8/24 Mental Toughness Thursday

Tammy and Leslie swinging. 
Last week for mental toughness Thursday I introduced you to the unofficial Marine Corps motto of "improvise, adapt and overcome." Today we will focus on improvising when something changes.

At True Spirit we pride ourselves on being able to improvise any workout for any situtation. You have a hurt foot? Great, you're going to do lots of seated core and upper body work. You have a hurt arm. No problem, you're going to do lots of core and lower body work.

We can improvise anything, and all of our coaches do it on the spot. That's really saying something. Can you, in the stress of a sudden change to your plan, improvise a solution that gives you a similar outcome? In other words, can you McGyver yourself out of a problem?

Improvisation can be trained and develops with pratice. Your coaches can improvise a workout for you becasue we've been doing this for a while, we have practice.
The first step for you is to not let the change get you down. If you quit, give up, or stop practicing you'll not improve your improv skills:-) Stop the pitty party and get on the improvisation train!

Next, think about the desired outcome or stimulus. Let's say you hurt your knee skiing. You want to continue to workout at the gym, but you're afraid of being in pain and further injuring your knee. First, go to the doctor! Second, come to the gym! Hurt knees are not a problem. You can do so many things seated! You can even row with one leg! Watch this video to see how to do it. You can move dumbbells, kettlebells, bumper plates, sleds all while seated. You can even throw wallballs while seated.

What about a hurt arm? Well, you just signed up for the squat and lunge club. Coach Noah has shoulder surgery and three months later he did Murph. He improvised! The point of Murph is not the pull-ups, push-ups and squats. The point of Murph is a long calisthenics workout that puts you in an altered mental state. You can insert any movement and still get the same stimulus - a shared instense experience. Oh by the way, check out this amazing video of a mono jump rope for adaptive athletes. 

We encourage you to improvise your next workout. Think about the stimulus, come up with some different movements that could achieve the same thing, run them by your coach and have fun!

Have you signed up for the Fall Whole Life Challenge? What are you waiting for? Early bird registration discount ends on August 30. Click on the image below to sign up today! 

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