perfectionism
May 7 2020
Does perfectionism hurt or aid athletes?

One of the most notorious traits in elite-level athletes is perfectionism. Given its prevalence among these individuals, it is sometimes argued that it predicts success in sports. The goal of this article is to further explore this construct in hopes to determine the real nature of its influence on athletic performance.

Perfection: a double-edged sword

Perfectionism is a multidimensional personality trait represented by three key aspects: “beliefs of a self-demand for excellence and the inclination to set high standards for performance, followed by a hypercritical self-evaluation and high concern focused on errors” (Frost et. al, 1990).

Perfectionism is built upon an irrational belief that there is a correct, precise and perfect solution to a problem and that failing to find this solution is tragic (Ellis, 1962). What this causes is a never-ending quest for excellence joined by extreme self-evaluation and criticism.

At this point, one begins to envision a dichotomy: if I meet the requirements and reach what I consider “perfection”, I’m golden; but what happens if I’m not up to par? Here’s when we have to introduce the notions of perfectionist concerns, on the one hand, and perfectionist efforts on the other (Stoeber, 2014).

Perfectionist concerns

Perfectionist concerns can manifest in various ways:

  • Execution errors: “I can’t miss a single legless rope climb in this workout”
  • Self-evaluation: “Did I do everything I could or did I miss something?”
  • Uncertainty: “Did I do enough to qualify?”
  • External expectations and other uncontrollable factors: “What will my coach think of me?”
  • Giving too much importance to precision, order and organization: “This is what I’m best at. I can’t fail here.”

All this background noise can stir up quite the commotion, to the point the athlete’s performance is severely hindered. Investigations to this respect reveal direct relations between perfectionist concerns and fear of failure, stress, depression, anxiety, low self-confidence and avoidance behaviors (González-Hernández et. al, 2019).

Perfectionist efforts

Perfectionist efforts reflect “a tendency to maintain perspective on performances while striving to achieve exceptional standards” (Rees et. al, 2016). These are positively related to self-confidence in competition, better relationship with peers, higher self-esteem, positive emotions and better coping strategies (Jowell et. al, 2016; González-Hernández et. al, 2019).

Moreover, perfectionist efforts are directly related to less competitive anxiety, less fear of failure as well as higher motivation to train and progress. There’s more task-oriented focus and the goal-setting process is based on performance and mastery both in training and competition (González-Hernández et. al, 2019).

The pursuit of functional perfectionism

How can we transition to a more functional perfectionist? The main difference between functional and dysfunctional perfectionism seems to be the excess of self-criticism. When we’re continuously evaluating our performance in a negative tone, we increase the chances of letting in the negative consequences of perfectionism.

perfectionism

“Well, if I fail,  good. I have something new to work on. I have something new to get better at.”

Mat Fraser

Functional perfectionism, however, provides valuable resources that allow the athlete to manage different stressors and adapt to specific demands in their sport (whether individual or team). So, in summary, (dysfunctional) perfectionism can enhance athletic performance.

Coaching staff and athletes must work towards improving self-regulation skills, planning skills, management of emotional responses and expectations to restructure perfectionist beliefs (González-Hernández et. al, 2019).

It’s about striving for perfection when you know you can’t reach it. Climbing a never-ending staircase. Climbing a mountain without ever seeing the summit. It’s quite the paradox come to think of it, but understanding that we’re looking for something that doesn’t exist, leaves us a little closer.











- Ellis, A. (1962). Reason and emotion in psychotherapy. New York: Lyle Stuart.
- Frost, R. O., Marten, P., Lahart, C., and Rosenblate, R. (1990). The dimensions of perfectionism. Cogn. Ther. Res. 14, 449–468. doi: 10.1007/BF0117
2967
- González-Hernández, J., Capilla Díaz, C., Gómez-López, M., & Raimundi, J. (2019). Impulsiveness and cognitive patterns. Understanding the perfectionistic responses in Spanish competitive junior athletes. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 1605.
- Jowett, G. E., Mallinson, S. H., and Hill, A. P. (2016). “An independent effects approach to perfectionism in sport, dance, and exercise,” in The Psychology of Perfectionism in Sport, Dance and Exercise, ed. A. P. Hill (Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group), 85–149.
- Rees, T., Hardy, L., Güllich, A., Abernethy, B., Côté, J., Woodman, T., Montgomery, H., Laing, S. & Warr, C. (2016). The great British medalists project: a review of current knowledge on the development of the world’s best sporting talent. Sports Medicine, 46, 1041-1058
- Stoeber, J. (2014). Perfectionism in sport and dance: a double-edged sword. Int. J. Sport Psychol. 45, 385–394
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the fittest
May 4 2020
The Fittest, perceived control and coping

The Fittest is the new film created by the Buttery Bros (Heber Cannon and Marston Sawyers), two members of the media team that narrated the CrossFit Games between 2014 and 2017. To do so, they’ve used several story lines:

  • Rich Froning becoming the first athlete to win 4 back-to-back individual titles (2014)
  • Ben Smith and Katrin Davidsdottir sitting on the throne for the first time (2015)
  • Davidsdottir defending her title in a heated battle with Tia-Clair Toomey and Mat Fraser beginning his rule as the heir to Froning’s throne (2016)
  • Toomey’s redemption after a disappointing 2nd place in 2016 and Fraser’s utter dominance with another gold medal (2017)

This year, the perfect plot presented itself thanks to Greg Glassman and Dave Castro: changes in the qualifying process, major cuts and variations of the point system. So, Cannon and Sawyers were struck with a question: with all these changes, will the Games still succeed at finding the fittest woman and man on Earth?

I’ll leave that up to one of the other thousand people who’ve shared their opinions on the internet. I want to focus on the psychological mechanisms underlying the athletes’ testimonies, more specifically, perceived control and coping.

CrossFit: the realm of uncertainty

The “Sport of Fitness” is young but ever since the first edition in 2007 it has grown exponentially. From the get-go, founder Greg Glassman made it abundantly clear that “the unknown and the unknowable” was the cornerstone of CrossFit programming as it would yield the best results in our fitness.

Aside from being a wonderful marketing tool, this notion turned the fitness world upside down. The possibility of improvising routines to better prepare for the unknown has brought millions of individuals back to the gym all over the world; and I couldn’t be happier!

However, this apparently irrelevant piece can cause a real commotion when we consider elite-level competition in CrossFit. Having professional athletes juggle their lives on a daily basis to adjust to an everchanging environment in the sport, calls for well-oriented perceived control and adaptive coping strategies; these traits were showcased (or not) at the 2019 CrossFit Games.

The mediating effects of perceived control

Uncertainty is a constant in our interaction with the environment and in spite of being heavily exposed to it, some of us still struggle to tolerate it. In the absence of proper appraisal of uncertainty, some negative emotions may surface and tamper our athletic performance.

And I’m afraid I’ll be using Pat Vellner as a scapegoat, granted I’m well aware that Cannon and Sawyers probably used the “juicier” parts of his commentary for dramatic effect. And who’s the blame them? The canadian athlete had no issues expressing his opinions about the cuts and programming for the Games.

Regardless of him being right or wrong criticizing the cut being placed on a sprint, programming “Mary” for the Games or leaving the “typical CrossFit” for the very end, what really disquiets me is this antagonistic perspective. Here’s a tremendously capable athlete who’s been on the podium 3 out of 4 Games’ appearances. He usually benefited from the uncut format of the Games to gradually climb the leaderboard. Once he was stripped from that possibility and forced to perform from the beginning, he went from being the 2nd “Fittest Man on Earth” in 2018 to coming 16th worldwide.

Is he suddenly out of shape? Of course not. Dave Castro is just continuously looking for ways to throw athletes off their game-plan; and that’s an uncontrollable factor. Any energy used to criticize decisions made by CrossFit HQ is energy that could be used to fix his slow starts in competitions. Will it help to complain about Ohlsen’s sled going faster than his? Will it earn him extra points to say Mary is “silly” for the Games because taller athletes will have a harder time? Of course not.

the fittest
Annie Thorisdottir during the Ruck Run at the 2019 CrossFit Games. Source: The Barbell Spin

“It frustrates me and I’m disappointed, but I also know I shouldn’t have been in that situation anyways.”

Annie Thorisdottir on being cut.

Here’s how perceived control exerts a mediating effect on the efficacy of coping strategies. The only thing an athlete can really control is their own actions: what their training looks like, how they sleep, what they eat, how they recover. Any element that falls out of their control must be disregarded. It shouldn’t be consuming personal resources that, as we know, are limited.

In another article, we saw that Fraser is truly world-class when it comes to perceived control. His poor cardio kept him out of the Games in 2013; he’s never been out of the top 20 at endurance events ever since. In 2015 he made a fool of himself in both sprinting events; the following year he came in 2nd in the sprint. He knew he had the potential to perform these tasks which allowed him to solve the problem and adequately manage these sport-specific stressors.

How important is it to learn proper coping?

Those who’ve stayed in the game long enough share common traits and the one that truly stands out for me is their ability to manage the uncertainty of the unknown and unknowable. Not knowing if you have to show up at 3:30 AM to go to the Ranch for day one of competition or if landing out of the top-10 in a sprinting event will cut you from the Games, is part of elite-level CrossFit. If you don’t learn to cope with this stressors without it hindering your performance, you won’t be around for long.

Greg Glassman and Dave Castro have a very singular view for the CrossFit Games and they’re not buying into anybody’s criticism; they love the theatrics and want to put up a good show. Athletes who fail to follow these premises, should learn to place their locus of control accordingly or get cut trying.

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sport adherence
Apr 18 2020
How to maintain exercise adherence during the quarantine?

The quarantine seems to be lasting way longer than we anticipated and, among other things, it’s taken put our sport activities on hold. For many individuals, this may eventually lead to a decrease in exercise adherence. In this article, I’ll be talking about how we can keep our motivation high during the lockdown.

The way we do CrossFit has changed

The majority of individuals who participate in any form of physical activity, do so in an exterior setting: CrossFit boxes, gyms, pools, track, etc. It’s uncommon to come across someone who trains at home; but what was once the exception is now the rule.

The physical consequences of the lockdown are quite obvious in the sense that we lack access to the environmental conditions needed to apply sport-specific stimuli. From a psychological point of view, we’ve gone from training with other athletes and coaches to doing so by our lonesome; so there’s this whole social network that has also been interrupted.

Truth be told, society has adapted to the situation and developed adhoc solutions: HIIT training using bodyweight exercises, online classes on social media, videochat with coaches and support staff… but what if this doesn’t quite cut it?

During the lockdown period, some people have suddenly lost their mojo and just don’t feel like training. If this situation lasts long enough, it may gradually lead to losing their exercise adherence.

Why do we experience a decrease in exercise adherence?

One decides to dropout of sport due to many reasons but for the purpose of this article, I’ll be focusing on those that best apply to the current circumstances: sport dropout due to controllable reasons.

We can find ourselves in one of two situations: dropout due to dissatisfaction when personal needs are not met while participating in sport; and dropout due to lower personal investment (people who get into sport to “try it out” but still haven’t dedicated enough time and effort to feel fully committed).

Sarrazin et. al (2002), based on several commitment studies, developed a theoretical framework to help explain the dropout phenomenon (see figure 1). The model is based on sport commitment being a construct that impedes dropout behavior and how it could enhanced or debilitated by certain antecedents:

Figure 1: Sport dropout explained as a function of debilitated sport commitment (Sarrazin et. al, 2002)
  • Benefits derived from the sport: the more consequences the athlete identifies as beneficial for themselves (learning and perfecting skills, gaining muscle, outperforming others, making friends, etc.), the more they’ll enjoy the activity.
  • Availability of attractive alternatives: the will to be involved in other activities non-related to current sport.
  • Personal investment: this concept represents the personal resources (time, effort and money) we spend on an activity, which would be lost if we were to dropout. This model suggests there’s a direct relationship between involvement in sports and personal investment.
  • Social coercion: expectations and pressure exerted by social convention or immediate support system (family members, close friends, …). If an individual perceives this pressure at a higher level, they’ll be more committed to their sport.

Can the lockdown lead to a dropout?

Literature suggests that anticipated benefits are a variable that best predicts sport dropouts and the most obvious consequence of the lockdown is that we don’t have access to most of these benefits. So, there’s reason to believe there could be a substantial decrease in exercise adherence.

Many athletes may be facing changes in their motivational processes due to various reasons:

  • Repetitiveness of movements during training sessions due to limited equipment
  • We’ve associated our sport with a certain context (you do CrossFit at a box, you run at the track, etc.) and training in a home setting is an environmental modification that may not be as appetitive.
  • The progress we expected to see these months in terms of strength, gymnastics conditioning or cardiovascular endurance may not be up to par.
  • Absence of socialization

Given these inconveniences, you may consider the personal costs higher than the anticipated benefits, and therefore decide to stop exercising. Now, giving our bodies rest during the quarantine could be very positive; however, if you ever struggled to introduce physical activity in your daily routine in the first place, this may bring you one step closer to sedentarism.

Can we fix it?

Pat Vellner training at home with a dumbbell. Source: Pat Vellner on instagram

As we’ve seen, sport dropout is a multifaceted phenomenon, so there’s no universal solution for it. The key aspect relies on implementing personalized solutions based on one’s differences. And to do so, we must go back to the never-ending question: what’s your why?

If you manage to identify the benefits you expect from maintaining exercise adherence, you’ll be able to adapt to the current situation accordingly.

  • If you enjoy competing against others, sign up for any of the trillions of online competitions organized internationally. Also, many boxes have come up with challenges for the lockdown like the Quarantine Classic organized by Training Think Tank or the CrossFit Games Fundraiser. Check out social media cause there’ll be more coming up!
  • If you enjoy making friends and connecting with them through sport, participate in live classes organized at your box or start your own workout posse to throwdown together. FYI, Rich Froning is giving live classes on Mayhem’s YouTube channel, monday thru friday at 8:15 A.M. (central daylight time). Your welcome.
  • If you enjoy learning and perfecting skills, take this time to work on postural control and maximizing strength-to-weight ratio with gymnastic movements: handstand, L-sits, planks, pushups, pistols, etc. Set some goals for the Quarantine and monitor your progress; hold yourself accountable!
  • If your deepest desire is to compete at a higher level in the near future, talk with your coaches and support staff to adapt your program to current resources so you can continue to progress. You’ll most likely run into holes in your fitness you wouldn’t have identified had it not been for the lockdown.

We all get into sports for our own reasons and now that we’re in uncharted territory it’s time to remember them. You’ll find out soon enough that commitment isn’t about equipment or a certain place; it’s about the people and the experiences; luckily for us, we still have access to all that (even if it is through the glass).









- Carlin, M. (2015). El abandono de la práctica deportiva, motivación y estados de ánimo en deportistas. Wanceulen SL.
- Rusbult, C. E. (1980). Commitment and satisfaction in romantic associations: A test of the investment model. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 16, 172-186.
- Rusbult, C. E. (1983). A longitudinal test of the investment model: The development (and deterioration) of satisfaction and commitment in heterosexual involvements. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 101-117.
- Sarrazin, P., Vallerand, R., Guillet, E., Pelletier, L., & Cury, F. (2002). Motivation and dropout in female handballers: A 21‐month prospective study. European journal of social psychology, 32(3), 395-418.
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