S02E68 MENTAL HEALTH IN CROSSFIT AND FITNESS TRAINING PART 2

In CrossFit and fitness training, we focus on the health and capability of our bodies. What about our minds and our mental health? In the second of three episodes, we have special guest Sean O'Hara @sopiper38 @crossfitbison athlete and police officer to discuss his personal experiences using physical fitness to help improve our mental physical well-being.

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S02E68 MENTAL HEALTH IN CROSSFIT AND FITNESS TRAINING PART 2

[00:00:00] David Syvertsen: Welcome back to the hurt fit podcast. I am coach David SSON. I'm here with Dr and coach Sam Rhee, and we are in with episode two on our awesome special guest. He crushed it last week. Sean. O'Hara bison beast. Hey, welcome back. You're wearing the same things last week.

That's ironic. And so am I same outfit too. All right. So last week really kind of opened up the the box of mental health versus physical health and how they all are intertwined. It was a great discussion. We're gonna start really getting fitness. Into the conversation. Right. And you know, again, we talked about physical, mental health.

They are under the same umbrella. They should have equal amount of attention put on them. Right. And I think a lot of us focus more on physical health and we do mental health and eventually will catch up to us. But now how does fitness actually tie into. Either the struggle of mental health or all the benefits of mental health, right?

Like again, we, don't only only wanna put a negative label on mental health talk, right. There are a lot of positive mental health outcomes of fitness. All right. And I really want to get into that, but also we just talked off camera before we, there are some negative situations that come from mentally that come from the gym that from the outside, the perception is.

Right. And we, we need to open up the box a little bit and, and get a little deeper than that. So opening thoughts, Sean and Sam on using fitness as a tool to combat mental health issues or to strengthen mental health growing growth.

[00:01:28] Sean O'Hara: Just like anything else in life. I think we can see this as, as, as you know, a good, it can be good and it can be bad and it can be bad if it's overdone, but fitness can be such a release, such a, an escape, such a a, just a big tool for somebody to take a half hour, hour, hour, and a half to get themselves together, to collect their thoughts, to get some frustration out, to get some stress out, to get out.

What they are currently going through. And, you know, especially since we're, we're, you know, CrossFit people and, and, and fitness. And community go hand in hand with this is community is such an important part of mental health. And by immersing yourself into this fitness area, you immerse yourself into a community.

And when you're in a community that's only going to help you with your mental health. So those kind of fitness and community go hand in hand, and that's such a large tool to help you go about your daily mental. In in, in your everyday life.

[00:02:33] Sam Rhee: Yeah. I love that fitness and community. That is all about what CrossFit is.

We talked earlier about the mind body connection in the last episode, this is the body mind connection. Now you see what I did there so, so I have seen if your body's in really poor shape, it's gonna be so hard for you to get that mental. Health, right. It can only worsen if your body is not in good shape.

And I have seen so many people use their improved fitness of their body to work their mind into a better spot. And when you start focusing on what does it take to get my body into a healthy. position. A lot of that is really also going to also help your mind. So think about all the things we do for our body to, to get healthier.

Mm-hmm how is that not going to help your mind get into a better place as well. Right? So that's where it, it really is completely intertwined. And I don't think you could do one without the other most of the time.

[00:03:29] David Syvertsen: Right. And I, I, I think that a lot of us can go into that. topic right there and say, you know what?

I don't always need to be chasing after these scores, these times, these weights, these movements, the RX, the scale, the RX plus plus, right? Like all this stuff. It is big picture. It is secondary to improving your mental and physical state. And I really do think this is like such a widely talk about pop topic on this podcast.

And I think the reason why this always keeps popping back up, Sam. Is the fact that we see it from the bird's from the bird's eye view of, the short term results of Pring this you could take away performance. I look like this. I got so lean that I had, you know, I looked like this in these pictures, right.

Blah, blah, blah. Right. It's so. Secondary to the mental state, the mental state are the results that can really last. I'm not gonna say they always last, but they last longer and the more impactful than anything you're physically going to accomplish in the gym. And I think that can take some of the pressure or even desire away from always just crushing your body so that you get a better workout result on a whiteboard.

The mental benefit. Of coming in and just trying to pursue quality movement, exercise, escaping the life. Like this has been more prevalent now with me personally than it's ever been ever since. When you, when you are going through stressful times with a gym that goes through a pandemic, having a kid at the same time, sometimes the only thing that can really truly get your mind off that is a workout.

It's amazing. How many times you feel better for the entire day after that? One hour workout. Thoughts on that? SHA

[00:05:08] Sean O'Hara: Sean? Yeah. My biggest thing, and I've, I've noticed this over the past couple of months is. And I've been saying this to myself more often than I care to admit, just get to the gym. Yeah.

Getting myself outta bed. I, I, I recently it's been close to a year now. I got a dog and my dog does not like to sleep in. She loves to get me up at 4 35 o'clock in the morning, rough. And just, you know, when your sleep is messed up, whether you have a dog, whether you have a child, whether you have you know, fam whatever, whatever the case is, Getting yourself moving and, and, and just getting yourself to the gym is going to show you a couple things.

One you've accomplished something you've gotten up. You've gotten outta bed. When you're at the gym. Now you've immersed yourself in this community. Now this community's gonna take you and it's gonna push you. Now. You're gonna go through the workout, whatever you're there for. If you're there to go hard, if you're there to move, if you're there to recover, whatever it is.

And just on the point that you touched on after that workout, That could change your day. Yeah. That can set the tone for your day mm-hmm and I hate to say this for like the 4 15, 5, 15 people and leave them out of this. Yeah. But for somebody who works out in the morning. Yeah. My workout sets the tone

[00:06:11] David Syvertsen: for my.

I will say that's a big reason why I think our mornings are so crowded. Yep. I mean, it's, it's, it's, you know, we, we have 75 90 people work out before 11:00 AM sometimes. Yeah. Preaching to the choir here. Yeah. yeah.

[00:06:22] Sean O'Hara: Yeah, but so that can set the tone for your day and, and, and that just in itself can change you from, if you didn't go to the gym that day now, what kind of mood are.

You're dragging. You're thinking about being waken, woken up. No sleep. Yep. You're you're angry or, or, or, or just frustrated with your, with your situation. And now you go into work trying to change your day while. in a stressful situation. Yeah. As opposed to, in a controlled situation, when you have support, when you have no expectations of just move and if you move well, mm-hmm and if you move quick and you're feeling it that day, maybe you get a score, maybe you get a PR.

Yep. But if not, you move and you Ben, you, you took a step

[00:07:01] David Syvertsen: forward. Yeah. There's a mental state there. Yeah. And it it's amazing how. how much, how much easier it is to stay disciplined throughout the day when you started off on the right foot like that. And again, I'm not only promoting, like, I wanna give respect to the people that come.

I actually, sorry, guys. I think the people that work out at night, it's harder for them. Yes. It's a hundred percent after the day. So I don't only want to pigeonhole them. It could even be that the people that come in at night and get that feeling of accomplishment. In what has my opinion been doing this for a long time?

I think that is harder to do, to work out at night after work, that feeling of capping off your day like that yes. Gives you momentum that will carry forward into the night and the next day and what it also does. Is, you know, historically, generally speaking, right? Our, our worst heating habits are, are at night.

Yes. And I do think that people that work out in that 4 15, 5, 15, 6, 15, that mindset that they just achieve something, they have some momentum, right. It gives like, that's a key word for me is momentum. Like, just try to get the train going and then it just gets easier and easier. Is that the fact that they show up to that nighttime eating that nighttime hour.

A lot of us really struggle. Right. We wanna keep putting those hand, the hand back in the bag of chips. We wanna go get ice cream, not getting ice cream, Ashley this week. I'm sorry. I, I really think that it's all about creating that momentum and it makes the decisions that are hard for you easier at the end of that day.

So like your decisions, like if I don't go to the gym, I know the days I don't work out, I have a much harder time eating. Not having a drink at night, you know, kind of ignoring the macros. But when I'm in that healthy routine, like, I feel it's just like a snowball. It just keeps in going, going. And I really think it's, that's all mental state.

Yeah. A

[00:08:46] Sean O'Hara: hundred percent. I'm sorry guys.

[00:08:48] Sam Rhee: Discipline equals freedom. That's what Joco willing says. And I find that to be more in my life. All the time. It's so hard. Some mornings to wake up and, and I know I don't feel great. I feel like that first step to go to the bathroom feels, I feel like I'm 90 years old.

Oh yeah. And they're 500 voices in my head saying, you know, you did really work out a lot this week. You could take today off but on, but if I'm not feeling injured and we talked about that, the difference between being sore yeah. And being injured. If I'm just sore. I know I, if I get myself to the gym, I will do better.

And that's discipline. It's not how I feel. It's not like, I feel good. I'm gonna go to the gym. It's I feel like crap, I'm going to go to the gym because I know ultimately that's going to help, like you said, set up every other aspect of my life. Right. And both of you guys, it's so funny how, how we all sort of came to that conclusion, maybe for different reasons, maybe it's for mental health.

Mm-hmm maybe it's because we're. Pushing performance mm-hmm . But you know, maybe it's just for fitness, but doing those things for yourself, even when you don't want to get your mind in a better state. And at that point, you can also start to address some of the harder things that you might have to deal with, right?

From an anxiety standpoint, from a depression standpoint, That gives you, like you said, the momentum to deal with these

[00:10:13] David Syvertsen: issues right now, the focus is that you can create in your life because now all of a sudden you're very into fitness and working out and again, cross it is at least to some degree for everyone is performance based, right?

Some more than others, but to some degree it is performance based. It makes you live a healthier lifestyle. Let's touch on that a little bit, Sean, in relation to the mental health still, right? The focus that one needs to put on their Nutri. So that they perform well at the gym, but also how that's gonna impact the mental health big picture.

[00:10:44] Sean O'Hara: Sure. So we, we just got done in the last the last episode, we talked about how the mind can affect the body and how it can have physical manifestations within our body and hand in hand with that is we can help combat that tremendously by our nutrition. Yes. In the food challenges that we've done.

And I guess this is again, part of getting older and, you know, I will say this being the youngest one in the room, I'm still I'm still getting by a couple of months. Yeah. I'm finding again, things that are no longer tolerable. With my body. I have found out that I am lactose. I have found out that I have a severe insensitive or sensitivity to peanut butter and to peanuts in general.

And I would not have really put that together if I had not started on a, the nutrition trip and B figuring out what was going on with my stomach. Right. Because a lot of times we go to the doctor or we don't wanna go to the doctor because we're afraid of what they're gonna. Yeah, we don't wanna know what a doctor is gonna tell us.

You have to stop drinking this. You have to stop eating this. You have to start doing this. With nutrition. I found that when I eliminated peanut butter, when I got off of dairy, when I started to actually focus on putting things into my body, not going full macro, not going full paleo. Yeah. Not, not, you know, just starting to slowly dip my foot into.

more responsible eating. I found that it was making me feel better. And the anxiety that I was getting was actually not manifesting itself in my body as much is that this sharp pain in my stomach was less. Okay. You know, that, that, that, that, that nutrition had a direct impact on the physical manifestations of What was going on with my anxiety.

Mm-hmm I could drink a cup of coffee again and not have my blood pressure go through the roof. Yeah. You know, mm-hmm so that was a big, big aspect of helping yeah. The, the physical aspect. Yeah. Of,

[00:12:47] David Syvertsen: I also think mean you could tell me if I'm wrong. Right. But Sean, you do care about your performance. I've seen you.

Yes. You know, like with, with like the muscles and Sean has signed up for the next level engine work and shame was plugged. I'm just kidding. no, but like Sean is the guy I've said this in the lap. So the dude gets after it. He might not always be thrilled with like his result of trying to get the muscle ups, but the dude always gets after it.

It's, it's commendable, it's respectable. And so, because Sean cares about performance and he wants to be able to accomplish things, right. He will cut certain things out of his diet or certain habits out of his life so that he can perform better at the gym. So like on the outside from a coaching perspective, from your perspective on the outside, it might.

Maybe even Sean's perspective, I'm gonna cut this out of my diet because I want to feel better at the gym and perform well. But what that's also doing is like there's gonna be a carryover into the mental state because at least part of Sean's mental state is how he felt like he performed. Right. It all can circle back to the fact that if he got the diet clean and he kept it clean and it created discipline.

Now, all of a sudden the muscles are easier and his, you know, I'm gonna have to get into this too much, but Sean's muscles have come a long way. Like they're, they're much better much, even then they were a year ago. Yeah. Oh yeah. You know, Sean's output on the rower and the bike is much better than it used to be.

Right. And he's intentional with how he works out. There's a lot that goes into that. It because he's focusing on that the diet got changed because the diet got changed. This helped out his GI tract and this helped his mental state. And I really think everything is so tied together.

[00:14:23] Sam Rhee: This is it sounds like a two hit hypothesis for me.

Sure. So you had these pains in your gut be because of the anxiety that's manifest. But you're also dealing with a lot of inflammation or what a lot of people would say this, this was very pro-inflammatory for you all the dairy, all the, all the peanut butter that wasn't going well. So now your gut only has to deal with.

The anxiety part of it, right. You're getting rid of a lot of this pro-inflammatory stuff, which your gut can't handle all of this. Right? Exactly. And so you're reducing the amount of stress on your digestive system, and it's allowing you to your body to handle what's going on mentally better. And then the fit, which is what fitness does too.

So a lot of the issues that you see, like these, these scientists hypothesizing is that like, for example, cancer, doesn't arrive from. Hit to the system. It's usually two. So it can handle say one mutation. It can handle two mutations and that's when things start to go awry. And that's the same thing. You're giving yourself more reserve in your body by making it healthier to deal with.

these stressors that you, that you have in your

[00:15:30] David Syvertsen: life?

[00:15:31] Sean O'Hara: Yeah. AB absolutely. It, it's amazing. If you are focusing on just one thing and you change one thing on how many different aspects of your life that that one change could possibly make to you, not all the time, but in that case, my diet helped change two things for.

It helped my physical health and it also then indirectly carried over, carried over into the manifestations that my mental health was giving me, which then again, going back to that circle, it helps it slow down the circle a little bit. And now I'm not so anxious about being sick. When I'm going to, you know, some type of event or when that anxiety kicks in right now, it lessens.

Now I can deal with it more. Now it's easier for me to sit there and say, okay, now I'm gonna go face the day or go do this. Or, you know, in

[00:16:16] David Syvertsen: certain situations, I, I don't wanna give his name, but we had a member at I think it was like 2015, 2016 era at the old space. And he was, you know, a little of an odd character, but very nice respectful, worked out well with us, fit in.

I had never known the impact of, of working out on anxiety. I had very, like, I hadn't been exposed to that yet. Other than like, Hey, I'm happy or, Hey, I'm upset or, Hey, I'm angry. It was never went like deep into like medication. And he said he had been on anxiety medication for 12 years at that point. And he said the, he went back and I guess there's something that is measured with him and his doctor that measured how much medication he would be on mm-hmm

And he said that. After a few months across it, they cut it, his dosage in half. And then after another three months, they, they took him completely off it. And the only thing that changed in his life was the fact that he was working out on a regular basis with a group of people. And that was the first time I had exposed, had been exposed to a conversation like this.

It's like, it really does go deeper than, ah, man, I crushed that workout or I got crushed. Right, right. That there's so much more to it that I really think hoping that you talking about this and opening yourself up is really gonna help some others with. Yeah,

[00:17:25] Sean O'Hara: absolutely. And I think part of that too is, and what we opened up with too is, is there's the fitness aspect.

And like I said, tied into fitness, is that communal aspect of it? Yeah. So in getting to the gym and doing the. that was part of it. I'm gonna again give a shameless plug to my nine 30 moms because you know, this is the, those are my girls. And I would, if you told me four years ago, before I joined the gym, that says some of my best friends would be 40 or 50 year old women.

I would be like, you're absolutely nuts. Yeah. And I, I have, that's crazy. Right? It's, it's amazing. The conversations that I can come in, that I can have, that I learn about them, that they learn about me, the different aspects of their lives, the backgrounds, the, what they're dealing with and how that helps me and how that, and I can help them just.

by being there and the support through the workout of, and we've talked and I know you guys talked about this several times of the support while you do a workout working out alone versus working out in a group. Mm-hmm how much better did you get? Just percentagewise if you did that workout alone. Oh my gosh.

Or if you did a workout with people that, you know yeah. That are supporting you in class or pushing you in class, it's like a

[00:18:34] David Syvertsen: scientific fact. It's it, it, it's

[00:18:36] Sean O'Hara: amazing. Yeah. And you. Some of that part of that ego is like, how is this? How is this mom beating me in a workout? Yeah. Like how is she putting me to shame, but she's pulling me to get better.

She's pushing me through that workout, which again is just snowballing all of this stuff to help with both your physical and mental health in that aspect.

[00:18:54] David Syvertsen: Now all this positive talk around fitness, helping anxiety. Sure. We, we also, we have to play both sides, right? That they're, they're using fitness IM.

To help your mental state. And we've actually talked about a few of these, these bullet points, Sam, but I think it's gonna have a different tone. And for me, it's gonna have a little bit more meaning and a little bit more even validity to have Sean kind of reflect on it in relation to his experience with mental health, that the gym and the, the desire quest for fitness can actually.

Probably just as easily have a negative impact on a potential mental issue, mental health issue, whether it's diagnosed or not. And let's kind of dive into this topic a little bit. The first thing that you have written down here, Sean is working out angry slash frustrated, bringing that outside those outside emotions, into the gym for your workout.

And we've all. All right. I had, I think I did it this past week, not in a good mood. And I was like, you know what? I gotta go wad, you know, and again, not a bad thing, but there, there are bad results that can come from it. Let's touch on that a little bit. Sure. I mean, I

[00:20:03] Sean O'Hara: know yesterday we joked around a little bit about you know, using anger.

To, to fuel a workout. Right? And every time we talk about fitness, we talk about moving well, you know, and, and hitting our points, making sure we're doing so safely. When we introduce this idea of frustration or working out in anger, a lot of times, without even noticing it, we can go to. Dark little place where we start to break down our movement.

We forget about why we're working out. Did I come to the gym to go 60, 70% today? That, because that was my weekly plan going through the goals. Did I come to the gym today to work on my movement pattern, to make sure I'm hitting these points and these standards that coaches have been teaching and preaching about.

We we've been doing a lot of snatches lately about am I hitting these points on my snatches? And if we come in and we do this stuff angry, we start to lose focus and we start to cloud ourselves and we start to work out poorly poor movement, not, not concerned with pace, not concern. We want to. Go dark and go.

Yeah. And I know that you guys have spoken about this many times of maybe we can get away with that for one workout, possibly. Yeah. But we can't work out like that on any type of regular basis. And to, to be able to separate that is huge. If we work out angry every day, because we're having a bad week.

Yeah. Or we're, we're just not in a good place mentally. That's going to do nothing but hurt us physically, because we're going, we're gonna go into that workout and we're just not gonna do things. Correct. Yeah.

[00:21:40] Sam Rhee: Grip and rip. It is not a good philosophy. 99% of the time, right? Yep. I would say you liken it to when you're hitting a golf ball.

If you just sit there and you just try to absolutely crush that golf ball, as hard as you can. you're gonna. You're gonna do pretty bad. Oh yeah. You're gonna do very badly on that. If you actually think about what you're doing in your swing, you're really focused on the points of performance. You're probably gonna hit a real, a much better drive than if you just sat there and said, I'm so mad at this golf ball, I'm just gonna try to yeah.

Murder it. Yeah. And I think that that's the same in CrossFit. I think most of what we do, we perform better when we're mindful of what we. To be mindful of. Right. And yeah, angry workouts are generally speaking. Now, if you channel that anger sure. In a, in a, and there's a, there's a fine line, I think, between channeling that anger and using that frustration in a really positive way.

Mm-hmm and like you said, what is the point of the workout? Right? That's that's where. The difference is in terms of, are you doing this the right way or not necessarily in a, in a

[00:22:47] David Syvertsen: helpful way. And, and just being able to diagnose how well your movement is, how well you are when it comes to the quality of the movement, right?

Like the, if I'm angry and I'm gonna come in on a heavy squat clean day and. If I'm gonna use that anger, and I've done this in the past, right? Whether it's a squat session, like you're moving weight, like there are very few things in the world that make me feel better than moving weight when I'm pissed off.

But if you video yourself or you have someone watching you and the movement's poor, you're setting yourself up for something. That's gonna make you a lot angrier than what you are in the moment. Right. And you know, the, the whole dopamine talk, we did it in episode on dopamine and it was a fun episode.

And I, you know, I got a lot out of it, just talking about it and just doing some research on it, myself. You know, we are a lot of us, we do come here chasing a high, and again, it's not a bad thing, but if you feel. You're layering, all these different things to make your high, even higher, right? I'm gonna say we touched them on.

We touched on them in that episode, but I'm working out with this person at this time. I'm working out in this zone. I need this music. I'm gonna have this. Pre-workout I'm gonna use this box. And like, if you have all five, six, you are literally just making your experience here better and better by spiking your dopamine higher and higher and higher.

But dopamine, the higher it goes to lower crash. So if you're, if you can accept that. So be it chase your dopamine highs, but I think a lot of us don't look at it that way. It's just, no, no. How I feel right now, I'm gonna come back to this state of mind after I get this high, my high, I know will only last for this class an hour long, maybe a little bit after, but then I'll come back to where I am right now.

Dopamine, if it spikes plus 10, it's going down to minus 10. Right? And before it kind of filters back to whether your resting state is that's something, everybody needs to be mindful. And we talked about this in that episode. It's okay to chase after the high. There's nothing wrong with it, but if there's five, but if you use to only get that high from working out here, but now it's no, no, no.

I need this person next to me for me to get the high. No, no, no. Now I need this music. It's a problem. It's gonna create mental health issues.

[00:24:51] Sean O'Hara: And, and I, I know just Sam, Sam just talked about it is take a. That if, and if you can even remember this, cuz I, I know there are very few that I've done this with where you have gone dark.

Yeah. Where you've just turned it off and you have gone absolutely dark. Yeah. If you can think of that one workout in your head. Yep. Think about the movements that were in that workout. Mm-hmm were you comfortable with those movements? Absolutely. Yeah. When you sat there and you said these are movements that I could do in my.

You know, this is, this is burpy box jump overs for Owen that he can just turn himself off and just go through. Yeah. He's not that good. You know,

[00:25:25] David Syvertsen: actually, cause he can do him

[00:25:26] Sam Rhee: five times faster than anyone

[00:25:28] David Syvertsen: else. All right. Owen, hundred hundred for time. Let's go. Oh, I had,

[00:25:31] Sean O'Hara: I had, I had to set him up for that.

Owen paid you to say that don't me. No, no he didn't. He certainly didn't. I

[00:25:36] Sam Rhee: will take action on Owen any day of the week on that

[00:25:39] Sean O'Hara: one. Anytime I can give a dig to Owen, I will absolutely do it. But we all have these workouts and, and there's the, the one that I can remember was, was I was just one movement I was comfortable with and one movement I wasn't.

Yeah. And I went dark on the one movement that I was just super comfortable with. Yeah. I knew I could do it. Yep. And I knew the only way to get under the time cap was to do it. And that was one of the quarter final workouts that I wasn't in the quarter finals, but I did the. And it was with a, the 70 pound dumbbell snatch.

Mm-hmm I can go, I can turn my head off and go into dumbbell snatch. Yeah. I cannot do toasted bar save my life. Yeah. Yeah. But

[00:26:15] David Syvertsen: that's part of, yeah, usually the higher skill movements. You can't really go dark on, like that's we see people go dark on burpees, bur the thrower machines. Exactly. Low skill stuff.

Right. So the last part of this Is we, we, again, Sam and I have talked about this before, but I really wanna get your perspective on it. And it's, it's placing self-worth into your fitness performance. And again, we're talking about the, the, this is where we're using the gym improperly. All right. There's nothing wrong with having your confidence and self-esteem increased by your output at the gym.

But it's, it's a different discussion when it really turns into a self worth thing, meaning you have a bad workout, you start to feel really bad about yourself. And you know, we've touched on this a lot over, over the past couple years, but I wanna get from your perspective, your words, like you have written down like your whiteboard, the scores, right?

Chasing others. Good verse, bad, your ego. That's always a big one talked about here. And just taking your poor performance outside of the gym, reflect on this a little bit in terms of how the gym is improperly used for your mental.

[00:27:14] Sean O'Hara: So part of it is we can relate this to, we've heard this all the time.

Don't take work home with you and. I, you have the same concept of the gym as we, we, we are allowed to have bad days at the gym, but if our head is not there, if, if our mind is somewhere else in that, and we start to take that home with us, it's just one of those extra things that we put on top of ourselves in terms of our stress, in terms of all the other stuff that we're dealing with in life is that we're here for the gym.

And most of us were here for fitness. And if we start to talk about competition, I'm sure that's another discussion in terms. Analyzing workouts and such, but on a day to day basis, you're here for fitness. If you have a bad day, you were still at the gym, you still move, you still gotta workout and you still made a step in the right direction in terms of your fitness.

When we start to. Include other things of I'm chasing after. So, and so I care about where my name is on the whiteboard. I, if I don't come in and squat clean 245 pounds it's, it's, it's a loss for me today. If we start to look at it from that perspective, we, we purpose. Put a negative impact on something that was already a positive mm-hmm

So we took something that was, we're taking a step in the right direction. And we purposely got in our head to sit there and say, no, we now have taken two steps back mentally because we're putting in these expectations or these things that don't mean much for, for, I was hoping

[00:28:46] David Syvertsen: I was hoping you're gonna say that there's not a lot of meaning behind it.

No, you know, like we, we have. A pretty competitive gym and for the, in my, the most part, it's a good thing. And sometimes it rears it's ugly head, but for the most part, it's a bad thing. But even, you know, the people that you view as at the top, or you view at the bottom, it does, it doesn't matter. It it's it.

And I think more and more, and we've talked about this in the podcast have had a lot of feedback. I'm sure Sam has as well that when people, when we talk about this in the podcast, it really does reassure people. All right. It's okay. That like, it really, it sounds funny if you're not involved in this world, like if you're not a CrossFitter and you don't like, why do they care so much?

I get why someone would think that, but at the, as time passes and if you're really cognizant and mindful of what matters here and what doesn't the, how fast or how much weight someone moves, it's really, it's not that important. And you won't even be thinking about it down the road. That that's I was hoping you were gonna say that,

[00:29:44] Sam Rhee: you know, that really resonates with me what you said, because for, so it, it's one it's really sad when you take something positive and you, you take that and you somehow twist it into a negative, which is what I've done a lot of times when I've come to the gym in the past.

My. Feeling of how good. I felt after going to the gym mattered if I was faster than a per a, a certain person, or even if I wasn't looking at someone, but like you said, I did not hit two, you know, 15 on a, on a squad clean. And I was like, you know what? I really should have hit two 15. I didn't hit it.

And now I'm fuming about that all day. That is so counterproductive to. The positivity that I really should be taking out of a gym. Now, listen, in on some level, the fact that I'm gunning for, you know, whatever that number is, is good for those snatches on, on Friday. Yeah. Oh, yesterday.

[00:30:40] David Syvertsen: Was it yesterday?

yeah. Oh yeah. Actually, no, no.

[00:30:44] Sean O'Hara: Two weeks ago. Yeah. Two right

[00:30:46] David Syvertsen: nine ago. Yeah, I

[00:30:47] Sam Rhee: was trying to, I was trying to do the podcast map. I had 1 55 in mind, cuz that's normally what I've hit. And I was able to hit 1 65 and then Adam Hawkins hit Hawkinson hits 1 75 and maybe two years ago I'd been like, man, that and effort hit 1 75 and I didn't hit 1 75.

I could have hit 1 75. I went back to

[00:31:08] David Syvertsen: do the class again. Right, right. But

[00:31:10] Sam Rhee: the fact that, and that would've taken joy away from the fact that I actually hit 1 65. And even if I only hit 1 45, for whatever reason, If I gave it my real effort, that's really where my joy and not joy comes from now is, did I really give it the effort that I would I needed to give?

And if it's a recovery day, then that, then I should be fine with that. But if I'm really gunning for it and I, and I falter because my, the inner voice in my head. Let me do what I was supposed to do. Yes, those are bad days, but I, I still need to channel that into positivity the next time. Like, I'm not gonna let that inner voice stop me from trying harder the next time.

Not. screw this. I'm not going into whatever it is. Sure. Like that's, that's exactly where I keep struggling to take that negative mindset and try to make it more positive when I come to the gym and that's hard, it's really hard. Oh, sure.

[00:32:08] David Syvertsen: It's really hard. And you'll fail. Just like you'll fail lifts every now and then.

Like you you'll. You'll do a good job, but we were very quick to evaluate our physical ability at the gym. How often does someone evaluate their mental state at the gym? But what was your mental performance like yesterday? Sean? What was your mental performance like yesterday? And that wall ball worked out now we're really asking the hard questions here, but that's how often do we do that?

Yes, we evaluate our scores all the time. Like there's no, this is, comes back to the first topic that we talked about on last week's episode. There's no objective mark for there's no RX mental state for today's workout. There's no scale. But if we did, if there was a way to measure someone's mental state, that your RX or scaled, I bet they would chase after that RX.

Sure. You know, it's like, yeah, it's amazing how. how hard it is to really evaluate what your mental performance was. Not only in the workout, but what were you like hours before? What were you like hours after? How often do you reflect on that? Yeah,

[00:33:04] Sean O'Hara: that, it, it, it's funny. You brought that up. Cause I was just thinking about the same thing of, like, we talked about our mental aspect after our workout.

What's our mental aspect. Like when we're working out. Yeah. What's going through our. You know, when we did that. And when I was sitting down and I was writing some of this stuff out, I immediately got thrown back to it was one of the open workouts. It was I think it was the one where we had, we had a a lift and then we went into a workout or, or vice versa.

There was, there was bar muscle up in it. Wait, can. When was this? This was, this

[00:33:34] Sam Rhee: was, yeah, there was a three rounds and the last one went to bar muscle up. And then after that it was a max, like a, like a max clean or something.

[00:33:40] Sean O'Hara: Yeah. Cleaning jerk or no. Oh no, that was the comp it was the complex one where we had the are you talking about the open?

[00:33:45] David Syvertsen: Yes. Yes. Okay. So it was the workout that had front squats, rig thrusters. The movement on the Rhee changed every single time. Yes. And got more comfortable after that you had seven minutes to find a max deadlift pan clean quale jerk. Yeah. I knew that if we

[00:33:58] Sam Rhee: jogged Dave's memory, he'd pulled a whole God

[00:34:00] David Syvertsen: workout out of his head.

[00:34:02] Sean O'Hara: Just tried to give him enough information. I take that out and I remember doing the workout and there was a whole bunch of people there. And I remember this was we're going back was this is two years ago, right? 20, 21 in mask. Yep. So we're in mask and I'm, I'm on doing bar muscle ups at this point. And this is going back to when I was first sniffing bar muscle ups to where I got enough to think I could do them.

Yep. A lot. And I remember failing.

[00:34:25] David Syvertsen: A lot. Yep. I remember,

[00:34:27] Sean O'Hara: I think I hit one and then I was failing and failing and failing. And I was so frustrated. My mindset changed. Yeah. Due to the frustration of not hitting this, when, in my mind I was like supposed to be hitting this. And I remember Dave came up to me and I'm like, hunched over.

I'm getting my breath, you know, mother effing myself left and right. Yep. And Dave comes up to me and again, this is know, your athletes, know how to coach your athletes and stuff like that. Dave came up to me and in my ear, he. Now's not the time to be frustrated. You can be frustrated later. Let like in, in a very stern, strict tone, because that's what I respond to.

That's how I respond to that. I, I crave that when I'm like, get your head outta your rear end and, and let's do this now. He says that to

[00:35:09] Sam Rhee: me all the time, too.

[00:35:11] Sean O'Hara: and I, after that, I rattle off two in a row. I think I wound up with like four or five on that workout for that entire workout. And I remember Deb T came over to me afterwards and.

did Dave just yell at you?

[00:35:23] David Syvertsen: I said .

[00:35:25] Sean O'Hara: I said, yes. I said my mind. And again, my mind was so in, in, in a place where it had no business being, if I was going to even think about hitting muscle ups where I was frustrated, I was done with it, I, I, I was woe is me type of a thing. Yeah. And in the middle of a workout, how your mindset can change and change your workout.

Yep. Is another thing that is, is incredible. I'll say the easiest

[00:35:48] David Syvertsen: thing for everyone to remember is your mindset's gonna help or hurt your. It's not gonna be neutral, your mindset will help or hurt your. then like, that's it. I don't wanna say anything about it because like, if you are performance centered again, there are people here that are people aren't.

But if you are, and you are chasing after a score time, wait, blah, blah, blah. What you're saying in your head is gonna help or hurt you. It's not gonna keep you the same. I promise. So if you want more help fix your F and mindset, right? If you don't and again, Don't wanna be insensitive. There are a lot of ways to do that.

Yes. Need to talk, listen, but that is that's the solution. Okay. If you don't want to care about your performance, if you don't care how well you do then yeah. Have negative self-talk and that that's where your results will end. As

[00:36:28] Sam Rhee: again, just like I said, in the last one of the previous episodes, he's one of the best wartime Conig you can have , he'll just get in your ear and tell you exactly what you need to get going and finish that GD workout, basically,

[00:36:41] David Syvertsen: for sure.

All right, guys, that was an awesome topic. Sean's crushing it. So we'll have him on for next week as well. We're gonna wrap up this discussion because I think the next discussion, just looking at the outline, it's gonna be more about all right. Like let's, let's what we're here for. We're. Like if you're, if a lot of this stuff is speaking to you, we're gonna come up with a lot of different ways to help you out slash help yourself out, you know, at least get that ball rolling.

And we'll see you next week. You're crushing

[00:37:08] Sean O'Hara: it, Sean. You're doing very well. This is great. Thank you. This is awesome.