all posts post new thread

Kettlebell S&S or VWC(plus other stuff) for Spartan races?

Status
Closed Thread. (Continue Discussion of This Topic by Starting a New Thread.)

Mike Silsby

Level 3 Valued Member
I’m planning on running a few obstacle course races and wondered which of the two choices everyone thought would be better to use as prep until it warmed up some this spring when I’ll start running as part of my conditioning. Thanks, Mike
 
vwc's demand is high. i'll go with SnS if i have to choose. But can you tell more about the races? maybe there is more suitable for you
 
With the experience of now 2 OCRs my recommendation would be this:

Primary focus -> S&S + LSD running; those two alone will very likely carry you through an average OCR

Secondary focus -> Farmer carries + crawling; both are part of many OCRs, so on one hand they are specific preparation, on the other hand both build qualities like core strength and grip strength that are useful for basically any obstacle you'll encounter. You can do them as finishers after your S&S sessions

Tertiary focus -> Bar hangs/pullups/rope climbs, single leg deadlifts, lunges/step-ups, squats; especially the lower body exercises can help as injury prevention for running and help with overall body strength, pullups, hangs and rope climbs further build the grip and pulling muscles which both are used in a couple of obstacles

Quaternary focus -> Specific prep for the obstacles if you know them beforehand; this can be e.g. hill sprints/running for an OCR in a hilly area, swimming for an OCR that involves it, cold showers/baths for a winter OCR and stuff like that.


A lot of what you need to do depends on your goals. Do you just do it for fun, do you want to finish in the top 5%, do you want to win?
I can tell you that for my first OCR I trained a lot of things (primary, secondary, tertiary and a tiny bit of quaternary stuff) over the course of 7 months and it was total overkill.
It was a 18Km OCR and I did it with my friends to have fun. I could have gone a lot faster, because out of all my friends I'm by far the best runner, but we stayed together. We went there as a group to have fun, so where's the fun in leaving your friends behind just to finish 10min sooner, right?
All of us still finished in the top 50%.
My usual training is S&S or something similar most of the time. I still run once or twice a week and do some carries and crawling. So with the experience from the first one I did no special prep for the second OCR (12Km this time) at all and the race was easy.

So if you just want to finish without too much struggle and have a good time, then primary and some secondary stuff is all you'll ever need.
 
Last edited:
Mike Silsby said:
I’m planning on running a few obstacle course races and wondered which of the two choices everyone thought would be better to use as prep until it warmed up some this spring when I’ll start running as part of my conditioning. Thanks, Mike
Click to expand...
Why would you wait until Spring to start running? I don't think a Viking Warrior would wait until Spring. Neither would someone who does a routine like Simple and Sinister.
All joking aside, if you are planning to run obstacle courses then you should start doing that right away. Do something else as an assistance exercise.
The Simple and Sinister program and Viking Warrior conditioning use different approaches with different theoretical foundations. Simple and Sinister focuses on the alactic and aerobic energy systems. The Viking Warrior challenge focuses on the glycolitic source if I remember correctly.
 
Robert Noftz said:
Why would you wait until Spring to start running? I don't think a Viking Warrior would wait until Spring. Neither would someone who does a routine like Simple and Sinister.
All joking aside, if you are planning to run obstacle courses then you should start doing that right away. Do something else as an assistance exercise.
The Simple and Sinister program and Viking Warrior conditioning use different approaches with different theoretical foundations. Simple and Sinister focuses on the alactic and aerobic energy systems. The Viking Warrior challenge focuses on the glycolitic source if I remember correctly.
Click to expand...
I prefer the alactic and aerobic approach that Pavel teaches for strength endurance training.
 
Hello,

@Mike Silsby
I'd go for S&S because this is far less taxing than VWC.

VWC will drastically improves your VO2 max pretty fast. The VO2 results will be - IMO - faster than S&S. However, you are likely to lose them faster as well. S&S is more on a long-haul perspective. Recovery is easier with S&S too.

Kind regards,

Pet'
 
@Mike Silsby
I support what @Kettlebelephant said. Focus on running and specific OCR activities for the best results.

I would also respectfully disagree that one can do much to improve their VO2 max. (Unless you are a highly untrained individual) You can however train to improve your fractional utilization of VO2 max.
 
I to second @Kettlebelephant in this matter. I’ve completed countless races and S&S + LSD will suffice if you are going for a fun event!
 
Personally, I would nudge pullups & rope climbs up into @Kettlebelephant 's secondary group. I've only run 1 Spartan, but I sure seemed to me that having a good pull-strength-to-bodyweight ratio was key in a lot of the obstacles. So, looking at the original question, I would agree that S&S is probably a better choice than VWC in building towards that.

Don't forget your burpees.
 
Thanks everyone. Sounds like S&S will work along with a few add ons(some pull-ups and farmers carries). One question. What the hell is LSD running?
 
The people who win Spartan Races are almost ALWAYS the best runners over the particular distance (whether its 10, 15, 21, 42k or whatever). This is truer the longer the distance, probably because running 5 or 10k is easy without training it at all, but running 21 or 42k is the exact opposite. A lot of fast marathon runners have entered Spartans and dominated without any other training, just because they have insane aerobic capacities, are super light, can recover from the obstacles or having to do the 30 burpees, and make up for any 'hiccups' with their insane speed/recovery/capacity.

As far as the obstacles go, usually you don't know what they'll entail exactly, but it's almost always a few forms of climbing (monkey bars, ropes, ladders, walls, rock climbing obstacles), grip strength (carries, sandbags, etc), and crawling under things.

With the above said, I believe the plan outlined below is incredibly good, and it is what I use myself:

Running plan:

- Follow a training plan that trains you to complete a race at whatever distance your race will be. Such plans almost always include runs that are longer than the actual race; so the distance itself will be fine on the day. The most well renowned plans are the ones by Jack Daniels and Peter Pfitzinger. Both of them have a lot of books with plans for different distances. Both of their types of plans include the same things as one another, however tend to be organised differently throughout the week.

Strength/Obstacles/GPP plan:

- Simple and Sinister with a few small modifications.

The swings plus turkish get-ups, not to mention globlet squats, give you everything you need to ace the obstacles! My recommendations/modifications for structuring the workouts are as follows:

1.) Crawling for 2-10 minutes (spider crawls, leopard, baby crawls, including backwards, as explained by Tim Anderson in original strength). These are amazing for mobility and core strength, they do almost everything in fact! But they also prepare you specifically for the crawling of the Spartan Race.

2. Simple and Sinister as normal.

3. Chin-ups 2-3 times per week, depending on energy levels. Consider using towels or ropes for added grip difficulty.

Notes:
- Do some stretches, whatever YOU need for you, between sets of swings and TGU.
- Use the crawling and goblet squats as a warm-up before running sessions too.
- Do however many SS/Running sessions as you can handle/have time for. I think three runs and three SS sessions is good. I usually do 4 of each, though.
- Consider doing some chin-ups, monkey bars, push-ups or other 'obstacles' every now and then while running, if you run past a park or playground something.

- This is a plan for LIFE as well as Obstacle Courses. I know this is a long post but it's actually really a simple plan haha!
 
Dayz said:
The people who win Spartan Races are almost ALWAYS the best runners over the particular distance (whether its 10, 15, 21, 42k or whatever). This is truer the longer the distance, probably because running 5 or 10k is easy without training it at all, but running 21 or 42k is the exact opposite. A lot of fast marathon runners have entered Spartans and dominated without any other training, just because they have insane aerobic capacities, are super light, can recover from the obstacles or having to do the 30 burpees, and make up for any 'hiccups' with their insane speed/recovery/capacity.

As far as the obstacles go, usually you don't know what they'll entail exactly, but it's almost always a few forms of climbing (monkey bars, ropes, ladders, walls, rock climbing obstacles), grip strength (carries, sandbags, etc), and crawling under things.

With the above said, I believe the plan outlined below is incredibly good, and it is what I use myself:

Running plan:

- Follow a training plan that trains you to complete a race at whatever distance your race will be. Such plans almost always include runs that are longer than the actual race; so the distance itself will be fine on the day. The most well renowned plans are the ones by Jack Daniels and Peter Pfitzinger. Both of them have a lot of books with plans for different distances. Both of their types of plans include the same things as one another, however tend to be organised differently throughout the week.

Strength/Obstacles/GPP plan:

- Simple and Sinister with a few small modifications.

The swings plus turkish get-ups, not to mention globlet squats, give you everything you need to ace the obstacles! My recommendations/modifications for structuring the workouts are as follows:

1.) Crawling for 2-10 minutes (spider crawls, leopard, baby crawls, including backwards, as explained by Tim Anderson in original strength). These are amazing for mobility and core strength, they do almost everything in fact! But they also prepare you specifically for the crawling of the Spartan Race.

2. Simple and Sinister as normal.

3. Chin-ups 2-3 times per week, depending on energy levels. Consider using towels or ropes for added grip difficulty.

Notes:
- Do some stretches, whatever YOU need for you, between sets of swings and TGU.
- Use the crawling and goblet squats as a warm-up before running sessions too.
- Do however many SS/Running sessions as you can handle/have time for. I think three runs and three SS sessions is good. I usually do 4 of each, though.
- Consider doing some chin-ups, monkey bars, push-ups or other 'obstacles' every now and then while running, if you run past a park or playground something.

- This is a plan for LIFE as well as Obstacle Courses. I know this is a long post but it's actually really a simple plan haha!
Click to expand...
Excellent advice. Thanks
 
A couple of people on the forum said some things that make a lot of sense in regards to training for an obstacle course race.
The event you are going to compete in should dictate the type of training you are going to do. If the event involves running and climbing various obstacles then the majority of training time should be devoted to those activities.
Some supplementary strength work with barbells or kettlebells could be used to build foundational strength. Right now I am only doing S&S practice, but as much as I like it, I wouldn't do S&S to train for an obstacle course. I would just do some swings and get ups for foundational strength work, but never at the expense of hitting the trail for some runs and some obstacle training. Running, pullups, playing on some monkey bars, and doing some farmer carries would be a much better use of time.
Now that I think about it, I am glad I'm not training for an obstacle course, I can stay inside where the climate is controlled and practice S&S.

Best of luck,
 
Status
Closed Thread. (Continue Discussion of This Topic by Starting a New Thread.)
Back
Top Bottom