Categories: Fitness

The Privilege of Pressure

Here is the rewritten article:

After Overcoming Injuries and Other Obstacles, Bethany Flores is Ready to Get to Work

At the inaugural Adidas “Primer” in Herzogenaurach, Germany, athletes attended lectures and participated in workshops covering topics ranging from nutrition and performance-based eating to the advantages of a healthy mind and mindset coaching.

One session was led by Dan Donachie, a mental performance coach from the UK with decades of experience working with professional athletes.

Donachie discussed techniques for recovery, stress relief, and meditation, emphasizing diaphragmatic breathing, engaging with one’s inner critic, goal-setting, and journaling, among other practices.

For Bethany Flores, everything resonated.

Overcoming Obstacles

Although Flores has overcome her injury, it continues to be a part of her daily life. Some days are pain-free, while others bring discomfort. Consequently, her training, recovery regimen, and priorities have shifted.

“There’s just more intention now with my training, before and after, particularly after, to get into that parasympathetic state,” Flores said.

Flores shared that her breathing and relaxation techniques have particularly impacted her sleep.

“I’ve never been a good sleeper. But this has changed my sleeping quality immensely. If you can’t sleep, you can’t recover. It’s going to bleed out into your performance, your brain, your mindset, your decision-making. I just wasn’t aware,” Flores said.

She reflects that this has always been something missing in her career – a proper mindset and headspace. The opportunity to work on this, and in a sense being able to do so due to her injury, is something she’s grateful for.

Looking Forward

Flores shared that she is the kind of person who believes events unfold for a reason. She tends to view most of life’s obstacles positively. Moreover, she acknowledges that over the past three years, “there has been so much beauty that has come from this injury.”

She wonders if she would be the person she is today – the wife, the friend, the elite athlete competing on CrossFit’s biggest stage – if her injury and setbacks never occurred.

In recent years, Flores has found fulfillment in writing. It’s just for her, for now, but she hopes to share her writing with the world someday. One idea she has been contemplating and reflecting on is that “pressure is a privilege.”

This saying has become popular in recent years and is often referenced in the sports world.

“I think pressure can be used in a good way, it’s just about how you see it and how you perceive it. At the beginning of my career, I did not let people in […] because I was scared to let people down. I was such a people pleaser, and that’s something that has really changed in my life — allowing people to be part of the journey — the good, the bad, the ugly,” Flores said.

She values that this realization has occurred not at the end of her career but in the midst of it.