This weekend I was fortunate enough to spend an afternoon with Annie Thorisdottir - an amazing athlete, powerful speaker, and unbelievable coach.Annie took us through a typical training day of hers. We worked on mobility, power cleans, squats, kipping technique and finished up with a blistering WOD of rowing, KB snatches, box jumps and toes to rings.
The training was broken up with honest, open discussions about motivations, successes, failures, the importance of goal setting, training your mind as well as your body and planning for failure.During her first CrossFit competition, comfortably in second place, Annie had calculated that all she needed to do to retain her spot on the podium was finish the workout. The workout required 5 muscle ups. Having never encountered this particular skill before she was nervous that this one movement would steal away her podium place.
In the hours leading up to the event Annie was astounded at the encouragement and support of her competitors who gave up their time to help her master this difficult skill - something they all knew would help her keep her second place spot. They were helping her, even though they knew it could be to the detriment of their own place. It was at this point that Annie fell in love with CrossFit and it’s community. In the end, the muscle up got the better of Annie and she got her first and only DNF. Soon after, Annie began to set her goals for the year ahead. Goal #1 - ‘Win the CrossFit Games’. She broke down her goal into sub goals. Mastering the muscle up was a key part of achieving her goal. She set timelines and tactics to master the muscle up – a road map to guide her training. 10 minutes a day. 50 muscle ups per week. Small, attainable steps.
Then she worked on her plan B. If the workout prescribed 100 muscle ups, she would need a plan B - A variety of techniques for the muscle up to switch to when her body became tired.Annie spoke about her fears and anxiety at the 2012 games about the surprise triathlon, and how one small failure in an early heat, broke her to tears in fear she had thrown it all away. Annie’s coach pulled her aside and they spoke about the importance of positive attitude. How one failure will not strip away success unless you let it. From this point she competed with her mind. The rest is history…
My 4 biggest takeaways of the day:
1. The CrossFit community is powerful and unique. Embrace it.2. The importance of goal setting. “Goal setting is a master skill for personal growth and peak performance.”
3. Always have a strategy, and a backup strategy for when the first one fails.
4. At least 50% of success is mental. We train hard every day, but how much time do we actually spend training our minds? Positive attitude is everything.
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