Mental Toughness!!!

There is a CrossFit affiliate in Florida called CrossFit Sparta. I found this on their sight today and thought it was worthwhile to post here at CrossFit Legacy. Quit once--it happens, quit twice--it is a habit, quite 3x---it is who you are!!!


Mental Stamina
When I first saw CrossFit’s list of the ten physical skills I was confused by the placement of stamina. Stamina is considered an organic physical trait, in that stamina can increase with little to no neurological improvement in the individual. It is also commonly linked with cardio-respiratory endurance in that muscular stamina is needed to maintain the 20-30% energy level of most common aerobic activities.

This confused me at first because I had thought of stamina in the mental sense, the ability to push through a workout despite the body’s clamoring to stop. After more thought I believe that we should perhaps have a separate list of mental traits that define fitness. One of those traits, one that CrossFit workouts definitely develop, is mental stamina. We define mental stamina as the ability to push out the impulse to rest, or quit, for as long as possible.

It’s been said that CrossFit is in many ways self-selecting, we only train those who have the drive to work, and that often goes hand-in-hand with possessing some amount mental stamina. I believe it is something that we develop as well. It is my contention that our constant harping on form, the fact that we attach such importance to doing things correctly, and the competitive nature of our workouts helps to develop the mental stamina to compete at a higher level.

Our athletes know that any exercise they perform will be watched, most likely closer than they would like, and I believe that acts like a sort of safety net, allowing them to work at a higher level than they would otherwise. Once full confidence in their ability to perform the movements is developed they find themselves able to push far beyond the level they thought they could.

Once past this initial learning curve I feel that the competitive nature of CrossFit comes into play. At this point the competitiveness of the athlete will largely drive how much mental stamina they can develop, but almost everyone ends up surprising themselves.

In the end mental stamina is in many ways tied directly to physical stamina. As you gain more physical stamina tasks that previously required you to make a conscious effort to complete become routine. The beauty of CrossFit is that everything scales, and those now easy tasks become your warmup, and you will still need to find that mental stamina to get through your workout.