The Mental Side: Bad Workouts, Competition Nerves and Consistency
Updated: 23 hours ago
You know the drive home after a bad one. The weights felt heavy from the first warm-up set, the pull-ups fell apart early, and you finished last in a workout you expected to handle. At every red light you replay it, and somewhere around the second one the real question arrives: is any of this training paying off?
Then there is the other kind of week. The one before a competition, when your stomach turns every time you think about the first event. Or the benchmark retest you keep finding reasons to postpone.
It is tempting to treat these moments as separate from fitness, something to push past on the way to the real work. They aren't. How you handle bad days, nerves and the long stretch of ordinary sessions in between has a big effect on how much you improve. These are the notes I keep coming back to, with the athletes I coach and in my own training.
IN THIS ARTICLE
What volleyball and swimming taught me first
Before CrossFit came into my life, I played volleyball and swam. I didn't know it then, but the two sports were teaching me opposite halves of the same lesson.
Volleyball is a sport of constant small failures. Every match, even a match you win, is full of lost points, and the next serve comes before you have time to dwell on the last one. You learn quickly that a missed point is information, not a verdict. Swimming is the other half. It is built on lap after lap of unremarkable practice, and the progress lives in the accumulation rather than in any single session. One sport teaches you to let go of the moment. The other teaches you to trust the long line. CrossFit asks for both.
A bad workout is one data point
Performance on any given day depends on far more than fitness. Sleep, stress at work, what you ate, how hard you trained earlier in the week, even the time of day all play a part. A bad session is usually a sign that some of these lined up badly, not that you have lost fitness.
What matters is the trend over weeks and months. That is one reason I ask athletes to log their sessions and track benchmarks. When you can see progress over time, one rough day is much easier to put in its place. After a bad session, I ask for two minutes and three answers:
What was outside my control? Poor sleep, a stressful day, a late meal.
What was in my control? Pacing, warm-up, set strategy, effort.
What is one thing I will do differently next time?
Write the answers in your training log, then let it go. Dwelling on it for days does not make the next session better. It just makes the drive home longer.
There is one exception worth knowing. Several bad sessions in a row, along with poor sleep, low motivation and aches that do not settle, can be a sign that you need more recovery rather than more effort. That is a signal to take an easier few days and look at your overall training load, not to push harder.
Coach's cue: Log it, learn one thing, and let it go.
Nerves mean your body is getting ready
Feeling nervous before a competition or a big test is normal. Your heart rate goes up, you feel restless, your stomach churns. That is your body preparing to perform. The goal is not to make nerves disappear. It is to keep them from taking over.
The first tool is a reframe. The physical signs of nerves and excitement are very similar, and many athletes find it helpful to label the feeling "I'm ready" or "I'm excited" rather than "I'm anxious." It sounds simple, but how you interpret the feeling shapes how you respond to it.
The second tool is your breathing. Slow breathing with a longer exhale than inhale is one of the simplest ways to settle down. Breathe in through the nose for about four seconds and out for about six, for one or two minutes. Use it before your warm-up, in the marshalling area, or between events.
The third tool is a routine, and it is the one I lean on most. A consistent pre-workout routine gives your mind something familiar to follow when everything else feels new. Mine, and the ones I build with athletes, tend to include the same warm-up structure used in training, a final review of the plan (pacing, set breaks, target splits), and one or two short cue words that point at the key technical focus, such as "hips first" or "breathe on the row." Rehearse the routine before hard sessions in training, so that on competition day it runs on its own.
Play the next point, not the scoreboard
This is where volleyball comes back to me. Outcome goals, such as placing in the top ten or beating a certain score, are fine for motivation, but you cannot fully control them. Other athletes, judging and the workout itself all have a say.
Process goals are about what you do: hitting your planned splits, sticking to your set breaks, keeping transitions tight, moving well under fatigue. Those are yours. When you focus on them, the outcome usually takes care of itself.
During a workout, shrink the frame. Instead of carrying all 20 minutes in your head, focus on the current round, the current set, or even the next five reps. Chunking the work keeps your mind on what you can do right now, the same way a good player thinks only about the next serve.
Consistency is built on ordinary days
This is where swimming comes back. Motivation comes and goes. Consistency is what builds fitness, and it relies far more on habits and planning than on how you feel on a given morning.
Schedule your sessions like appointments, deciding in advance when you will train each week. Keep a minimum session ready for busy or low-energy days, such as a 20-minute easy engine session or a focused skill block, so the habit survives even when the full session doesn't. Plan for disruptions, because travel, work deadlines and family commitments will happen, and it is easier to decide what training looks like during those weeks before they arrive. Track small wins: a better split, an extra rep, a smoother movement. Noticing them keeps you going when the big milestones are far away. And give each session a purpose. Knowing why you are doing it makes it much easier to show up.
I had to relearn this myself. While preparing for Grid League, I had a bad landing and fractured the tibia and fibula in my right leg. Training stopped, and I took time off to recover and heal. Some days the frustration was louder than anything else, and patience felt like the hardest session I had ever been given. What steadied me was the long line swimming taught me: small, ordinary steps, one after another. When I did return, I came back gradually and grateful for every session. I'm still learning patience, but I understand it better now.
When a coach is not the right person
Training is supposed to make life better. If you notice that bad workouts affect your mood for days, that anxiety about competing is stopping you from training or enjoying the sport, or that you feel persistently low or burned out, it is worth talking to someone. A sport psychologist or mental health professional can help in ways a coach cannot, and asking for that help is part of taking your training seriously.
Train and compete with a plan
A clear plan takes a lot of the mental load off training and competing. If you are preparing for a competition, Sphere Performance includes weekly check-ins, competition strategy and more frequent video reviews, so you step on the floor knowing exactly how you want to approach each event. If you want a personal plan without the competition focus, individual coaching is on the same page.
Not sure which fits? Talk to me. Respect the details. Keep showing up.
Your turn. Tried this? Tell me how it went in the comments below. I read every one, and your questions help shape what I write next. If it helped, tap the heart so it reaches more athletes.
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Further reading: CrossFit
Coach Fritz Bautista · Head Coach, ATHLETESPHERE
CrossFit Level 2 Trainer (CF-L2) ✓ · CrossFit Programming Certificate · MBA · Digital Marketing Certified · Coaching athletes from all walks of life online
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