emotions
Jul 10 2019
Dealing with emotions


Emotions are an inextricable part of life. All life events would pretty much lose their power if they were emotionally detached. It seems, also, that emotion has a great influence on our behavior when responding to these life events (Smith & Lazarus, 1990).

Emotion comes from latin word emovere which means something like external movement. So we could say that emotion is a force that moves us to behaving in a certain way.

What we also know is that emotion follows a sequential process (Gross & Thompson, 2007): we perceive a stimulus, we appraise this stimulus and we respond to it.

Example: You receive a snatch out of position causing you to tear your bicep (stimulus). This injury will limit you in training and you won’t be able to compete in the Open (appraisal). You’ll be deprived of completing these goals which will make you sad and have you look for support in friends and family, quit going to the gym for a few day, etc. (response).

Don’t you love lists? They make everything so much easier but the truth is that there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to emotional processing. Especially considering that intermediate step: appraisal.

Theory of emotions

Lazarus and Folkman (1984) came up with a Appraisal Theory which was subdivided into two processes:

  • Primary appraisal: we look for answers to the question «does this affect me personally?» To answer this question we consider the potential impact an event has on our personal goals and concerns (motivational relevance). Then, we proceed to evaluate how this event impedes or facilitates reaching our goals (motivational congruence).
  • Secondary appraisal: this allows us to determine our control over the event, if I can change it or improve it according to my personal interest. We ponder 4 dimensions:
    • Accountability: it’s not as simple as picking someone to blame. We take into consideration the intentions of whoever harmed us. If we think their actions were just, un-intentioned or inevitable, we won’t hold them accountable for our emotional reaction.
    • Potential emotion-focused coping strategies: potential ability to readjust our emotional reaction into a more adaptative affective state that doesn’t interfere with out wellbeing in a significant way.
    • Potential problem-focused coping strategies: what can I do to extinguish the source of the problem or alleviate its consequences.
    • Future expectancy: which changes can occur for me on a psychological level to consider this life event as facilitating for reaching my goals.

Let’s see all this with an example from real life (my life).

I had a friend of mine record 16.1 Open workout for me and after 20 tough minutes, I found out my friend shut down the camera by mistake in the middle of it and didn’t dare tell me about it until the end.

Primary appraisal

Motivational relevance: my goal was to complete my first Open and load the scores onto the leaderboard. Back in 2016 I was affiliated in a box that had no judges to validate your scores so all I could do was load the video on YouTube. Verdict: yes, this affects my personal goals.

Motivational congruence: my first attempt going up in flames due to technical difficulties made it impossible to load that score onto the leaderboard.

Secondary appraisal

Accountability: technically my friend was to blame for the whole situation but it was completely un-intentioned. Known for being a bit clumsy but with the biggest Universe, I knew she would take it back if she could… and that’s why I couldn’t be mad at her. My emotions were a reaction to the situation, not to her wrong-doing.

Potential problem-focused coping strategies: the video had to be filmed from wire to wire, otherwise it wouldn’t count. So all I could do to fix it was re-do it.

Potential emotion-focused coping strategies: it’s obviously messed up to have to go through 20 minutes of lunges, burpees and pull-ups but I had plenty of days to re-do it and meet the deadline.

Future expectancy: in a second attempt I could try reducing transition times, breaking up the pull-ups… maybe I’d even get a better score than the first go-round (it wasn’t the case).

All this probably helped me deal with the situation in a way that didn’t harm my relationship with my friend or with the rest of the Open. I could have just gone crazy and threw the biggest fit ever, leading me to argue and badmouth my friend, blame that
situation for my poor results in 16.1 and just lose my mind. But I didn’t. Hence the importance of proper emotional regulation.

Applying this to the sport of Fitness

emotions
Annie Thorisdottir is the smile in CrossFit. Source: CrossFit Games.

Is this even real life? It’s a legit question because it seems rather cost-worthy to go through all that processing for every life event. Every author comes up with their models and love to think that’s the real deal right there. But the truth is we’re still talking about something inmaterial as is human behavior.

I chose this model because it’s proven to be useful to train regulation of your emotions. Although you don’t see it through to the very end (it’s a pretty long exercise) it allows us to reflect upon the impact certain events may have in our day-to-day life and help us manage our consequential behavior. Sports ridden with success and failure stories so we must learn to modulate our emotional response to these.

No, it’s not about suppressing your emotions. There’s times to where you’re allowed to feel angry, afraid, sad… thing is: use that emotion in a conscientious and adaptive manner. If you’re gonna wreck it all, run away from life and hide in a cave, that’s bad business. If you’re sad due to something that’s out of anyone’s control, re-write the way you look at it.

Froning’s epic fail in the 2010 CrossFit Games helped him find deeper and more powerful motivation. Tia-Clair Toomey‘s success in 2017 gave her reason to believe she could trust her ability as an top-notch athlete. Your emotional state gives you valuable information; use your emotions to learn more about yourself as both an athlete and a person. Don’t forget emotions are the consequence of thousands of years of evolution. It’s a biological gift we must learn to use.

Desiree Mejia-Naranjo 0 Comentarios
emotions
Jul 10 2019
Para qué sirven las emociones

Las emociones forman parte inextricable de la vida. Los eventos que nos ocurren perderían buena parte de su fuerza si no se acompañasen de las emociones. Parece, además, que la emoción ejerce una gran influencia a la hora de determinar nuestro comportamiento en respuesta a estos eventos (Smith y Lazarus, 1990).

La palabra emoción viene del latín emovere que viene a decir movimiento hacia fuera. Por lo que podríamos considerar la emoción como una fuerza que nos empuja a realizar determinadas acciones.

Lo que sí sabemos es que la emoción sigue un proceso secuencial (Gross y Thompson, 2007): aparece un estímulo, evaluamos el estímulo y emitimos una respuesta.

¿No os encantan las listas? Simplifican mucho todo pero la realidad es que las emociones entrañan un procesamiento mucho más intrincado. Sobre todo, el paso intermedio, el de la evaluación.

Teoría de las emociones

Lazarus y Folkman (1984) idearon una teoría de la evaluación emocional, subdividiéndolo en dos procesos:

  • Evaluación primaria, en la que buscamos respuesta a la pregunta: ¿me afecta esta situación personalmente? Para responder a esta pregunta, consideramos el impacto potencial del evento sobre nuestras preocupaciones o metas vitales (relevancia motivacional). Seguidamente, evaluamos la medida en que el evento frena o facilita la consecución de nuestras metas (congruencia motivacional).
  • Evaluación secundaria que nos permite determinar qué grado de control puedo ejercer sobre el evento, es decir, si puedo cambiarlo o mejorarlo según mis intereses. Se ponderan 4 dimensiones:
    • Búsqueda de culpables: no es tan sencillo como encontrar un culpable sino que, además, valoramos las intenciones del mismo. Si consideramos que las acciones dañinas del “culpable” hacia nosotros fueron justas, no intencionadas o inevitables, no les cargaremos con el muerto de nuestra reacción emocional.
    • Potenciales estrategias de afrontamiento focalizadas en la emoción: la capacidad potencial de que reajustemos nuestra reacción emocional a un estado afectivo más adaptativo que no interfiera con nuestro bienestar de forma significativa.  
    • Potenciales estrategias de afrontamiento focalizadas en el problema: qué acciones puedo llevar a cabo para extinguir el foco del problema o paliar sus consecuencias.
    • Expectativas futuras: qué cambios pueden darse en nuestro estado psicológico para que este evento sea más facilitador para la consecución de mis metas

Vamos a ver todo el proceso anterior con un ejemplo de mi vida real.

Encargué a una amiga que me grabara el 16.1 del CrossFit Open y, después de 20 duros minutos, me enteré de que a mitad de camino apagó la cámara sin querer y no se atrevió a decírmelo ya hasta el final.

Evaluación primaria

Relevancia motivacional:  mi meta era completar mi primer CrossFit Open y subir puntuaciones al leaderboard. En aquel entonces estaba en un box en que no había jueces que validaran tu puntuación así que sólo tenía la opción de subir el vídeo a YouTube. Veredicto: sí afecta a mis metas.

Congruencia motivacional: que mi primer intento del 16.1 quedara en agua de borrajas por fallos técnicos me impedía subir esa puntuación al leaderboard.

Evaluación secundaria

Búsqueda de culpables: técnicamente la culpable era mi amiga pero no fue algo intencionado. Por eso me fue imposible enfadarme con ella. Mis emociones vinieron dadas por la situación y no directamente por mi amiga.

Potenciales estrategias focalizadas en el problema: el vídeo debía filmarse en su totalidad y sino no valía así que no había forma de solucionarlo más que repetirlo.

Potenciales estrategias focalizadas en la emoción: sí, es fastidioso tener que repetir 20 minutos de zancadas, burpees y pull-ups pero tengo tiempo para hacerlo.

Expectativas futuras: en el segundo intento puedo probar a reducir el tiempo de transición, dividir los pull-ups… quizá mejore la puntuación (no fue el caso).

Todo esto sin duda me ayudó a gestionar la situación de manera que no dañase mi relación de amistad ni arruinase el resto del Open. Podría haber montado el pollo del siglo, llevándome a discutir y a llamar de todo a mi amiga o podría haber culpado a esa situación en particular de mis malos resultados en el 16.1. Pero no lo hice. De ahí la importancia de una regulación emocional adecuada.

Aplicación al deporte

emociones
Annie Thorisdottir es conocida por ser la «sonrisa» del CrossFit. Fuente: CrossFit Games.

¿Esto ocurre en el mundo real? Os lo estaréis preguntando y es una duda bien fundamentada, está claro. Cada autor diseña su teoría estudiando muy a fondo la literatura sobre el tema y lo exhibe con particular orgullo. ¿Qué ocurre? Que seguimos estudiando algo sumamente intangible como es el comportamiento humano.

He escogido este modelo porque me gusta para ejercitar la regulación emocional. Aunque no lo lleves a cabo en su totalidad (exige un procesamiento bastante consciente) nos permite reflexionar acerca del impacto de ciertos eventos en nuestra vida y regular nuestra conducta en consecuencia. El deporte nos dará éxitos y fracasos por lo que debemos aprender a gestionar nuestra respuesta emocional.

Y no, no se trata de suprimir tus emociones. Habrá veces en las que estés legitimad@ para sentir ira, miedo, tristeza,… la inteligencia emocional consiste en usar el afecto de forma consciente y adaptativa. Si vas a enfadarte, romper con todo y huir de la vida haciendo la croqueta, malamente. Si la tristeza que sientes es por algo que ni tiene culpables, ni tiene su solución en tus manos, re-escribe tu forma de verlo.

El fracaso de Froning en los Games de 2010 le sirvió para encontrar una motivación mucho más potente. El éxito de Tia-Clair Toomey en 2017 le dio motivos para confiar n su habilidad como atleta. Tu estado afectivo te da información muy valiosa; sírvete de tus emociones para aprender sobre ti mismo como deportista y como persona. No olvides que es el maravilloso producto de miles de años de evolución. Es un regalo biológico y como tal debe usarse. 


Gross, J. J., & Thompson, R. A. (2007). Emotion regulation: Conceptual foundations.
Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. New York: Springer
Smith, C. A., & Lazarus, R. S. (1990). Emotion and adaptation. Handbook of personality: Theory and research, 609-637.
Desiree Mejia-Naranjo 0 Comentarios
optimismo
Jun 24 2019
Optimism and pessimism in sport

«[fear of not being capable enough] Anytime I have that fear I’m willing to go to a darker place to make up for that.»

Mat Fraser – interview with Nutriforce

Is your glass half-empty or half-full? I know. It sounds cliché and its annoying for both optimists and pessimists but we can’t deny the fact that we all have a tendency. Popular belief is that optimism is the hero and pessimism is the villain but is the bad guy really that bad?

Before we go any further, introductions ensue. Optimism and pessimism are generalized stable tendencies to consider life events as either positive or negative – respectively – (Carver and Scheier, 1985). These two authors elevate these variables to the category of «personality trait» so we are born with one of these two labels.

Causal explanations we usually give to life events build a pattern. This pattern considers three main dimensions: permanence, amplitude and personalization (Abramson et. al, 1974). We define causes according to their time domain as permanente or circumstantial (permanence); as universal or specific according to their reach (amplitude); and as internal or external (personalization). There are many combinations but explanatory styles are relatively stable.

So, we have the athlete that puts on 10 more lbs although he missed his previous attempt because he knows he’ll get it this time – the optimist – and then we have the athlete that’s been doing assisted pull-ups for months because he doesn’t think he’s able to link kipping pull-ups without the band – the pessimist -.

If they fail, the optimist will tend to give a circumstantial, specific and external explanation of the situation. The pessimist, on the other hand, will consider this failure as permanent, universal and internal. Success would be considered permanent, universal and internal for the optimist; and circumstantial, specific and external for the pessimist.

Ergo, the optimist internalizes success and externalizes failure while the pessimist acts does the exact opposite.

What does science say about optimism and pessimism in sport?

Tia-Clair Toomey took pessimism too far in 2016 and repeated a second-place finish on the podium. Source: CrossFit Games.

Lately Positive Psychology is on the up and up in the scientific community. It’s been studied in an academic and sport setting to analyze its relationship with other health variables. Early findings suggest that cognitive style can predict pre-competitive anxiety both in men and women (Wilson, Raglin and Pritchard, 2002).

In relation to optimism, numerous studies have reached similar results when linked to sport performance. When athletes with higher scores in optimism receive negative feedback, they proceed to improve their performance when performing a given task a second time (Seligman, 1990; Martin-Krumm et. al, 2003 and Ortín et. al, 2011 in Ortín-Montero et. al, 2018).

Mental fortitude has been positively associated with higher scores in dispositional optimism and with active coping strategies (mental imagery, thought control, logical analysis) and negatively with avoidance strategies such as distancing, mental distraction or resignation (Nicholls et. al, 2008).

Pessimism, on the other hand, can be defined as defensive pessimism and depressive pessimism. Defensive pessimism appears as a strategy to avoid negative evaluation others may make about our performance in order to protect our self-worth.

Depressive pessimism is seen in individuals who establish «unrealistically low expectations in tasks that undergo some form of assessment» (Martin et. al, 2003). These low expectations allow for some advantages:

  • more awareness of negative situations that may affect performance and better prepare these individuals against their appearance
  • increased ability to persist in a task regardless of potential failure
  • since advantages are so low, goals are more easily achieved allowing more personal satisfaction

Managing optimism and pessimism in CrossFit

As we’ve seen, both dispositional optimism and pessimism have advantages in sports. Now let’s see how the make the most out of our personal resources.

No more pessimism-phobia

Against our better judgement, science is pretty clear: pessimism is no villain. In fact, it can allow for rather successful and positive results. I’m sure you’ve heard a pessimist say they prefer to think everything’ll go bad so they’re mentally prepared for whatever outcome…turns out it works just as well as thinking life’s a prairie.

Keep in mind you should always stay away from extreme behaviors. Going too far with optimism can put you in situations where success rate is way too low and extreme pessimism can become an obstacle when trying to tap your true potential.

Set the challenge based off your own expectations

Attributional style shown by optimists and pessimists «can influence their confidence and persistence in seeking a goal or a challenge» (Ortín-Montero et. al, 2018). In this sense, optimists actively look for challenges in the box while pessimists settle for small and constant steps forward.

We all know what our cognitive style is so follow your instinct. If you like a good challenge, get after it! If you’d rather play it safe in case you crash and burn, go ahead! Both athletes will find the stimulus you’re looking for in your training session.

Careful with who you blame…

Once you finish the WOD, we all love to point fingers. Success or failure calls for a shitload of attributions; don’t go too far! Try to keep it real. Sometimes we’ll do 60 double unders unbroken without knowing how. Other days we won’t be able to string more than two double unders… and we won’t know why! No, it’s not the rope. It’s not the wind. It does no good to externalize the blame so concentrate on what you can control.

Gordon, R. A. (2008). Attributional style and athletic performance: Strategic optimism and defensive pessimism. Psychology of sport and exercise, 9(3), 336-350.

Martin, A. J., Marsh, H. W., Williamson, A., & Debus, R. L. (2003). Self-handicapping, defensive pessimism, and goal orientation: A qualitative study of university students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(3), 617.

Nicholls, A. R., Polman, R. C., Levy, A. R., & Backhouse, S. H. (2008). Mental toughness, optimism, pessimism, and coping among athletes. Personality and individual differences, 44(5), 1182-1192.

Ortin-Montero, F. J., Martínez-Rodríguez, A., Reche-García, C., de los Fayos, E. J. G., & González-Hernández, J. (2018). Relationship between optimism and athletic performance. Systematic review. Anales de psicología, 34(1), 153-161.

Wilson, G. S., Raglin, J. S., & Pritchard, M. E. (2002). Optimism, pessimism, and precompetition anxiety in college athletes. Personality and individual differences, 32(5), 893-902.
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