Andrew helps work on your mental game:

Whether if it is an 12 minute or a 20 minute AMRAP, you must go into each one with a specific goal and mindset. You never want to come straight out of the gate with the burners on. It is much wiser to set a specific pace and number of reps that you would like to do consecutively. I have made this mistake all too often where I performed a movement up until absolute fatigue early on. This strategy killed my performance. Each round after I found myself having to muster every ounce of energy to push each rep out.

Needless to say I did not do as well on the workout as I had originally hoped for, and because of my poor planning I completed less rounds than I am physically capable of doing.

Now I look at these AMRAPs in a completely different way. My first correction was to scale the weight to something that was challenging and not impossible for my current ability. The second correction I made was to set a rep scheme goal for each individual movement during the AMRAP. If I hit that rep target with ease then I would simply adjust it the next round and do a few more reps. If the opposite occurred and I couldn’t hit my target rep scheme I would then lower the amount of reps I did continually. It is all about finding balance.

You must also make adjustments for when you are further along in these Metcons. They are grueling and they are designed to be that way. Some of them take every ounce of energy you have and you find yourself collapsed on the floor when that buzzer goes off. The best chance at surviving these are to strategize a game plan so you can continuously keep moving. Find a pace that is a bit faster than comfortable and keep moving!

And always tell yourself to keep moving. Only use positive self talk to push yourself through these workouts. Trick your mind, because your mind will quit long before your body is ready to throw in the towel.