Take 10 minutes to build to heavy a 1 rep max back squat
Then, 20 reps @ 60% of 1 rep back squat
Take 5 minutes to build to a heavy 1 rep back squat
Then, 15 reps @ 65% of 1 rep back squat
Take 5 minutes to build to a heavy 1 rep back squat
Then, 10 reps @ 70% of heavy 1 rep back squat
Post loads to comments and BTWB
I chose Prego over Ragu. . . I wonder what other bad decisions I’ve made?
So this post is not necessarily about CrossFit but I think we can all agree there is a mental component to CrossFit and this post is about our brain. . . so there. We make decisions every day, just so I can make this post be more related to CrossFit, think about all the decisions you make when you walk into the gym. What weight will I use for my workout? When it gets a little too hard do I want to quit or do I want to push through? What shoes best match my Lulu pants and tank top? You get my point. I think we can also agree that some of our decisions are better than others. Unfortunately we don’t know the decision is a bad one until after it’s been made. So what goes into our bad decision making paradigm? It turns out, a lot. I would now like to introduce you to “Twenty Cognitive Biases That Could Be Helping You Make Bad Decisions”, courtesy of Tom Hale at I F**king Love Science.
The human mind is a beautiful thing. Our ability to perceive, manage and express our individual experiences has been a huge reason for our success as a species. However, let’s not get too narcissistic. As rational as we like to think we are, our brain is riddled with ingrained patterns of thought which can lead us to be very irrational.
Cognitive scientists and psychologists call these blips “cognitive biases.” Simply put, cognitive biases are mistakes made by the brain when reasoning, evaluating or other cognitive processes. They are usually caused by an association with previous emotional memories. We experience and perform these deviations on a daily basis, even if we are utterly unaware of it. In fact, in the business, political and marketing worlds, these little shortcomings of the brain are regularly used and abused against you.
Here are just a few of 20 of these cognitive biases that make us realize how irrational and malleable our little meat-bag brains can be:
1) Availability heuristic- People overestimate the importance of information that is available to them. A person might argue that smoking is not unhealthy because they know someone who lived to 100 and smoked three packs a day.
2) Bandwagon effect- The probability of one person adopting a belief increases based on the number of people who hold that belief. This is a powerful form of groupthink and is reason why meetings are often unproductive.
3) Confirmation bias- We tend to listen only to information that confirms our preconceptions. One reason it’s so hard to have an intelligent conversation about climate change.
4) Conservatism bias- Where people favor prior evidence over new evidence or information that has emerged. People were slow to accept that the Earth was round because they maintained their earlier understanding that the planet was flat.
5) Ostrich effect- The decision to ignore dangerous or negative information by “burying” one’s head in the sand, like an ostrich. Research suggests that investors check the value of their holdings significantly less often during bad markets.
6) Stereotyping- Expecting a group or person to have certain qualities without having real information about the person. It allows us to quickly identify strangers as friends or enemies, but people tend to overuse and abuse it.
7) Survivorship bias- An error that comes from focusing only on surviving examples, causing us to misjudge a situation. For instance, we might think that being an entrepreneur is easy because we haven’t heard of all those who failed.
8) Zero-risk bias- Sociologists have found that we love certainty. Even if it’s counterproductive. Eliminating risk entirely means there is no chance of harm being caused.
If you find yourself curious about the rest of the biases. . . click here.
