The Foundation

There are five basic things we’ve learned as OCR coaches over the past five years. These four things can be a game changer for top tier OCR athlete or athletes looking to improve out on course and become more obstacle proficient.
1) Running – All OCR courses require a lot of running. If you want to excel in the sport, you need to be a strong runner
2) Climbing – The majority of courses are packed with a lot of climbing (OCRWC’s is definitely no exception). If you want to excel in the sport, you need to be a strong climber
3) Grip/pull strength & grip/pull strength endurance – The majority of course are packed with numerous upper body obstacles that are going to test your grip and pull strength and grip/pull strength endurance. If you want to excel in the sport, you need to develop the ability to conquer upper body obstacles that will be scattered throughout the entire course.
4) Carry heavy stuff – The majority of courses require you to carry heavy stuff and most of the time, you’re required to carry heavy stuff uphill. If you want to excel in the sport, you need to develop the ability to carry heavy stuff uphill fast and efficient.
5) There are only a few obstacles that take a significant amount of time to complete. These are heavy carries and barbed wire crawls. Most other obstacles are completed pretty quickly and most of them fall in to category #3 as far as training is concerned. It only makes sense to spend quality time improving your efficiency with these two obstacles. These aren’t obstacles that result in failure but they will cause one of the things to happen. 1) You’re able to create gaps on your competition or 2) You’re going to be gapped by your competition. *I’m going to add practice throwing your spear in number 5!

I use this basic bullet point plan as the foundation for developing the training plans for many top elite athletes in our sport. With this foundation, I have built thousands of different workouts all with a specific purpose to ensure you are improving in all these areas. This isn’t an all-inclusive training list but it’s a great OCR foundation and I promise to always program in a way that helps you maximize your training time. Even small improvements in all areas of running, climbing, grip/pull strength, carrying heavy stuff, and efficiency with the obstacles that take a long time to complete, when added up, will results in big improvements overall. Small x 5 = Large! I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t have a plan of actions. We have a plan and if you stay consistent, we’re confident you’ll enjoy the program and the results. Sometimes, we know exactly what to do with our training but being told to do it by someone else is exactly what we need. This definitely applies to me. Weekly, I pick one of my athlete’s programs as a way to keep myself accountable. It’s not a personal trainer for me, but it’s a program and that helps keep me motivated. I’ve gone seven Spartan races in a row without failing a single obstacle and during that time, I’ve finished top 10 in two BattleFrog’s while keeping my elite band. In the past, I was serious about training my athletes and not as serious about my own training. The moment I started following the same programming I provided for my athletes, my performances started to improve. I don’t want to be your coach who says, “I know what you need to be doing but I’m not going to do it”. I will race as long as I can so I’m able to stay up to speed on everything the different races are throwing at us. This has definitely helped me provide quality training for you. A huge part of the reason I’ve done Death Race, World’s Toughest Mudder, three Ultra Beasts, every Spartan distance many times, BattleFrog, Warrior Dash, and so many other races is so I’m able to provide you with the best programming possible. As always, please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions. Thank you! Online clothing store should be live this week. You’re going to love the jersey and tech t options. Also, check out our affiliate’s page. You’ll find four companies that I truly believe in.