Jason asks:
“I love watching your strength videos and what you’ve been able to accomplish. Ever since I’ve found your company and have been taking your herbs its been amazing! I had question about obstacle course racing training and in your opinion, what is the best way to prepare for one. “
The ideal way to train for an obstacle course is to train on the obstacle course if possible.
Then, in doing so, you can identify your strengths and weaknesses and do more training to enhance those.
That being said, I realize that most often people do not have access to the obstacle course. The race is upcoming and there simply isn’t access to it.
But understanding that it is the ideal way to train is important. The next steps are just to get close to the ideal.
You want to mimic it as much as you can. Do you know what all the obstacles are? Do you know what any of them are? Can you figure out a way to do exactly these, or closely replicate them?
Same case as far as utilizing your strengths and bringing up your weaknesses.
If you have no clue about what is in the obstacle course race, then guess. Likely there is running involved. There is almost certainly some type of climbing too.
And once again, same thing with your strengths and weaknesses.
I’ll give you one example. In many obstacles, the grip will be important — so working on grip strength in a variety of ways will be important. Another example: rope climbing is often involved. So make sure you have decent rope climbing technique.
In fact, when I met Charlie Engle, he asked me about grip training. Although he had ultra endurance in spades, when he did obstacle races, his grip was often something that held him back. I mentioned a few basic grip exercises he could do, such as these easy bodyweight grip hanging progressions.
For some people, doing an obstacle race is a one time thing. But if you do more than one, just doing the race in the first place will help you to identify those weak points. Those can then be a priority in your training before the next one.