What happened???

Fresh from the Performance Intelligence seminar on Saturday, I walked into the box ready to slay dragons last night. But from the moment the WOD started, I totally lost my drive. It was a timed workout, and all I could think about was how slowly I was moving. Sam seemed to call out every lost second as I fumbled from one movement to the next.

How did it all go so wrong? I'd listened to Dr. Bell. Took notes during class. Even walked around with her book in my backpack all day. What the French?

Last night’s WOD was complicated: 2 timed rounds of power cleans, hang cleans, push jerks and sprints. From a vocabulary retention perspective, I was somewhat lost from the beginning despite all of Sam’s best efforts and his whiteboard glossary.

And I know that there must be a night-and-day difference between a push jerk and a push press, but this is only because I always seem to be doing one when I am supposed to be doing the other.

My confidence level at this point is in the negatives...and the WOD hadn't even started yet.

I had set up my barbell in the back of the room with some of my favorite 7PMers, Carrie, Casey and Chris. They were all way ahead of me the whole time. I didn’t even complete either round before the 5-minute cutoff.

According to what I learned at the Performance Intelligence seminar…I’d followed none of it. I guess I just thought that understanding the concepts was enough; that the process of actually developing a WGP was just a classroom exercise...like creating the outline before starting a first draft – who does that?

I totally allowed the clock to control the workout. Rather than focusing on the activity, all I heard was seconds ticking away. My focus was on the end result, not the process.

Even though all of this had been addressed during the seminar, just understanding the concepts did not organically result in a WGP. Once the clock had started, all I heard was the clock.

Tonight is “Death By Push-ups”.

My WGP is to focus on form – chest-to-deck every time, full extension at the top. I can do the movement; so the movement will be my focus. I am not going to establish a max rep. My “win” for this workout will be to complete as many pushups as possible with correct form.