The great thing about Obstacle Course Races are that they challenge EVERY part of your body and fitness level. Are you great at running? Brilliant. Are you confident in the gym when it comes to lifting the heavy stuff? Great. These factors definitely help…but a lot of the movements and actions you need to perform in a OCR aren’t the every day things we keep in mind when putting together a training regime. So here are a few key movements (some obvious and some not so obvious) that will greatly aid you on your next race.
Pull-up
Probably one of the most effective upper body exercise you could do within any fitness routine. Depending on the variation (chin-ups utilising your biceps more then a wide grip pull-up focusing on your lats) a pull-up utilises various muscles at once. A great body weight exercise for pulling yourself up an 8ft wall or general climbing.
Bear Crawl or Army Crawl
Clambering underneath barbed wire (Spartan Race) or any obstacle that requires you to get on all fours for meters on end is much more tiring then you would have thought. Practising these will reduce the initial amount of fatigue you feel when you try it for the first time.
Box Jumps
Getting that extra spring in your step and getting better at jumping up onto platforms will ultimately have you getting over any hurdles much quicker with much less effort. Practice trying to be able to jump a few cm more each time you feel the need for more of a challenge. You’ll be jumping your height in no time…well we can try right?
Wall Climb
Learning how to clamber up walls of varying sizes will definitely help you on almost any obstacle race you enter. Where the upper body strength can get you up and over if you have it, good technique and using one leg to throw yourself over will be invaluable if strength isn’t your key feature. Even the strong fatigue and when that happens, you’ll see them using this technique too. Practice climbing walls of varying hight…just don’t end up in someone’s garden doing it.
Sandbag/Firemans Carry
Often forgotten about and always a feature. Be it a sandbag, an atlas stone, beer kegs or any item that weighs half your body weight. Get used to lifting and carrying weighty objects up hills or over long distances. When confident with that, upgrade to doubling up your load or your distance travelled. When it’s crunch time, you’ll thank yourself.
Dead Hang
Whether its monkey bars or rings, you can almost guarantee there will be an obstacle that requires you to hang (sometimes for dear life) for a prolonged amount of time. Improving both stamina and grip strength in this area will see you conquering one obstacle that many feel extremely challenging. Increasing the amount of time you can hang from a pull-up bar could be key to getting you across the obstacle and staying out of whatever lies beneath you.
No matter how you prepare for an OCR, failing to prepare is like preparing to fail. Well, maybe not as drastic as that, but it will help you on your journey to get as in shape and ready for any event.
What workouts do you think help you complete OCR’s? Do you think any of these tips will help? Leave a comment below.
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