Ascent with Tom Foxley

Today on the Limitless Athlete Podcast, Coach Tom speaks to psychiatrist and author, Dr. Anna Lembke, about the role of dopamine and how to stop it ruining your progress as an athlete.

There's two main topics of conversation here: leaderboarding, and phone addiction.

These are the two forms of addiction which form the greatest destructive habits to athletes like yourself.

Dopamine is an extremely powerful neurotransmitter and plays a huge role in addictive behaviours and emotional patterns.

Questions we'll answer:

• Why are you addicted to the leaderboard even though it makes you feel crap?

Today on the Debrief, Coaches Rachel and Tom will be dropping tips on how to improve your mood, energy and drive through mindset training. They'll help you from both a mindset and a physical perspective to stop having to drag yourself to the gym.

They'll be drawing on the episode they recorded with Richard Aceves of StrongFit and Movement Ayahuasca. If you want to listen to that episode, that will prep you for this episode, but you can listen to this individually too.

Questions Tom and Rachel will answer include:

• What kind of rest is good and bad for your recovery?

The body and the mind are not two separate things. Your mind influences your body and your body influences your mind.

In today's show with Richard Aceves, we go into this in detail.

Can your mentality be affected by your left pec?

How does being in fight or flight change your training?

What role does nutrition play on your mood.

These are all discussed in today's podcast with the wonderful, Richard Aceves

Today on the Limitless Athlete, Rachel and Tom discuss 7 strategies you can use to increase your mental fortitude.

Today on the Limitless Athlete Podcast, you'll be listening to a conversation between myself and Stoic author/commentator, William B. Irvine.

Stoicism is an essential tool I deploy every single day in every area of my life and training is no different.

I found Bill through Sam Harris' app, Waking Up, and found his book The Stoic Challenge exceptionally helpful. So why are we exploring Stoicism (philosophy) when we're discussing mindset and athleticism?

First, most athletes are lacking mental toughness & Stoicism provides an antidote to that. Second, this will get you taking action on success, not just wishing it. Additionally, it will teach you an essential skill called Framing.

We also discuss

• Overcoming setbacks

Today, Rachel Binette & Tom Foxley discuss the mindset required for longer events. If you struggle with endurance style workouts, end up cherry picking shorter workouts, experience negative self-talk in longer events, or struggle when you get 4/5 through a longer WOD, this episode is for you.

We draw heavily from the episode with Chris Hinshaw (episode 10 of the Limitless Athlete Podcast)

This episode is simply dripping with stories about how Chris has helped train the minds of some of CrossFit's greatest athletes. Mat Fraser, Rich Froning, Julie Foucher, Sara Sigmundsdottir, Kara Webb, Jason Hopper and many more feature in today's show.

Today on the Limitless Athlete Podcast, you’ll be listening to a conversation between aerobic coach to the biggest names in CrossFit, Chris Hinshaw, and myself.

Amongst many other pearls of wisdom, Chris discusses the Sticking Point - that moment in every workout when you are in the most discomfort and are most likely to quit.

It’s these moments, both in workouts and in wider life, where you have the greatest opportunity.

If you listen to one part of you, you panic, or you slow down, or you quit.

If you listen to the other, probably quieter voice, you’ll confront an inner demon and add proof to the story you need to hear to fulfill your potential.

Because of this, we have to predict when we’ll feel at our most uncomfortable, and prepare our minds for that moment.

The better prepared you are, the more likely you are to come out on top.

Alongside this, we also discuss...

How Sara Sigmundsdottirs socks tell a story about mindset and learning

Today, we search for nuance on subjects which caused some trouble to our previous guest, Khan Porter. We go into depth on whose opinions you should actually listen to, the pillars of mental health, and how to apply this to your athletic pursuit. Especially when you become wrapped up in your external results.

Today on the Limitless Athlete Podcast, you’ll be listening to a conversation between multiple time CrossFit Games athlete, Khan Porter and myself.

Khan has always been on my radar since I found CrossFit. Of course, he was a great athlete, but I sensed there was a depth to him you don’t often find. And sure enough,  it’s his conversations around mental health which made him a must feature guest on this podcast.

His piece on Morning Chalk Up ‘An Uncomfortable Conversation’ details his experience with a variety of mental health challenges and an eating disorder. It is, as the name implies, an Uncomfortable read. But it’s possibly one of the most important articles on CrossFit and mental health I’ve read.

We all have mental health. It’s not a binary thing. Just as our physical health exists on a continuum from sickness to wellness to fitness, so does our mental health. So whilst those who resonate with the idea that they have mental health problems, those who don’t will also benefit from listening to this.

We are always conditioning our mentality, whether we’re doing it consciously or not.

Khan speaks candidly throughout this conversation and we discuss many things including:

• The value of writing down your thoughts as a kind of mental purge

• How basing self-worth on performance, or anything else external, can be devastating to our mental health

• How we cannot dismiss our subjective experience

• Exploring the darkness of our shadow self

Unfortunately, we didn’t get around to discussing two topics of much interest to me: craft beer and Khan’s skin care routine. Apparently, there were more pressing topics.

Today, Coach Rachel and Coach Tom pull out the key extracts from Alison Scudds's appearance on The Limitless Athlete Podcast.

Our biggest focus in this show is bringing to light the process Alison has used to train her mind - the Mindset Rx'd Method