WOD:

Open Workout 13.2
10 min AMRAP
5 Push press (115#/75#)
10 Deadlifts (115#/75#)
15 Box jumps (24″/20″)

Post total reps to comments.

Running seminar attendees take advantage of the new Kids Room to view their running technique.

Get Ornery, It Makes For Good Lifting

I tell people all the time that they have to “Get ornery” to make a good lift. When I say it, I’m not trying to be funny, I’m trying to get you in the mindset of getting ready for something hard. All too often I see people approach the barbell and attempt a lift and I know before they even touch the bar that they’re not going to make the lift. There’s no fire in the eyes. There’s no dogged determination…just a ho-hum attempt.

A recent article in Breaking Muscle confirms what I have been telling you, when you get angry (aroused) you perform better. This isn’t necessarily so with everything we do in the gym, but it can help with a lot of things, especially those heavy barbell movements, handstand push-ups and double unders not so much.

Other sports fall somewhere in between these two. Some will have higher or lower summits and they will also be narrower or wider at their bases. Olympic lifting will be skewed somewhat leftwards of the red “U” but not as far left as the blue “U,” since the technique needed will be easier if the lifter keeps his cool.CrossFitters doing high rep Olympic lifts have a somewhat different scenario. The intensities must be lower so one may think that arousal will not be so important. And indeed it isn’t in the early reps. But as the reps accumulate arousal needs to increase, because the actual perceived intensity rises with each rep. By the time the last rep is attempted it feels like a 100-percenter, so the CrossFit lifter must get as engaged as if he were in a regular Olympic meet.

Click here to read the entire article: Arousal Management: The Science Behind Getting Mad at the Bar