Obstacles and obstacle courses have been in human history for a very long time. Today, the obstacle course races are legion; from the Tough Mudder to the Spartan Race (including Ninja Warrior, if you’re feeling lucky). It is an adored transformative journey that each individual who has finished (or won) would wish upon those who have still to venture the path of the race.
But all these races and journeys, one way or another, are just metaphoric euphemisms (real as they may be when you’re doing them) to challenge the greatest enemy to humanity there is, there was and will ever be: our own egos and conviction to the standards we hold in our lives. We have all raced—still racing—in other aspects of our lives.
So? Where do we go? What do we do?
We respect the race, we race better and we acknowledge that there will be more to come, and thus, more room to improve.
Here are insights that you may take when you want to fight, win, dominate the good fight.
Insight No.1: Races are Perfect, You Are Not, So Learn To Grow
Most race preparation focuses on strength and conditioning (building up the body for extreme stress), runtime endeavors (shaving off time in each practice session) and visualization (during the race). All this is good and worth it, especially if you are any of these:
1. Obese or Underweightrn2. Deconditioned by months or years of layoffrn3. Fatigued from other areas of life
All these pale, in comparison, to “growth”. Regardless of preparation, not all races will go your way and you have to learn from them more than the race learns from you.
In artistic circles, John Keats refers to this as “negative capability”. Veteran marathon runner and Strength Running founder, Jason Fitzgerald, refers to this as “The Restraint Racing Method”.
Fitzgerald highlights that a race is a “test of restraint”. Racers who want to win or dominate may not always have this ability. True enough, it can sometimes be rewarding to accomplish a race with an awesome zeal—adrenaline rushed towards the finish line.
rnBut Fitzgerald notes that this adrenaline is essentially trying to “fool” you and your expectations—a false sense of hope.
To combat this, Fitzgerald practices self-restraint and not letting him exceed a certain pace at the beginning of a race (he targets a set steady pace for 20 miles). Only after reaching a certain pace will he even consider increasing his running intensity.
It is best to know your limits. Acknowledge where you are and how far you have come from before lamenting how far you have to go.
Growth and negativity, together? You bet. The negative things that can happen may not happen, but when they do, you should focus on things not related to the loss of medals or podiums but on your posture, your ankles, your foot, your breathing, your running or climbing form, and your current level of sanity. Your brain taxes more from your performance than the body moving on its own (think about that).
Insight No.2: Prepare Your Body By Training Cross-Adaptation CapacitiesrnObstacle Course races (OCR) are not linear. They test you on levels that are physical and mental. We’ve covered the mental taxation, now we will deal with the physicality needed to survive and dominate the race.
Jonathan Albon, a regular competitor at OCRs and a Spartan Race champion, comments that he always trains to be “the fittest human” he can be. Essentially, he places cross-training as a priority on his list on how to dominate courses like these.
He is reported to regularly prepare himself through swimming, jumps, crawling, strength circuits, running and cycling, along with his background sport of roller hockey.
Cross-training helps because you learn the skills of different sports or athletic activities. But, when your body recovers and develops from all that varied activity, what comes out is cross-adaptation.
Currently, the world of fitness and health refer to these adapters as “crossfitters”, in reference to a global community of those who exercise and go through “workouts of the day” (WODs) that challenge balance, strength, power, speed, and flexibility through scalable levels of intensity (from low to high).
Joe De Sena, the founder of popular OCR, The Spartan Race, imbues the race with the Spartan attitude of “getting comfortable with the uncomfortable”. By the same token, people who engage in Crossfit go through the same values and attitudes in training their bodies by way of different terrains and at different levels of stress.
With regards to cross training and cross-adaptation, here are some advice from crossfitters:
• Run a lot (80% of the tasks)
• Consider your technique (when doing each task)
• Have appropriate gear (gloves make a difference)
• Bodyweight Exercises (push, pull, squat, twist motions)
• Time and pace yourself (for all kinds of terrain)rnIn consideration of these, it is important to highlight that this occurs in preparation for the obstacle course race. And with that consideration, there is more to consider not only fitness but also appropriate nutrition leading to the event and nutrition during the event (hint: fuel that you have no problems digesting well and won’t tax you when doing the race).
Aside from these attributes and the importance of other factors like nutrition (bonking and throwing up is a real thing), certain observable factors come up now and then from participants of OCRs. Take note of these:
• Improve your flexibility and agility (especially during crawling)
• Develop your grip (especially for climbing)rnIf American Ninja Warrior teaches something, participants fail from lack of the ability to get in and out certain positions (crawling from the bottom and jumping to a standing position and then run) and lack of a proper grip when it matters (consider all those people falling in the water videos, my friend). rnThese factors are often considered trivial to many, but they make up most of the responses participants wished they improved beforehand.rnSo, leave your ego at the door, observe these insights and let us see how far you go.
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