Obstacle course events are super fun, especially if you’re participating as part of a team. You run together, you climb together, and you laugh together when Tim faceplants himself into
the mud pool after seriously overestimating his broad jump capabilities. Of course, team effort isn’t everybody’s cup of tea (including myself), but that doesn’t mean you won’t have a blast. Nonetheless, obstacle courses aren’t a walk in the park. These events are often organised on military training grounds, which means hills, mud pools, fences, barbed wires, haystacks, and sometimes small rivers. The distance usually stretches from five to twenty kilometres but in some cases goes over 40-50 kilometres. So don’t be fooled by the joy aspect of it. OCR events are physically demanding activities that require at least some training preparation.
Let me give you a few training tips on how to prep for a Tough Mudder or Spartan Race!
RUN
First and foremost, you’ve got some running to do. You don’t have to be lightning-fast, but you have to be able to run your chosen distance. For example, if you’re aiming for the 10km course, you must have the endurance to run for about 75-90 minutes. Remember, it’s trail running, so you need to calculate with loss of speed (due to the terrain) when establishing your training duration. If you only run for 60 minutes because that’s your 10km time when road running, then the last 1-2 kilometres of the obstacle course is going to be hell for you.
CLIMB
Obstacle courses are notorious for the many different types of climbing exercises. Monkey bars, rope climbing, fence climbing, wall climbing and cargo net climbing are just a few of the nasty, grippy obstacles that you’ll face. Grip strength will be the main enemy of most participants. You might be okay with the first one or two of the climbing obstacles, but each upcoming hurdle will be more and more challenging due to the fatigue, slipperiness (from the mud) and the cold. You must strengthen the hand, forearm, and upper arm muscles to improve your chances. Exercises like the passive and active hang, bar and ring pull-up, monkey bar, muscle-up, salmon ladder and campus boarding will become your best allies. I highly recommend visiting bouldering or climbing centres as part of your preparation. They provide a wide range of training tools specific to rock climbing, which will have a carry-over effect on the obstacle course.
CARRY
Another brutally challenging trend in the OCR events is the transfer of heavy objects from point A to point B. I can assure you, those objects aren’t comfy backpacks or convenient dumbbells; more like tumour shaped sandbags, pebble filed paint buckets and slippery atlas stones. To avoid being crippled by one of those exercises, I suggest familiarising with the farmer’s carry. Grab odd objects like a sandbag or dummy doll and walk with them. If you haven’t got access to such a tool, don’t panic. Barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells and plates are still a great solution. Carry the loads using various holds like suitcase, front rack, goblet and over the shoulder. To ensure that you’re actually improving your skills, don’t limit yourself to predetermined distances. Walk until your arms or grip can hold the weight no more.
CRAWL
Crawling is such a deceptive exercise. You’d think that a bit of wiggling under the barbed wire or squeezing yourself through a plastic pipe ain’t big of a deal. But then you try it and quickly realise that crawling drains the tank super quickly. Besides the stamina, you have to nail the technique because getting your hair combed by the bob wire isn’t the most refreshing sensation. There are two common approaches - crawling and rolling. If you can roll, good for you. A lot faster and requires a hell of a lot less energy than creeping on your stomach. However, it‘s pretty useless in the plastic pipe. If you’re like me, you crawl everywhere. I roll twice, and I’m as sick as a dog. To get good at crawling, introduce the following exercises to your routine. Bear crawl, tiger crawl, crocodile crawl, spiderman push-up and commando crawl.
THROWING
Throwing exercises are usually presented in the form of spear throwing or tossing a heavy object to a certain distance or over a bar. Spear throwing is a very specific and not particularly a gym friendly exercise. I wouldn’t recommend anybody sharpen their broomstick and start launching it back and forth on the gym floor. Instead, grab a medicine ball or wall ball and perform movements like medicine ball slam, rainbow slam, lateral ball toss, explosive chest pass, overhead throw and med ball backwards power toss.
PULL - PUSH - LIFT
Some obstacle races present challenges like dragging or pushing heavy bags or sledges and flipping tractor tyres. These are the types of exercises that require brute strength. You can scrap all the fancy workouts and go back to the bare basics to train for these events. Heavy squat, deadlift, military press and sledge push/pull will do you good.
If you’ve ever participated in any OCRs, I believe you can verify that they are indeed savage physical activities. If you haven’t, you should definitely try at least once. After reading this article, I hope you’ll be better prepared than I was when I did my first Tough Mudder.
If you’ve got any questions or interested in OCR/Fitness race specific training plans, feel free to contact me directly. 😉
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