will suck it up and deal with the most pain. that was especially noticable at the games this past year.personally, i think there is enough stuff in life that we just have to “deal with” and “get through” and a workout/situation that mimics that does not build mental toughness, it is just a beat down (my opinion). sometimes you might need to do it just to prove to yourself that you can, but generally…not so much. on the other hand i see real value in establishing the mental qualities of consistency, equanimity, relaxed focused and skillful conduct in the face of huge odds and intimidating tasks that oly’s and other skill related endeavor’s require. the question becomes not “can you try harder?”, but ”can you behave well/perform complex tasks under intense pressure?” so bottom line is, i don’t see your issue as a lack of toughness, i see it as a change of focus and an enhanced set of mental skills in a new arena. if you have lost some “toughness”, is that really a bad thing in light of what you have gained in other areas? is that a trade off you are willing to make?
The reason i am posting this is because it forced me to take a step back from my training and re-evaluate it. I finally realized that i wasn’t enjoying the current path my training has taken. I am going to make a huge shift back to doing what i enjoy. In reflection i felt obligated to go back to full time Crossfit training and dreaded every little bit of. It wasn’t that nervous giddy feeling followed by a sense of accomplishment afterwards. It was more of a feeling of dread and unwillingness to workout. This was usually followed by a short period of physical pain during the workout and followed up by soreness that felt unhealthy. All that adds up to not fun for me right now. I have no doubt that i will get back into conditioning but now is not my time.
Thanks Kat!
Side not:
I wrote this before my current injury but i think it still has tons of value, so enjoy and spend a bit of time reflecting on yourself and your training.
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