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[/caption]Tuesday was a double workout day, and I haven’t had one of those in a while because of a very hectic schedule. The evening was the Functional Fitness 204 class, which consisted of AMRAP in 20 minutes of 8 thrusters at 75 lb., 8 sit-ups, 8 push-ups, 3 laps (70 meters a lap) and 8 pull-ups. I managed a solid 7 rounds. I used butterfly pull-ups and did all reps unbroken. The longer chippers are really up my alley. Thursday I switched my squat up by doing 10 sets of 2, at 160 lb., to a box just below parallel. I took 30 seconds rest between each set. At the end of 20 reps, I was feeling the burn, especially in my posterior chain. I followed this up immediately with a 1000-meter row. I recorded 3:46, which is a solid improvement. My goal for the next time is to get my row into the 3:30 range. I completed the workout with 3 x 20 GHD sit-ups, 3 x 15 leg raises on an incline and stretching. Today I did a WOD I’ve been itching to try for a couple of weeks after seeing it on the Again Faster Facebook site. It was 10 rounds of 10 pull-ups and 10 box jumps (24 inches). My time was 15:08, and my average round was 1:30. I was definitely not happy about this, as my goal had been 10 minutes. The problem was my confidence. All my box jumps were unbroken, and I didn’t miss a single pull-up. I did the first 4 rounds unbroken (pull-ups) and switched to 5-5 after that. After the second round, I told myself I couldn’t do this workout. I thought I was crazy for trying. Mike thought I was crazy for doubting myself. The point is that, once again, I defeated myself and wasted precious minutes fighting a mental battle. My body is already doing more than my mind says it can. The new rule is this: if I utter the words “I can’t” in a WOD, I get 3 burpees. Simple as that. It will be in my best interest to keep my mouth shut and just get the work done. Mike’s note: I’d guess Crystal actually lost about two minutes fighting a mental battle in this workout. Physically, she was doing very well, but mentally she was struggling to get past the difficulty of the workout and the nasty physical feelings that come in a high-rep, high-power workout. Crystal gets better as things go longer, and she’s still getting used to that speedbump when the aerobic system really has to start doing some heavy lifting at about 2 minutes in or so. But we expected this. We’ve just come off a successful strength cycle, and we’re introducing a lot more power demands into her training. It will feel horrible for a while, but in less than a month she’ll be very comfortable working the high reps. The best part is that her strength will still be there if a heavy workout comes around. The 3-burpee rule is now in place as “mental training,” and once Crystal’s body adjusts to the change in training, she’ll get the eye of the tiger back. I’m pretty excited to see what happens at that point!