2/2 Mental Toughness Thursday

Brian has that look in his eyes during last year's Open. He's #intheopen again this year, are you?
It's Mental Toughness Thursday and today we're exploring the difference between practicing and performing. This post is inspired by an Instagram post by Ben Bergeron. Ben Bergeron owns CrossFit New England and is the coach for the 2016 CrossFit Games overall female winner, overall male winner, several Masters winners and the Team champions. He knows a thing or two about coaching. Here's part of his post:

"...most people are either training or competing, but never get around to actually practicing.” Most athletes don’t know the difference between the three. “Most people think that they’re training, but they’re actually competing,” according to Bergeron “If, after a training session, you’re concerned with the scores of other athletes or whether you beat your PR, you’re competing".
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Legitimate practice, he says, requires that you detach yourself from the results. “Focus on actually getting better, without worrying about the outcome.” This, he says, means that you have take a step back from your training. “I know you can do what you’re currently capable of,” he tells them. “If you want to get better, you have to take a step backwards, slow things down, and hammer the fundamentals".
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The best example of this is the approach he’s used to improve Katrin Davidsdottir's muscle-ups. After she won the Games in 2015, she didn’t do a muscle-up in a workout for six months. They spent the first three months rebuilding her kip, which she would practice by doing kip swings in sets of 10. Over the following months they slowly started introducing muscle-ups back in her training. “We started with one at a time, then went to 2,” Ben says, “Now we’re up to 7".

When you're at the gym are you practicing or performing? Which matters most to you, doing something correctly or being at the top of the leaderboard?
When we do our gymnastics progressions we are practicing. When we do our Crew warm-up we are practicing. When we do the Burgener warm up, or any work with the PVC pipe, we are practicing. Practice is incredibly important in the development of your athleticism and fitness. It takes many, many tries and sometimes many fails before something finally clicks. 
Training is utilizing the skills we practice at higher intensity. It's the next step in your athletic and fitness evolution. 
Performing is when you put it all together for The Open, or the Festivus Games. 
The workout of the day is intended for training. If you treat the WOD as a performance you are letting your ego get in the way of doing something better or more efficiently. When you push back on a Coach's cue, you are not open to practice and training, you are focused more on performance. 
Today, check in with your mental status. Are you nervous about the workout? Perhaps it's because you're thinking of it as a performance. Relax, this is training. Take a deep breath, focus on mechanics, consistency then intensity. Go back to the fundamentals and you will improve. If if work's for the Fittest Woman on Earth, it will work for you. 
Today's Workout
PRACTICE: Gymnastics Pulling Progressions - 3 - 5 rounds not for time. Pick a hollow body hold, pull-up, muscle-up, rope climb or T2B progression that challenges you. You can pick an item from different levels.​​ 

Level 1

• 10 back to bellies
• 10 sec flexed harm hang
• 5 horizontal ring rows
• ​3 rope foot wraps to standing

Level 2

• 10 -30 Sec tuck hollow body hold (arms at sides)
• 3 negative pullups
• 3 muscle up transitions
• 1-12 foot rope climb

Level 3

• 10-30 sec straight leg hollow body hold (arms at sides)
• 3-5 strict pullups
• 2 muscle up attempts 
• 1-15ft rope climb

Level 4

• 10-30 seconds hollow body hold (arms and legs extended)
• 3 weighted pullups
• 1-3 muscle ups
• 10 linked toes to bar

TRAINING: CrossFit Games Open 11.1/14.1
Complete as many rounds as possible in 10 mins of:
30 Double Unders
15 Power Snatches 75/55 
Today's workout is another workout to prepare us (e.g. train) for the 2017 CrossFit Games Open. The Open starts Feb. 24, just three short weeks away! This workout is light and fast. It is meant to tax all three of our metabolic pathways and work on our ability to stay calm and accurate as fatigue sets in. Do it as prescribed and it counts toward your BTWB Light Fitness Level. ​

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