The Mind Quits Before the Body Does
One of my athletes sent me her splits after the first qualifier workout for FOTC. Her pacing was on point. She knew her paces and she was holding them really well. Then, in the later rounds, the fatigue caught up and her double-unders started to trip up.
It didn't look like a technique issue. When we talked it through, there was just "no hop". She wasn't jumping high enough once the fatigue set in. So the question became: what changed in those last rounds, and what can we actually fix?
First, was it the pacing? This was a longer, cyclical piece with no real bottleneck, unless the double-under is a skill issue. Which it wasn't in this case. Her splits didn't read "go faster early". On a workout like this, trying to bank time at the beginning more than likely ends in a worse result. You go too far above threshold (the effort you can sustain without fatigue piling up) and it's going to crash harder.
Second, was it fueling? Her day-to-day and pre-workout nutrition were already dialed in, so that probably wasn't it either.
Third, what did the volume look like? People that don't know much about biomechanics will look at a workout like this and think it's so simple. Then they're halfway through and wondering why their feet hurt. It's because you're using your feet the whole time. Double-unders, line facing burpees, and shuttle runs look like totally different movements, but they're very, very similar when it comes to the foot, the ankle, and the calf. For her, it's more of a volume tolerance thing.
Fourth, what was the self-talk like? I asked her what was going on in her head when the trips started. On the first one, she told herself it was okay and went again. Late in the workout, with time running down, she lost her composure a little bit. That's normal, and it matters more than people think.
When you get frustrated or lose composure, your adrenaline spikes, your heart rate spikes, and you're not able to think as clearly. Fine motor skills, which I would argue a double-under is to a certain extent depending on the athlete, can be compromised. Everyone just forgets how their body works. But it's a learnable, teachable skill. Take a deep breath to recompose, and then go right back into your flow.
So the plan isn't to change everything. Keep the effort the same, keep the burpees and shuttle runs the same, keep the double-unders the same, but now focus on keeping our composure and hanging on in the end. It's still going to be tough.
At some point the fatigue is still going to set in. When it does, you kind of have to settle into "I need to jump higher." That's so simple to think about right now, and really hard in the moment, because you're tired. The mind will quit before the body will. And if a trip happens with one round left, don't worry about it. It happened. What's next is the next double-under.
There's one more piece. From a volume standpoint, I don't want to set an athlete up for failure in the later weeks. Of course we want to do better on the workout, but if that means sacrificing performance on the next three weeks, in my opinion, it's not worth it.
Do we wish it had gone better? 100%. But the fact that there's still room to be better shows us the athlete is not at their full potential. That's the mental performance improvement: realizing where the limitation is, where you missed the mark, and where you can fix it.
Apply it: after your next hard workout, while you're cooling down, hit record on a voice memo and say your fresh thoughts. Five to ten minutes later, once your adrenaline isn't so high, listen back and see if you notice anything different about the effort or the strategy. Then ask: was it pacing, fueling, volume, or composure?
If you're not sure which one it was, that's what we can work through together. Book a discovery consult with one of our coaches here at The Pack. We can help evaluate where the issue may lie.
Coach Noah Sager
